2008 Principal/Vice Principal Survey Results for Evaluation of the Effective Practice Incentive Community (EPIC)

This report presents findings from a baseline survey of principals and vice principals in three sites—the Memphis and Washington, DC, school districts, and a consortium of charter schools—partnered with New Leaders for New Schools in the EPIC. Within each site, EPIC offers incentives to educators in eligible schools with significant student achievement gains to help document and disseminate their practices. The survey collected information on factors important for informing the implementation and evaluation of EPIC, including school administrators’ knowledge of EPIC, attitudes toward performance pay, and appraisal of educational practices in their schools. Most principals have positive attitudes toward EPIC and merit pay in general. Principals generally prefer the use of school-level performance and achievement growth, rather than teacher-level performance alone or test-score levels, to determine incentive awards, but they exhibit an incomplete understanding of how growth is captured in these performance measures.