Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Public Policy and the Complex Work of School Leaders

(Education)

The jobs of school leaders are both important and complex, and in today’s increasingly decentralized school districts, complexity is increasing. Today’s principals serve not only as instructional leaders but as administrative and fiscal managers, while simultaneously facing increasing personal pressure to meet schoolwide accountability goals. In the case of charter schools, principals often also serve an executive director role managing the very existence of their school and its managing organization. This panel includes four interdisciplinary papers that address the changing face of the principalship through a policy lens. These papers cover a range of issues from hiring and compensation to evaluation and performance to provide a comprehensive perspective on school leader policy. Beginning with teacher hiring, Goff, Finch, and Preston address the changing demographics of school leaders by examining the application choices of principal candidates. This paper exploits a unique data set of applicants to multiple school districts, focusing on minority and women’s access to administrative positive. Moving to compensation, Lincove, Barrett, and Strunk contribute a comprehensive economic analysis of the relatively neglected issue of principal pay. In the context of changing responsibilities and accountabilities pressures of principals, this paper examines how principal compensation has changed, with particular attention to pay differences between district schools and charter schools. Viano and Henry tackle the closely-related question of principal evaluation and promotion. This paper makes a methodological, as well as policy contribution by developing and testing a model for principal evaluation based on multiple measures that address the complexity of today’s school leadership. Finally, Strunk, Cremata, Hashim, and Marsh explore whether professional development for principals can improve student outcomes through teacher effectiveness. This research focuses on an intensive and innovative principal training program in Los Angeles and its effects on student outcomes. As a group, these papers provide a comprehensive overview of current policy debates related to school leaders from hiring to student outcomes. The papers reflect geographic diversity of four distinct US education settings and methodological diversity including factor analysis, value-added analysis, hedonic wage analysis, survey data, and observational measures.