Assessing the School Principal

There are a plethora of methods to use in assessing the achievement of school principals. Donaldson (2001) wrote the following: We are told we face a crisis in school leadership. High principal turnover, few candidates for openings, a shrinking pool of capable candidates interested in principal's work. And this on top of of the most sustained periods of criticism and reform in American public education. We want and need school leaders who foster improvement, but it seems that state and district approaches to reform are convincing the best educators to eschew formal leadership roles. Our legislative hallways ring with calls for accountability, for stakes and outcomes based promotion and graduation. Districts are tying principal's contracts to those test scores. Principals' reputations are forever linked with the public report cards on their school's performance. School boards hand down requirements and policies the way a twelve year old hands down clothes--expecting principals to implement them immediately. Assessing School Principals and Student Test Scores One approach in assessing the quality of the school principal's work then is to look at his/her students' state mandated test results. The single test score will then determine how well the principal is doing in being a school leader. Students are tested at different intervals on the state level. Some states test students yearly on grades 3-8 and on grade ten. The purpose of these tests is to notice how well students are achieving. There are numerous kinks which need to be taken out of state mandated testing philosophy; 1. a single state mandated test score omits student achievement results from daily class work throughout a school year. Test results tend to emphasize verbal intelligence. 2. there are additional intelligences which may be used by students to show what has been learned. Thus, multiple means should be used to ascertain student achievement (See Gardner, 1993). 3. a one size fits approach is used when the same test assesses all students in a state. Students, for example, vary in how much time is needed to complete a test. In a state mandated test, all are given the same amount of time to complete taking the test. Accommodations should be made for different categories of students, including the handicapped. 4. the standards or objectives for a state mandated test may lack clarity. Teachers and school administrators then might not be clear on what is expected in terms of student achievement. Each state mandated objective needs to possess clarity in its interpretation. 5. the state mandated tests are not aligned with the standards or objectives. What has been taught should be a major basis for measurement consideration. Validity then needs to be improved upon. 6. many state mandated tests have not been pilot tested to take out the weaknesses therein such as test items lacking clarity in wording. 7. reliability data for the state mandated test are missing such as test/retest, split half, or alternate forms. 8. feedback to teachers of student test results are not adequate to make curricular decisions. 9. relevancy of test items may be a problem in that what is tested lacks importance to the learner. 10. excessive testing may be stressed to the exclusion of other forms of evaluation (See Searson and Dunn, 2001). State mandated tests need to be improved upon to measure more accurately what students have achieved and accomplished in the school curriculum. Criticisms made provide a basis for making modifications and changes in state mandated testing. Additional reasons why principals might not be held accountable for student promotion include arbitrary cut off points in test scores such as in high sakes testing, not having that much influence over teachers to raise student test scores, not having adequate time to work with the curriculum due to the many other tasks involved in school administration, and being spread out over several schools in being a school principal. …