The Equity Implications of Principal Evaluation on Student Achievement: A Critical Quantitative Policy Analysis

• In Event: School Leadership and Equity in Student Learning: Conceptualization, Contexts, and Effectiveness

Abstract

This study examines the connections between state policy levers in principal evaluation and academic achievement among Black and Hispanic students. It aims to provide insights into whether these strategies can be an effective equity intervention to remedy inequities in student achievement or reify structural inequities. This study focuses on two state principal evaluation policy levers that have received great attention from scholars and policymakers: (1) the inclusion of student growth data (Fuller et al., 2015) and (2) the mandate of placing principals who earn less-than-effective evaluation ratings on improvement plans (Goldring et al., 2009). This study offers a timely investigation when state policymakers continuously make “a risky bet” (Donaldson et al., 2021, p. 355) regarding what and how to evaluate as well as how to use the evaluation result with little empirical evidence.

This study uses critical policy analysis to disrupt the assumption underlying state principal evaluation systems that these systems have the same effect on all students regardless of their unique racial/ethnic backgrounds and related power relations (i.e., racism). While a critical perspective in policy analysis often involves a qualitative approach because of the nature of questions and perspectives, this study applies quantitative methods guided by the tenets of critical policy analysis (Young & Diem, 2017) to provide a more broadly applicable knowledge and have a powerful impact on educational policy to realize social justice (Gillborn et al., 2018).

This study used multivariate cross-sectional data from the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The data on whether 50 states and the District of Columbia enacted each policy lever came from the NCTQ’s principal evaluation policy database in 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2022. The data on state accountability for students’ reading and math achievement (NAEP of The Nation’s Report Card) and covariates in these years were obtained from the NCES. Difference-in-differences method was used to explore the links between principal evaluation policy levers and student performance. This study also used the statistical interaction terms between policy and Black students and policy and Hispanic students to explore whether these students experienced the policy differently.

Black and Hispanic students lagged behind their White peers in their reading and math achievement. The interaction terms between the policy lever requiring student growth data in principal evaluation and Black and Hispanic students were not statistically significant, indicating that these students did not experience this policy differently from White students. However, the interaction terms between the policy requiring improvement plans for “Ineffective” principals and Black students were positive and statistically significant for both reading and math achievement. This finding indicates that Black students experienced this policy differently from White students, with a positive effect on their achievement. The coefficients associated with the interaction terms for Hispanic students and policy levers were not statistically significant, indicating the policy levers in principal evaluation did not reduce the gaps in achievement between Hispanic students and White students.

Author

• Sung Tae Jang, University of Hong Kong