K-8 principal leaders from around the nation are gathering on Capitol Hill today to demand more support for school leaders as a part of NAESP’s National Leaders Conference. Principals contend that ESEA reauthorization can’t wait until budget woes are corrected. Principals also believe that we need to put an end to the punitive sanctions of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), recognize the essential role of elementary and middle-level principals, and support principals’ professional development.

Principals will discuss six ways legislators can build the capacity of principals through ESEA reauthorization:

• Uphold the role of principals by recognizing the core competencies of effective school leadership in Title I and as a definition in the law aligned to each program;
• Set the basis of high-quality professional development opportunities for principals in Title II on core competencies of effective school leadership – and require states and districts to provide capacity-building supports for principals and other school leaders;
• Encourage and support state and local efforts to develop fair, objective, and comprehensive principal evaluation systems for principals that use appropriate measures of principal performance, not standardized test scores;
• Ensure that a principal leadership review and evaluation be conducted as the first step of any school improvement plan, and align the evaluation of a principal to high-quality professional development;
• Expand accurate and robust accountability systems that value growth models and multiple measures of student performance; and
• Support innovative models to help improve academic achievement, including prekindergarten through grade three alignment (P-3) strategies.

Pictured above: Principals and superintendents gather at the Capitol. Credit: Lifetouch.