Do Principals' Professional Practice Ratings Reflect Their Contributions to Student Achievement? Evidence from Pennsylvania's Framework for Leadership

Although states and school districts have begun to evaluate school principals, there is little evidence on the validity of principal evaluation measures. To fill this gap, we examined Pennsylvania’s Framework for Leadership (FFL), a tool for measuring and evaluating principals’ professional practices. Using data on more than 300 principals, we find that FFL evaluation scores are significantly and positively correlated with estimates of principals’ contributions to student achievement. The strongest relationships are in the domains of (1) systems leadership and (2) professional and community leadership. Contributions to math achievement were more highly correlated than contributions to achievement in other subjects. The results are driven mainly by evaluations of principals who have led their schools for at least three years. This is the first study to find evidence that ratings of principals’ professional practice are correlated with credible measures of principals’ contributions to student achievement.