Following the Leaders: An Analysis of Graduate Effectiveness from Five Principal Preparation Programs
Author: George W. Bush Presidential Center, George W. Bush Institute
Date: 2016-10-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Principals,Graduate Surveys,Administrator Effectiveness,School Administration,School Support,Administrator Surveys,Interviews,Value Added Models,Achievement Gains,Administrator Role,Comparative Analysis,Institutional Characteristics,Barriers,Program Descriptions,Beginning Principals,Novices,Student Characteristics,Outcome Measures,Evaluation Criteria,Selection Criteria,College Programs,School Effectiveness

When an effective principal is at the helm of a school, students benefit. Principals play a critical role in establishing a school's climate and culture and in selecting and developing teachers, among other roles. Indeed, school leadership is second only to direct classroom teaching among school-level influences on achievement. Although there may be little disagreement that good principals make a difference, what is less clear is how to systematically prepare good principals. The George W. Bush Institute has made school principals a focus of its education reform initiative through the Alliance to Reform Education Leadership (AREL) program. The AREL program was launched by convening a network of 28 innovative principal preparation programs for 3 years to learn from the programs, help the programs learn from each other, and spotlight the work done by these programs. With this current study, the Bush Institute sought to go beyond sharing information about best practices in principal preparation and connect information about program graduates to student outcomes. Specifically, this study evaluated the impact of five AREL Network programs on student achievement. The George W. Bush Institute also gathered information on graduates' perceptions of their programs. The five principal preparation programs were selected for inclusion in the study based on a set of criteria developed to reflect the best available theory and research on promising practices in principal preparation. The study was designed to address the following research questions (RQs): (1) What are the characteristics of the selected preparation programs and the district-provided supports to program graduates?; (2) What are the characteristics of schools in which program graduates were placed?; (3) What effect do program graduates in their first placements as principals have on student achievement and other outcomes?; (3a) How much variation is there in program graduates' effects on student achievement?; and (4) What effect do program graduates with varying levels of experience as principals have on student achievement? Key findings include: (1) Districts and preparation programs lacked high-quality data on principal characteristics and placements; (2) Selected program graduates had generally positive perceptions of program coursework and hands-on experiences, but they have mixed perceptions of district supports and ongoing supports from their programs; (3) The George W. Bush Institute found little consistent evidence that student achievement in schools led by program graduates is better (or worse) than student achievement in similar schools led by graduates of other programs; and (4) Significant variation occurred in effectiveness among principals from selected and other programs. Taken together, these findings suggest that focusing on how to reduce variation in the performance of graduates through training, selection, or other means or how to systematize or better tailor supports may be the keys to success in preparing effective school leaders. The following are appended: (1) Program Selection Criteria; (2) Program Documentation Request: Evaluating the Impact of Principal Preparation Program Documentation Request; (3) Program Administrator Interview Protocol: Evaluating the Impact of Principal Preparation Program Staff Interview Protocol; (4) Principal Interview Protocol: Evaluating the Impact of Principal Preparation--Principal Interview Protocol; (5) Detailed Principal Perception Findings; (6) Detailed Quantitative Methods; and (7) Detailed Quantitative Findings.