Lloyd E. McCleary

Evaluation of principals

Lloyd McCleary Department of Educational Administration University of Utah Salt Lake City, Utah E valuation of educational personnel, particularly school principals, is receiving increasing attention due to such immediate influences as pressures for improved administrative performance, need for schools to demonstrate problem solving capability, the performance-based and management-byobjectives movements, and demands for accountability. In addition, two conditions, largely developing during the past ten to fifteen years, underlie the immediate influences noted. The first of these is the increased complexity of the school unit brought about by consolidation and increases in school size, the addition of special programs and technologies, and the impact of social problems. The second condition is due to the gains made in knowledge about the relationship of human needs and organizational effectiveness, about management control systems which employ planning methods to relate personnel performance requirements to goals and to development activities, and about measurement and evaluation as applied to performance assessment. The need for sound, systematic evaluation of administrative performance as a general principle hardly needs treatment, and, if the literature is accurate, is accepted by school administrators as desirable. However, evaluation of the principal in his job is intensely emotional and personal. The evaluation process includes subjective judgments regardless of how objective data collected about his performance might appear. Many underlying assumptions and beliefs need to be made explicit and examined in an atmosphere that is emotionally and psychologically satisfactory, professionally enhancing, and clearly relevant to plans and understandings about personal and organizational needs. Without these conditions an evaluation system, no matter how sound, is likely to have limited if not adverse effects. What appears to be needed is to clarify present knowledge and practice, to examine evaluation processes that take into account the limitations of current capability, and to propose defensible evaluation procedures.

Competency Development and University Methodology: A Model and Proposal

The intent of the authors here is to assist professors of school administration by presenting , a planning framework in which the type and level of learning desired can be matched with the most appropriate and effective processes for attaining that learning.

The Role of the Principal in Community Involvement

What do effective principals do to generate community involvement with their schools? The authors report some of their findings on the following pages.

The supervision of teaching within a formal teacher appraisal system

Abstract The focus of this paper is on the supervision of teaching within the formal teacher appraisal system of the State of Texas. This system known as the Texas Teacher Appraisal System (TTAS) permits formal formative evaluation in which teaching observable behaviors data are used for self‐renewal by the teacher and summative evaluation in which administrative action for promotion purposes may be pursued. A brief description of the appraisal system is presented and the experience, using case study data, of the formative uses of the system is explained. It addresses the main components of the evaluation system and it describes the process of providing instructional support to teachers, emphasising the need for a collaborative approach to meet the teachers’ instructional needs.

Bringing Ancillary Benefits to the University

able for use in making decisions about an individual’s job placement. In the context of the university, the Assessment Center has implications far beyond this simple function. Rodney Ogawa, in an accompanying article, has noted the service, teaching, and scholarship interests of the university, and he has identified practices within each that have been enhanced by the Assessment Center at the University of Utah. In this article an attempt is made to treat specific topics that are critical to universities generally and to which the Assessment Center can make significant contributions.

Principals of Religious and Religious-Affiliated High Schools: What the Data Show:

The following data were developed as part of the National High School Principal Study conducted by NASSP. Because this aspect of the study was not treated as a separate analysis in the three-volume report1 it is considered here.

The Urban Principal: A New Basis for Leadership

Heres a view of principals as professionals and some of the qualities that contribute to their effectiveness.