Teacher evaluation is at the center of current education policy reform. Most evaluation systems rely at least in part on principals' assessments of teachers, and their discretionary judgments carry substantial weight. However, we know relatively little about what they value when determining evaluations and high stakes personnel decisions. The…

Legislation passed during the 2001 Iowa legislative session established the Student Achievement and Teacher Quality Program, Iowa Code Section 284.12(1). This legislation requires the Iowa Department of Education (DE) to annually report the statewide progress on the following: student achievement scores in mathematics and reading at the fourth and…

A program which emphasizes "moving toward excellence" is described here, as developed and practiced at the L. D. Bell High School in Hurst, Texas. The program is based on the perception that the measure of an effective principal as the instructional leader of the school can be found in the perception and implementation of curriculum…