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Alternative Principal Preparation Pathways: North Carolina's Regional Leadership Academies

Sun, April 15, 2:45 to 4:15pm, Park Central Hotel New York, Floor: Ballroom Level, Ballroom

Abstract

As part of North Carolina’s Race to the Top grant, three regional consortia of school districts, Regional Leadership Academies (RLAs), collaborated with nearby universities to create alternative certification programs for school administrators. In this paper, we assess the effectiveness of the RLA programs in placing administrators and those administrators’ effectiveness. By 2014-15, two thirds of RLA program completers were school administrators in, on average, low-performing schools with high concentrations of economically disadvantaged students. Using school fixed effects and difference-in-differences, we find RLA principals had a null or negative effect on school value added. Using propensity score matching, we find RLA graduates mostly performed at the same level on their superintendent-rated administrator evaluation as the matched comparison group.

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