Leadership for Family and Community Engagement: A Qualitative Policy Analysis of State Principal Evaluation Processes

Purpose: The primary purpose of this policy analysis is to examine how states changed their principal performance evaluation systems since the passage of Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015. In particular, we focus on whether states have capitalized on the flexible policy landscape to make space for meaningful family and community engagement (FCE) in assessing principals’ effectiveness. Research Methods: This study uses document analysis to review the structure of principal evaluation systems in all 50 states and selects 17 revised systems for a deeper review of their approach to leadership for partnering with families and communities. Findings: A plurality of states have not substantively revised their evaluation systems. Several of the revised systems narrowly focused on instructional leadership and student achievement measures and were thus unsupportive of meaningful FCE and federal policy aims for schools to work in partnership with family and community stakeholders. The principal evaluation systems most supportive of authentic family and community engagement allowed for flexible goal setting and explicitly encouraged the use of stakeholder feedback as evidence of principals’ effectiveness. Implications for Research and Policy: The authors discuss the implications of the results in terms of 1.) expanding definitions of educational leadership to include tenets of authentic FCE, 2.) creating coherent yet compendious systems for school improvement, and 3.) planning for and implementing a developmental approach to the evaluation of school leaders.

Performance, Process, and Interpersonal Relationships: Explaining Principals’ Perceptions of Principal Evaluation

Purpose: Multiple-measure principal evaluation systems have become commonplace in the past decade, but we do not know how principals perceive their evaluations under these regimes. This study analyzes how principals perceive evaluation in a state that was an early adopter of such a system. It describes how attitudes are explained by individual and contextual factors, performance ratings, and elements of the evaluation process. Research Methods: Using data from a statewide survey of Tennessee principals in three consecutive school years, we create an index of principal evaluation perceptions of evaluation, then employ regression analysis to predict principals’ attitudes with measures gleaned from survey and administrative data sources. Findings: High school and veteran principals have more negative views of their evaluations. Practice ratings from the principal’s supervisor, though not the overall evaluation score, are positively correlated with attitudes. Principals assigned ratings more often view evaluation more positively, even accounting for their rating, as do principals who have worked longer with their evaluator. We find no evidence that racial or gender matching between principals and raters leads to more positive perceptions, and in fact Black principals may perceive evaluation more negatively when their evaluator is Black. Implications: Our results suggest some directions for states and districts seeking to make evaluation more meaningful for principals. Principals appear to value both frequency of feedback and consistency in raters over time. These factors may be especially important for low-rated principals, veteran principals, and those in secondary schools, who may perceive less value from principal evaluation.

“Doing the ‘Real’ Work”: How Superintendents’ Sensemaking Shapes Principal Evaluation Policies and Practices in School Districts

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.

Principal Evaluation under Elementary and Secondary Every Student Succeeds Act: A Comprehensive Policy Review

A growing body of research recognizes the critical role of the school principal, demonstrating that school principals’ effects on student outcomes are second only to those of teachers. Yet policy makers have often paid little attention to principals, choosing instead to focus policy reform on teachers. In the last decade, this pattern has shifted somewhat. Federal policies such as Race to the Top (RTTT) and Elementary and Secondary Education Act waivers emphasized principal quality and prompted many states to overhaul principal evaluation as a means to develop principals’ leadership practices and hold them accountable for the performance of their schools. The development and dissemination of principal evaluation policies has proceeded rapidly, however, it is unclear whether focusing on principal evaluation has targeted the most impactful policy lever. In this policy brief, we describe where policy makers have placed their bets in post-RTTT principal evaluation systems and comment on the wisdom of these wagers. We describe the degree to which principal evaluation components, processes, and consequences vary across the fifty states and the District of Columbia, and review evidence on which aspects of principal evaluation policies are most likely to improve principals’ practice and hold them accountable.

An Evaluation Strategy for Commercial Precision Marketing Based on Artificial Neural Network

With the proliferation of the Internet and smart mobile terminals, great progress has been made in the precision placement and benefit-sharing mechanism of commercial advertisements. Meanwhile, media marketing has become increasingly in-depth and precise. So far, mature theories have been proposed on consumer value and precision marketing. But further research is needed to mine the value from the big data on commercial precision marketing. To improve the accuracy of commercial precision marketing, this paper presents an evaluation index system (EIS) for commercial precision marketing based on improved attention-interest-desire-memory-action (ADIMA) model, and determines the principal evaluation indices through principal component analysis (PCA). Next, an artificial neural network (ANN) was established to evaluate commercial precision marketing, and optimized through k-means clustering (KMC). Finally, the optimized model was realized on MATLAB. The proposed EIS and ANN were proved scientific and effectiveness through simulations. The research results provide a reference for the application of the ANN in other fields of marketing.

Evaluation and Acceptability Criteria for Pneumatic Pressure Tests

A pneumatic pressure test can be performed when hydrotesting a pipe is infeasible and/or impracticable. Despite its use throughout the industry, little published reference material is available regarding this important and ubiquitous topic with no known industry codes, standards or criteria identified to provide guidance related to stabilization time, test evaluation, and acceptance criteria. This paper provides an evaluation of minimum stabilization time for various pipe sizes and lengths obtained from transient, parametric simulation results. By evaluating typical test parameters, the paper concludes that gas mass should be used as the principal evaluation criterion, since it is conserved during testing if there is no leak. This paper introduces an acceptance index for which a test can be accepted provided the acceptance index is within defined lower and upper limits obtained from the accuracy of the pressure and temperature measuring devices. Field test data from three cases studies are successfully presented to verify the feasibility and validity of the proposed acceptance criteria for natural gas mains pneumatically tested with nitrogen at test pressures in the range of 300 psig (2,068 kPag) to 900 psig (6,205 kPag).

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

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.

Supervisory feedback in the principal evaluation process

The purpose of this qualitative study is to understand how school principals perceive their supervisors’ feedback in the formative principal evaluation process. It spotlights the benefits of supervisors giving effective feedback to school principals as a key component in formative evaluations. In addition, it uses a qualitative case study design situated within the context of the Al-Ain school district, which is supervised by the Abu Dhabi Education Council in the United Arab Emirates. The data was collected using several data collection methods, namely interviews, documents, and field notes. Six school principals participated in the study, and a thematic analysis of their comments and other information that they provided yielded four themes that reflected the quality of feedback they received: (1) feedback in absentia, (2) superficial or irrelevant feedback, (3) negative or judgmental feedback, and (4) constructive and individualized feedback. The evidence concludes that feedback aimed at improving the leadership practices of principals is limited, and there is no embedded professional learning dialogue wherein such feedback exists. This study adds to the body of leadership literature and sets forth implications for enhancing and redesigning feedback delivery in the formative evaluation process to improve principals’ practices and support their professional growth.