News Release
Actions School Districts Can Take to Help Principals Better Lead Schools
Nov 14, 2013
RAND researchers provide guidance to state and district decisionmakers, focusing on four areas that research has identified as particularly influential in supporting principal effectiveness: placement in the school, evaluation, autonomy, and resources. We highlight how actions in these areas can create conditions in the school and district that foster principal success.
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Principals can influence student achievement in a number of ways — monitoring instruction; evaluating teachers; hiring, developing, and retaining school staff; maintaining student discipline; managing the school budget; establishing a school culture; and engaging with the community. While principals' skills in these areas are important, skills alone are not enough to ensure that they will be effective school leaders. This is because school and district contexts — which include school and district characteristics, practices, and policies — set the stage for principals' performance and strongly influence their effectiveness. In this report, RAND researchers provide guidance to state and district decisionmakers and others who manage school systems, focusing on four areas that research has identified as particularly influential in supporting principal effectiveness: placement in the school, evaluation, autonomy, and resources. We highlight how actions in these areas can create conditions in the school and district that foster principal success.
This report was made possible by funding from the RAND-Sponsored Research program. The research described in this report was conducted by RAND Education, a division of the RAND Corporation.
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