Overview: Assessing Leader Effectiveness

Assessing leadership effectiveness is integral component to developing high-quality school leaders and significantly raising student achievement. Leadership evaluation holds great promise in providing educators with the information they need to both improve leadership practices and provide information for accountability purposes. Leadership evaluation also serves as a system for collecting and responding to information to advance learning-centered leadership and improve school performance. On-the-job evaluations of school leaders can also serve as prompts for improving principal preparation programs, mentoring and induction programs, and ongoing professional development. Leader assessment is an important step in evaluating school performance and is a key determinant of student success. Linking the assessment to the statewide leadership standards can help states, districts and schools create an aligned performance-bases system.

State Level
In the NCLB era of increased accountability, policymakers recognize that high-quality school leadership is critical to turning around low-performing schools and improving student achievement. States are strengthening their efforts to effectively evaluate school leaders to improve the quality of school leaders. States are using assessments as a lever to improve statewide leadership standards, licensure and certification requirements, administrator preparation program accreditation and approval, mentoring and induction programs, and ongoing professional development and support. Several states now require evaluation for successful completion from administrator preparation programs, licensure and certification requirements and mentoring and induction programs. In addition, several states have systematically aligned their evaluation tools to their statewide leadership standards.


1. Essential Elements

The revised 2008 Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) standards include evaluating the performance of school leaders. This data is critical to ensuring principals meet leadership standards and ultimately raise student achievement. Following are essential elements of effective principal evaluations:

• Ensure evaluations are performance based and aligned with statewide leadership standards.
• Provide feedback from evaluations to school leaders and track individual progress toward mastering knowledge and skills needed to improve student learning and school performance.
• Use evaluations to identify professional development and supports customized to the needs of individual leaders and schools.
• Provide evaluation feedback to licensing institutions on the performance of their graduates to promote continuous improvement of preparation programs.
• Ensure evaluation feedback is used to advance career development and meet requirements for professional-level licensure and certification, mentoring and induction programs and ongoing professional development.

2. Promising Practices

Recognizing a lack of reliable ways to access school leaders’ performance, The Wallace Foundation, in 2005, funded a three-year project housed at Vanderbilt University to develop a set of assessment tools to evaluate the effectiveness of school leadership. The standards-based leadership assessment system, dubbed “VAL-ED,” for Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education, measures critical leadership behaviors of individual or teams of educators for the purpose of diagnostic analysis, performance feedback, progress monitoring, and personnel decisions. While school districts are using evaluation tools to assess leaders, few if any have been developed using rigorous psychometric properties.

The conceptual framework of VAL-ED centers on leadership behaviors and practices and multiple measures of student success (i.e., student attendance, graduate rates, college enrollment, etc.). The assessment tool examines the interconnectedness of two dimensions: six core components of school performance (high standards for student learning, rigorous curriculum, quality instruction, culture of learning and professional behavior, connections to external communities, and performance accountability) and six key leadership processes (planning, implementing, supporting, advocating, communicating, and monitoring). The VAL-ED assessment instrument consists of 72 items, including the six core components and six core processes. The instrument also provides principals, teachers and supervisors with a 350-degree evidence-based assessment in which respondents rate the principal’s effectiveness on a five-point scale. The norm-reference and criterion-reference assessment results can be used annually or more frequently to facilitate a data-based performance evaluation, measure performance growth, and guide professional development.

In Iowa, all principals and superintendents are required to be evaluated using the Iowa Standards for School Leadership (ISSL). The evaluation focuses on progress toward the goals in both an administrator's individualized professional growth plan and the building's and/or district's comprehensive school improvement plan. The first year of the evaluation cycle requires an administrator to demonstrate competence on the ISSL, upon completion for a standard license. An administrator who holds a standards license must be evaluated at least once every three years on all six standards for purposes of continuous improvement, continued competence in meeting the standards, and to determine if the administrator meets the goals of the individual professional development plan.

In the intervening two years, all administrators are required to be evaluated based on a professional growth plan linked to the building and/or district improvement goals. Model principal and superintendent evaluation instruments have been developed that contain operating principals for best practice in evaluation, a suggested timeline, and the Iowa standards and criteria - supplemented with specific descriptors for both principals and superintendents.

The Delaware Performance Appraisal System for Administrators (DPAS II) was developed by a committee of educators, primarily administrators, in response to legislation requiring new methods of personnel assessment in Delaware's schools and school districts. DPAS II is the appraisal system for all licensed and certified administrators. The construction of the system was driven by the Delaware Administrator Standards and was designed to align the evaluation of school and district administrators with our best understanding of student learning and school improvement.

DPAS II is a system for educators which promotes continuous growth and improvement and provides for quality assurance. All educators engage in goal setting as part of the process. Goals are data-driven and measurable and aligned with the school or district improvement plan. Data collected and analyzed serves as the basis for evaluation. In addition, educators complete a professional responsibilities form which highlights their involvement in professional growth, communication with students, parents and school colleagues, and their contributions to the professional learning community. Evidence for performance on several of the standards is gathered through a survey completed by professional staff that is supervised by the administrator, the administrator's self-reflection on the standards, and the evaluator's survey data.

After a two-year pilot, DPAS II was instituted in six school districts and three charter schools in the fall of 2007. All teachers, specialists, and administrators were trained in Charlotte Danielson's A Framework for Teaching and in the process and procedures associated with implementing DPAS II.  Implementation has been monitored throughout the year. To date, educators express satisfaction with the instrument and process.


3. Critical Questions

According to the National Association of State Boards of Education’s (NASBE) 2008 publication, Leveraging Leadership Development through Principal Evaluation, states should consider the following policy questions:

• Are your statewide leadership standards performance-based?

• Is assessing school leader effectiveness embedded in your statewide leadership standards? 

• Do your statewide leadership standards require formal evaluations of school leaders as part of its preparation program approval, licensure and certification requirements, mentoring and induction programs and ongoing professional development?

• Does your state use multiple data measures, in addition to student outcomes, to assess principal performance?

• Provide feedback to school leaders and track individual progress toward mastering knowledge and skills needed to improve student learning and school performance?

• Identify professional development and supports customized to the needs of individual leaders and schools?

• Provide feedback to licensing institutions on the performance of their graduates to promote continuous improvement of preparation programs?

• Advance career development and meet requirements for professional-level licensure?

Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education (VAL-ED)
Summary: VAL-ED is a measurement tool that assesses principals on six core components related to student learning, including setting high standards for achievement and creating a culture of learning and professional behavior in the school. It also measures a principal's ability to plan, implement, support, advocate, communicate, and monitor activities in each of those areas. The measurement tool is aligned with the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) standards for school leadership.

Delaware Performance Evaluation System
The purpose of Delaware's Performance Appraisal System for Administrators (DPAS II) was developed by a committee of educators to support continuous improvement, professional development and quality assurance of school leaders.

Goldring, Ellen, Andrew C. Porter, Joseph Murphy, Stephen N. Elliott, Xiu Cravens. (March 2007). Assessing Learning-Centered Leadership: Connections to Research, Professional Standards, and Current Practices. Learning Sciences Institute, Vanderbilt University. Summary: Responding to a longstanding field need, this report and two companion documents preview the basics of a new learning-centered principal assessment system that will allow districts to evaluate how school leaders’ on-the-job behaviors add value to student achievement.

National Association of State Boards of Education. (2008). Leveraging Leadership Development Through Principal Evaluation. Summary: According to Vanderbilt researchers, the tools we have today for assessing leaders are not up to the task. A reliable assessment tool should reinforce standards for current and future leaders; privilege instructional and transformational leadership that raises student achievement and changes organizations; and assist decision-makers in creating strategies to improve leader performance across the district and the state. With Wallace support, Vanderbilt has developed the only research-based, validated “360 degree” assessment involving the principal, superintendent and every teacher in the school. This article provides background on the conceptual framework of The Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education, or VAL-Ed, and updates readers on its development process. There are two dimensions of VAL-Ed: six core components of school performance and six key processes of leadership. The article notes that the conceptual framework of VAL-Ed is “anchored in and significantly aligned with the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium standards.”

National Association of State Boards of Education. (2008). Iowa's Cohesive Leadership System. Summary: Iowa's Standards for School Leaders (ISSL) have strengthened leader preparation, mentoring and induction, and ongoing professional development. Iowa's standards have also required that all principals and superintendents be evaluated using the ISSL.

National Policy Board for Educational Administration. (2008). Educational Leadership Policy Standards: ISLLC 2008. Summary: The 10-year-old education leadership standards in use in more than 40 states have been revised to reflect new knowledge and lessons learned about effective school leadership and the policies needed to support it. This report describes the revised “ISLLC” standards and how they can help leaders meet the growing expectations of their jobs.

Southern Regional Education Board. (May 2001). Leadership Matters: Building Leadership Capacity. Summary: This guide for building education leadership provides strategies that all educators can use to promote learning among both students and professionals, build leadership capacity and create a “culture of effort” in the district. The Southern Regional Education Board’s three-pronged approach asks all adults to become model learners, to offer students and colleagues compelling reasons to learn and to capitalize on mentoring or coaching relationships that generate lasting improvement.

Southern Regional Education Board. (June 2003). Good Principals Are The Key to Successful Schools: Six Strategies to Prepare More Good Principals. Summary:Too often, argues this report from the Southern Regional Education Board, finding qualified school principals is more a matter of chance than deliberate policies. To cultivate successful principals, the report recommends that states and districts redesign training programs; choose people with real potential to enter them; ensure that they receive full licenses only after demonstrating job performance; provide alternative certification programs that will broaden the field of good candidates; and offer support for school leadership teams that have a collective impact on student achievement.

RAND Corporation. (June 2004). The Careers of Public School Administrators. Summary: State data on the career paths of school administrators in North Carolina, Illinois and New York have shed light on several key concerns, including the persistence of gender and racial gaps in administration and the rate of principal turnover. This RAND brief explains the strengths and limitations of the existing information and proposes how states can improve data collection to yield a richer, more illuminating analysis of school administrators’ career trajectories and the quality of their work.