Principals’ Priorities, Teacher Evaluation, and Instructional Leadership

Abstract

Instructional leadership has become the dominant paradigm in principal preparation and professional learning. In parallel, teacher evaluation has risen in prominence. Using interviews from 84 principals in 23 districts and three states, we asked how teacher evaluation influenced principals’ reported priorities and conceptions of instructional leadership. We found that although teacher evaluation loomed large in principals’ priorities, their implementation of it generally seemed far from robust. Although 81% of our sample noted teacher evaluation as a priority, only 24% reported integrating it into their efforts to improve teaching and learning. As one of the first studies to investigate how teacher evaluation factors into principals’ priorities and conceptions of instructional leadership and the resulting implications, our study extends prior research.