News Release
Contact: Kaylen Tucker, NAESP
703-518-6257
ktucker@naesp.org

Researchers analyzed the state of principal evaluation practices and outlined criteria for developing comprehensive guidelines at NAESP's National Leaders Conference

July 14, 2011—WASHINGTON, D.C.—Principal evaluation processes hold great promise for strengthening the capacity of principals and, by doing so, improve schools, but the current research raises questions about the consistency, fairness, and value of current principal evaluation practices, according to two national education researchers who recently completed a scan of current research on the topic and announced their results today in a panel presentation.

Improved principal evaluation systems are “long overdue,” given such U.S. Department of Education initiatives as Race to the Top that set new standards for accountability for school leaders, and because “school principals have a strong effect on student achievement,” according to Designing Principal Evaluations Systems: Research to Guide Decision-Making, a report co-authored by Matthew Clifford, senior research scientist at the American Institutes for Research (AIR), and Steven Ross, professor of education at the Center for Research and Reform in Education, Johns Hopkins University.

“A great teacher can create a great classroom, but only a principal can provide the required leadership to create and sustain a great school,” said Gail Connelly, executive director of the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP), which collaborated with Clifford and Ross in the development of the research scan. “All principals deserve to be evaluated by a skilled evaluator using multi-faceted measures of performance that are designed to enhance their practice,” she said. “Principal evaluation processes need to be ‘carrots’ that create incentives for principal and school improvement, not ‘sticks’ that can become punitive measures.”

Currently, there are no comprehensive guidelines to determine how, when, and why principals should be evaluated, Clifford and Ross stated, which can further complicate the efforts of many states to design new principal evaluation systems or improve existing ones. As a result, NAESP and its counterpart, the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP), are launching the Principal Evaluation Project to develop such guidelines, ensure that principal evaluation systems are informed by the best available research on principal performance indicators, and incorporate best practice into evaluation design.

“For more than 40 years, NASSP has focused efforts on assessing and developing effective principal practice, and it’s an ongoing frustration that those practices rarely find their way into principal evaluation instruments,” said NASSP Executive Director JoAnn Bartoletti. “We’re optimistic that this initiative will get the word to policymakers that effective principal practice is a complex series of competencies that defies measurement by a simple test score,” she added.

“From a field perspective, this work will greatly inform state efforts to develop fair and valuable evaluation systems and so provides a great service to the principalship as a whole,” said Molly M. Spearman, executive director of the South Carolina Association of School Administrators and chair of NAESP’s committee of state association executive directors, a group of state-based associations for principals and other school leaders. “State educators are especially appreciative of this partnership between NAESP and NASSP. Their leadership on this project will serve all principals at all levels in every type of school.”

NAESP and NASSP have each issued a call for nominees for a Principal Evaluation Committee from their members. That group of practitioners, expected to be named by Sept. 1, will work over the next six to eight months to develop research-based guidelines.

For additional details, visit www.naesp.org or www.nassp.org.

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Established in 1921, the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP) serves elementary and middle school principals in the United States, Canada, and overseas. NAESP leads in the advocacy and support for elementary and middle-level principals and other education leaders in their commitment to all children.

In existence since 1916, NASSP is the preeminent organization of and national voice for middle level and high school principals, assistant principals, and aspiring school leaders from across the United States and more than 45 countries around the world. The mission of NASSP is to promote excellence in school leadership.