scholarly journals Principal evaluation in the United States: A national review of state statutes and regulations

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 143
Author(s):  
Sarah R. Nielsen ◽  
Alyson L. Lavigne

The growing recognition of how much principals matter for student learning and how they make a difference has fueled the need to ensure that effective principals are leading every school. One way to achieve this is through principal evaluation, which has experienced significant changes in the last decade. We conducted a national exploratory study (50 states) to document the trends in and provide an illustration of the current situation of states’ principal evaluation policies and practices. Using literature-based themes, our analysis of state statutes and regulations revealed that a majority of states have policies requiring at least one literature-based element. Only four (8%) states had statutes and/or regulations regarding allelements of principal evaluation that have been noted in the literature. Student achievement measures were the most common component—required in 66% of states. In addition, most states required principal evaluators to be trained and principals to be evaluated annually. We propose that future research focuses on the validity and reliability of measures and models used for principal evaluation—two aspects rarely addressed in principal evaluation policies—to ensure principal performance is meeting the needs of students, teachers, and schools. 

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 292-299
Author(s):  
Kimberly F. Balsam ◽  
Em Matsuno ◽  
Ariel Friedman ◽  
Vinisha Rana

COVID-19 has had negative health and economic impacts on the U.S. population and on marginalized groups in particular. While policy and review papers have noted the unique concerns of LGBTQ+ individuals during the pandemic, these statements have drawn largely from existing data on health and economic disparities, rather than data collected during COVID-19. Research on the unique concerns and experiences of LGBTQ+ people during this time is urgent and yet no culturally relevant, validated measures have been developed to empirically examine these concerns. The current study reports on the development and exploratory factor analysis of a new measure, the LGBTQ+ COVID-19 Concerns Scale (LGBTQ+-CCS). Data was collected online in April 2020 from a sample of 429 LGBTQ+ adults in the United States. The final 15-item scale demonstrated initial validity and reliability and contains four subscales: mental health concerns, financial concerns, health and discrimination concerns, and social isolation concerns. The LGBTQ+-CCS can be used in research and clinical work to measure how concerns related to the pandemic are related to mental and physical health and to examine differences between LGBTQ+ subpopulations and LGBTQ+ people over time. Future research should focus on further validating the measure through confirmatory factor analysis.


AERA Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 233285842098617
Author(s):  
Morgaen L. Donaldson ◽  
Madeline Mavrogordato ◽  
Peter Youngs ◽  
Shaun Dougherty ◽  
Reem Al Ghanem

Almost every state in the United States has revamped its principal evaluation policies since 2009, yet we know little about how they are implemented. Based on interviews and document analysis in 21 small- and medium-sized school districts, we found that superintendents’ sensemaking shaped their implementation of policy. Drawing on their beliefs about principals and evaluation and their understanding of their district context, superintendents in lower performing districts reported that they complied with the processes specified in state principal evaluation policies but strayed from state guidelines regarding maintaining a focus on instructional leadership during evaluation. In contrast, superintendents of higher performing districts reported that they implemented evaluation processes loosely but adhered to their state’s policy emphasis on instructional leadership. Our findings raise questions about whether the implementation of principal evaluation policies disadvantages principals in lower performing districts. We thus caution against attaching high-stakes consequences such as incentive pay or sanctions to these policies.


GeroPsych ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-76
Author(s):  
Grace C. Niu ◽  
Patricia A. Arean

The recent increase in the aging population, specifically in the United States, has raised concerns regarding treatment for mental illness among older adults. Late-life depression (LLD) is a complex condition that has become widespread among the aging population. Despite the availability of behavioral interventions and psychotherapies, few depressed older adults actually receive treatment. In this paper we review the research on refining treatments for LLD. We first identify evidence-based treatments (EBTs) for LLD and the problems associated with efficacy and dissemination, then review approaches to conceptualizing mental illness, specifically concepts related to brain plasticity and the Research Domain Criteria (RDoc). Finally, we introduce ENGAGE as a streamlined treatment for LLD and discuss implications for future research.


Crisis ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 433-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Gryglewicz ◽  
Melanie Bozzay ◽  
Brittany Arthur-Jordon ◽  
Gabriela D. Romero ◽  
Melissa Witmeier ◽  
...  

Abstract. Background: Given challenges that exceed the normal developmental requirements of adolescence, deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) youth are believed to be at elevated risk for engaging in suicide-related behavior (SRB). Unfortunately, little is known about the mechanisms that put these youth potentially at risk. Aims: To determine whether peer relationship difficulties are related to increased risk of SRB in DHH youth. Method: Student records (n = 74) were retrieved from an accredited educational center for deaf and blind students in the United States. Results: Peer relationship difficulties were found to be significantly associated with engagement in SRB but not when accounting for depressive symptomatology. Limitations: The restricted sample limits generalizability. Conclusions regarding risk causation cannot be made due to the cross-sectional nature of the study. Conclusion: These results suggest the need for future research that examines the mechanisms of the relationship between peer relationship difficulties, depression, and suicide risk in DHH youth and potential preventive interventions to ameliorate the risks for these at-risk youth.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 417-424
Author(s):  
Hendryadi Hendryadi

This article aims to develop a short form of the locus of control scale. The study was conducted in two stages: a study of 66 respondents as pilot testing which aims to test content validity, structure validity, and internal consistency. Study 2 was conducted on 328 respondents used to test the validity and reliability of the scale evaluated by the PLS-SEM method (such as internal consistency, convergent validity, and discriminant validity). The analysis concludes that the 8-item locus of control scales tested have adequate validity and reliability. A short form locus of control scale was developed and validated in this study, so it can be used in future research and evaluation for HR management practitioners in employee selection Keywords: locus of control, EFA, CFA, scale construction


Public Voices ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
John R Phillips

The cover photograph for this issue of Public Voices was taken sometime in the summer of 1929 (probably June) somewhere in Sunflower County, Mississippi. Very probably the photo was taken in Indianola but, perhaps, it was Ruleville. It is one of three such photos, one of which does have the annotation on the reverse “Ruleville Midwives Club 1929.” The young woman wearing a tie in this and in one of the other photos was Ann Reid Brown, R.N., then a single woman having only arrived in the United States from Scotland a few years before, in 1923. Full disclosure: This commentary on the photo combines professional research interests in public administration and public policy with personal interests—family interests—for that young nurse later married and became the author’s mother. From the scholarly perspective, such photographs have been seen as “instrumental in establishing midwives’ credentials and cultural identity at a key transitional moment in the history of the midwife and of public health” (Keith, Brennan, & Reynolds 2012). There is also deep irony if we see these photographs as being a fragment of the American dream, of a recent immigrant’s hope for and success at achieving that dream; but that fragment of the vision is understood quite differently when we see that she began a hopeful career working with a Black population forcibly segregated by law under the incongruously named “separate but equal” legal doctrine. That doctrine, derived from the United States Supreme Court’s 1896 decision, Plessy v. Ferguson, would remain the foundation for legally enforced segregation throughout the South for another quarter century. The options open to the young, white, immigrant nurse were almost entirely closed off for the population with which she then worked. The remaining parts of this overview are meant to provide the following: (1) some biographical information on the nurse; (2) a description, in so far as we know it, of why she was in Mississippi; and (3) some indication of areas for future research on this and related topics.


Author(s):  
James L. Gibson ◽  
Michael J. Nelson

We have investigated the differences in support for the U.S. Supreme Court among black, Hispanic, and white Americans, catalogued the variation in African Americans’ group attachments and experiences with legal authorities, and examined how those latter two factors shape individuals’ support for the U.S. Supreme Court, that Court’s decisions, and for their local legal system. We take this opportunity to weave our findings together, taking stock of what we have learned from our analyses and what seem like fruitful paths for future research. In the process, we revisit Positivity Theory. We present a modified version of the theory that we hope will guide future inquiry on public support for courts, both in the United States and abroad.


This volume seeks to initiate a new interdisciplinary field of scholarly research focused on the study of right-wing media and conservative news. To date, the study of conservative or right-wing media has proceeded unevenly, cross-cutting several traditional disciplines and subfields, with little continuity or citational overlap. This book posits a new multifaceted object of analysis—conservative news cultures—designed to promote concerted interdisciplinary investigation into the consistent practices or patterns of meaning making that emerge between and among the sites of production, circulation, and consumption of conservative news. With contributors from the fields of journalism studies, media and communication studies, cultural studies, history, political science, and sociology, the book models the capacious field it seeks to promote. Its contributors draw upon a variety of qualitative and quantitative research methods—from archival analysis to regression analysis of survey data to rhetorical analysis—to elucidate case studies focused on conservative news cultures in the United States and the United Kingdom. From the National Review to Fox News, from the National Rifle Association to Brexit, from media policy to liberal media bias, this book is designed as an introduction to right-wing media and an opening salvo in the interdisciplinary field of conservative news studies.


Author(s):  
Travis D. Stimeling

This chapter offers a historiographic survey of country music scholarship from the publication of Bill C. Malone’s “A History of Commercial Country Music in the United States, 1920–1964” (1965) to the leading publications of the today. Very little of substance has been written on country music recorded since the 1970s, especially when compared to the wealth of available literature on early country recording artists. Ethnographic studies of country music and country music culture are rare, and including ethnographic methods in country music studies offers new insights into the rich variety of ways in which people make, consume, and engage with country music as a genre. The chapter traces the influence of folklore studies, sociology, cultural studies, and musicology on the development of country music studies and proposes some directions for future research in the field.


Author(s):  
Juliann Emmons Allison ◽  
Srinivas Parinandi

This chapter examines the development and politics of US energy policy, with an emphasis on three themes: the distribution of authority to regulate energy between national (or federal) and subnational governments, the relationship between energy and environmental policy and regulation, and the role of climate action in energy politics. It reviews patterns of energy production and consumption; provides an overview of national energy politics; and reviews literatures on federalism and energy politics and policy, the increasing integration of energy and environmental policies, and the politics of energy and climate action. The chapter concludes with a discussion of a future research agenda that underscores the significance of political polarization, subnational governance, and technological innovation for understanding US energy policy.


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