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Good Principal
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Economics of Education Review, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 243-252, 1995 Pergamon Copyright © 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd
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What Makes a Good Principal? How Teachers Assess the Performance of Principals
DALE BALLOU and MICHAEL PODGURSKY
Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, U.S.A.
Abstract--This paper examines the performance of public school principals as rated by teachers they supervise. Work experience outside of education does not raise performance ratings, nor does administrat- ive experience at the current or previous schools. The only experience which is associated with higher performance ratings is teaching experience. Graduate training, even in school administration, is generally associated with lower performance ratings, a finding which raises questions about the licensing require- ments for principals in most states. Finally, teachers tend to rate a principal of their own race or sex higher, an effect most pronounced for women, who consistently give male principals lower evaluations. [JEL I21 ]
1. I N T R O D U C T I O N teachers; nonetheless, the training and selection of principals warrants examination as well.
All 50 states require that public school principals ONE CONSISTENT finding in the research literature on be certified. While certification requirements vary 'effective schools' is that good schools have good from state to state, they usually involve accumulation
leadership, of academic credits in education courses (National Association of State Directors, 1991). Many states
Effective schools seem to be headed by principals who require a masters degree in education, typically in have a clear vision of where they are going, who are education administration, and it is now Common for knowledgeable enough about teaching to help teachers persons who pursue careers in administration to and students work toward desired ends, and who are able acquire PhD or EdD degrees. The current system of to protect schools from the kinds of demands that make preparing and certifying school administrators has no it difficult for schools to operate on a professional basis, shortage of critics. The National Policy Board for (Chubb and Moe, 1990, p. 84) Educational Administration, a commission created by
the administrators' professional association, calls for
This is surely a reasonable finding, for while the per- greater "professionalization" of school adminis- formance of the teacher in the classroom ultimately tration, recommending, among other things, that a determines success or failure of the educational end- doctorate in educational administration be required of eavor, the general school environment can signifi- all (new) principals and superintendents, as well as cantly reinforce or undermine a teacher's best efforts a training program involving a full year of "clinical in the classroom. Moreover, the principal may play residency" (National Policy Board, 1989). Other crit- an important role in hiring staff, assigning classes, ics have taken the opposite tack and advocate lower- and providing instructional guidance for teachers. For ing entry barriers to non-traditional personnel, parti- good reasons, policy discussions of school reform cularly those with management trainihg and private have tended to focus on standards for students and sector business experience (Peterson and Finn, 1986;
[Manuscript received 22 July 1993; revision accepted for publication 21 July 1994.]
243
244 Economics o f Education Review
Portner, 1993). Still others discount the importance Our sample is restricted to principals in public of traditional academic coursework in favor of schools. expanded in-service training (Hallinger and Murphy, Our dependent variables come from items on the 1991). The recruitment of women and minorities into SASS teacher survey asking teachers to assess vari- school administration and their performance and ous aspects of the principal's performance. The rel- experiences on the job remain a topic of policy inter- evant questions and related statistics are reported in est (Adkinson, 1981; Whitaker and Lane, 1990; Lee Table 1 below. I The first question asks whether the et al., 1993). principal helped the teacher improve his or her teach-
In spite of the lively policy debates on school ing or solve an instructional or class management reform, the empirical literature assessing the relation- problem. Questions 2-4 assess the level of monitoring ship beween administrator characteristics and job per- of a teacher's performance and whether teachers feel formance is small. Eberts and Stone (1988) analyse that their individual efforts are recognized. Questions the effect of various principal characteristics on math- 5-7 assess the various dimensions of the principal's ematics test scores of fourth graders. They find, 'leadership'. among other things, that a measure of academic lead- These questions would seem to cover important ership on the part of the principal is associated with aspects of the organizational environment of a school higher student test scores. Interestingly, they also find and the principal's performance. The burgeoning a negative relationship between principals' advanced literature on the economics of organizations, which degrees and student test scores. Using data from High highlights the importance of information flows and School and Beyond, Brewer (1993) finds a positive incentives, suggests that variables such as these gen- relationship between a principal's rating of the erally play an important role in organizational per- importance of academic goals and student perform- formance (Milgrom and Roberts, 1992). We may ance on a composite test score. His findings also sug- reasonably assume, for example, that other things gest that principals influence performance through being equal, managers who solve problems are better hiring like-minded teachers who share their goals or than those who do not. Similarly, motivation and who exhibit other traits which will help principals to effort may suffer if successful performance is not achieve the objectives they have set for their schools, recognized. Finally, many consumers (i.e. parents) are
In an effort to learn more about the organizational likely to appreciate a principal who insists on disci- behavior of schools, we use data from a large national pline and respect for school rules. survey of teachers and schools to examine the Nonetheless, one might ask whether high marks on relationship between the performance of public these measures, however much appreciated by teach- school principals, as evaluated by the teachers they ers, actually raise the academic achievement of stu- oversee, and the credentials and characteristics of the dents. Unfortunately, SASS is not much help in this principal as well as the teachers, respect, as it does not contain measures of students'
educational achievement. The "effective schools" 2. DATA literature, however, has consistently found that the
dimensions of a principal's performance similar to those listed in Table 1 are important. As noted earlier,
Before developing our methodology further, we Eberts and Stone (1988) and Brewer (1993) find that describe briefly our data, the 1987-88 Schools and measures of a principal's instructional leadership, Staffing Survey, hereafter, SASS. (For further details developed in part from questions like those in Table see Choy et al., 1992.) The SASS consists of four 1, were positively associated with students' math- linked surveys which collect a wide range of data on ematics test scores. 2 Chubb and Moe (1990) report public and private schools and teachers in the U.S. that a principal's leadership and vision and the degree Of particular importance for this study are the SASS of collaboration within the school all had significant administrator and teacher surveys, which collected positive effects on student achievement. An earlier data from the principal and a matched sample of tea- survey of the research literature (including many case chers at the same school. This study draws most studies) by Purkey and Smith (1983) reveals that extensively from the administrator survey, which pro- effective schools are characterized by collegiality and vides considerable information on the educational collaborative effort (questions 1-4), clear goals credentials and career experience of school principals. (questions 5-6), and order and discipline (question
What Makes a Good Principal? 245
Table 1. Teacher ratings of the performance of public school principals
1. To what extent has each of the following people at Distribution of sample this school helped you improve your teaching or solve an instructional or class management Sample Sample problem? 1 = No help ... 6 = Extremely helpful mean I 2 3 4 5 6 size
Principal or school head 3.86 0.126 0.133 0.140 0.171 0.206 0.224 27,530
Do you agree or disagree with each of the following statements? 1 = Strongly agree ... 4 = Strongly disagree
2. The principal talks with me frequently about my instructional practices. 2.62 0.118 0.362 0.299 0.221 - - - - 28,317
3. School administration is supportive and encouraging toward staff. 1.89 0.407 0.381 0.143 0.070 - - - - 28,348
4. Staff members are recognized for a job well done. 2.20 0.239 0.432 0.219 0.109 - - - - 28,348
5. Principal knows what kind of school he/she wants and communicates it to the staff. 1.81 0.440 0.367 0.139 0.054 - - - - 28,352
6. Principal lets staff members know what is expected of them. 1.72 0.471 0.383 0.105 0.041 - - - - 28.364
7. My principal enforces school rules for student conduct and backs me up when I need it. 1.73 0.504 0.328 0.109 0.059 - - - - 28,339
7). 3 Finally, a recent study by Heck (1992), using pals may not be covered by these questions. They teacher assessments of the principals' performance may even be resented by teachers. Either would, of for a small sample of California schools, finds sig- course, weaken the link between these teacher assess- nificant association between teacher ratings along ments and objective measures of school performance. dimensions similar to ours and school performance, In addition, we need to keep in mind the fact that adjusted for the socioeconomic status and language these questions assess different dimensions of a prin- backgrounds of the student body. cipal 's performance. While the measure~ are corre-
The performance variables in Table 1 are also posi- lated (typically, pairwise correlations range from 0.4 tively correlated with other indicators of an effective to 0.6) there is a good deal of independent variation. school. For example, just 20% of those teachers who Thus there is no reason to assume that a particular said their principals provided no instructional or covariate (i.e. a principal or school characteristic) will teaching help strongly agreed with the statement: have the same effect on all of the measures. "There is a great deal of cooperative effort among
staff members". The corresponding figure among tea- 3. M O D E L chers who rated their principal extremely helpful was 55%. Similarly, 38% of teachers who rated their prin- cipal unhelpful strongly disagreed with the statement Each SASS question asks the teacher to rate the "I sometimes feel it is a waste of time to try to do principal on either a four- or six-point scale. We my best as a teacher", compared to 69% of those with assume that the teacher's response is systematically very helpful principals. In other words, principals related to an underlying evaluation of performance with high scores on question 1 tend to have instruc- which varies continuously. Low values of the under- tional staffs that are more cooperative and exhibit lying or latent assessment correspond to low marks higher morale. ~ on the discrete scale, high values to high marks.
Having argued for the validity of our Table 1 meas- Changes in the observed rating (e.g. from "Strongly ures, we conclude this section with some caveats. Agree" to "Somewhat Agree")a re triggered when the First, some effective behaviors on the part of princi- continuous assessment crosses certain unobserved
Tab
le 2
. D
eter
min
ants
of
perf
orm
ance
rat
ings
for
pub
lic
scho
ol p
rinc
ipal
s: s
elec
ted
orde
red
logi
t co
effi
cien
ts
(2)
(5)
(6)
(1)
P. t
alks
to
(3)
(4)
P. k
now
s T
each
ers
(7)
P. h
elps
M
e fr
eq.
re
Sup
port
ive
Sta
ff
wha
t ki
nd
know
wha
t's
P. e
nfor
ces
impr
ove
inst
r,
and
rec.
for
job
of
sch
ool
expe
cted
st
uden
t In
depe
nden
t va
riab
les
Mea
ns
tch/
slv
prb
prac
. en
cour
agin
g w
ell
done
w
ants
of
the
m
cond
uct
~
Edu
cati
on c
rede
ntia
ls
~"
Hig
hest
deg
ree:
__
__
le
ss t
han
MA
0.
029
..
..
.
MA
0.
875
-0.1
53"*
-0
.159
"*
-0.1
70"*
-0
.280
***
-0.1
55"*
-0
.060
-0
.280
***
s:
PhD
/EdD
0.
096
-0.1
64"*
-0
.125
" -0
.213
"**
-0.2
26**
* -0
.179
"*
-0.0
85
-0.3
20**
*
Edu
cati
on A
dmin
. ~"
D
egre
e (B
A,
MA
, PhD
, E
dD)
0.70
5 0.
022
-0.0
16"*
-0
.003
-0
.004
-0
.010
0.
001
-0.0
02
Oth
er t
rain
ing
(1 =
yes
) ,e
In
-ser
vice
tra
inin
g in
eva
luat
ion
~"
and
supe
rvis
ion
0.90
5 0.
077*
* 0.
088*
* 0.
116"
**
0.07
8**
0.14
0"**
0.
205*
**
0.16
9"**
M
anag
emen
t te
chni
ques
0.
745
0.04
1 0.
055*
* -0
.030
0.
093*
**
0.01
1 -0
.068
**
-0.0
72**
A
dmin
. in
tern
ship
0.
370
0.02
3 0.
036
-0.0
08
0.02
2 0.
012
-0.0
25
0.03
8
Yea
rs e
xper
ienc
e pr
ior
to
beco
min
g pr
inci
pal:
T
each
ing
0-5
year
s 0.
240
..
..
..
6-
15 y
ears
0.
626
-0.0
38
-0.0
28
-0.0
05
0.01
3 -0
.007
0.
042
0.00
5 >
15 y
ears
0.
134
0.04
3 0.
026
0.11
4"*
0.10
0"*
0.09
0**
0.14
9"**
0.
167"
**
Edu
cati
on a
dmin
. 6.
46
-0.0
11 *
**
-0.0
07**
* -0
.005
* -0
.006
**
-0.0
09**
* -0
.008
***
-0.0
08**
* N
on-e
duca
tion
1
.01
-0
.008
**
0.00
3 -0
.003
-0
.007
* -0
.002
-0
.008
**
-0.0
09**
Yea
rs p
rinc
ipal
at
curr
ent
scho
ol
6.30
0.
001
-0.0
06*
-0.0
03
-0.0
07**
0.
000
-0.0
01
-0.0
01
Age
47
.7
-0.0
11"*
* -0
.012
"**
-0.0
14"*
* -0
.013
"**
-0.0
19"*
* -0
.018
"*
-0.0
18"*
*
Sala
ry (
$000
) 43
.06
-0.0
05**
* -0
.006
***
-0.0
00
0,00
1 0.
005*
**
0.00
5***
-0
.001
Tea
cher
cha
ract
eris
tics
: A
ge
40.2
0,
005*
**
0.00
7***
0.
013"
**
0.01
4"**
0.
014"
**
0.01
2"**
0.
009*
**
Ten
ure
at s
choo
l 8.
03
-0.0
39**
* -0
.036
***
-0,0
50**
* -0
.054
***
-0.0
30**
* -0
.031
"**
-0.0
34**
* T
enur
e at
sch
ool 2
1.
20
0,10
8"**
0.
109"
**
0.14
1"**
0.
145"
**
0.08
3***
0.
077*
**
0.08
7***
Pr
inci
pal
hire
d te
ache
r (I
=
yes)
:l:
0.45
6 0,
157"
* 0.
095*
**
0.14
3"**
0.
119"
**
0.15
7"**
0.
095*
**
0.13
5"**
Dem
ogra
phic
int
erac
tion
s (M
ale
prin
cipa
l)§
0.81
8 (-
0.17
3"**
) (-
0.23
1"**
) (-
0.03
7)
(-0.
169"
**)
(-0.
219"
**)
(-0.
191"
**)
(-01
014)
P.
mal
e ×
T,
mal
e 0.
278
-0.2
18"*
* -0
.136
"**
-0.0
43
-0.2
34**
* -0
.389
***
-0.2
54**
* -0
.107
"*
P. f
emal
e ×
T.
mal
e 0.
041
-0.1
89"*
* -0
.074
-0
.030
-0
.202
***
-0.3
10"*
* -0
.255
***
-0.2
22**
* P.
mal
e ×
T,
fem
ale
0.53
9 -0
.217
"**
-0.2
90**
* -0
.045
-0
.217
"**
-0.2
74**
* -0
.262
***
-0.0
57
P. f
emal
e x
T.
fem
ale
0.14
2 .
..
..
..
(Bla
ck p
rinc
ipal
)§
0.07
1 (-
0.04
2)
(0.0
39)
(-0.
099*
*)
(-0.
042)
(0
.065
) (0
.042
) (-
0.08
1")
P. b
lack
× T
. bl
ack
0.02
6 0,
549*
**
0.84
9***
0.
366*
**
0.64
6***
0.
764*
**
0.68
2***
0.
378*
**
P. w
hite
× T
. bl
ack
0.03
6 0.
475*
**
0.54
4***
0.
297*
**
-0.4
87**
* 0.
570*
**
0.54
1"**
0.
246*
**
P. b
lack
× T
. w
hite
0.
044
-0.2
55**
* -0
.236
***
-0.2
74**
* -0
.282
***
-0.1
29"*
-0
.138
"**
-0.2
27**
* P.
whi
te ×
T.
whi
te
0.89
4 .
..
..
..
~
,
(His
pani
c pr
inci
pal)
§ 0.
035
(-0.
010)
(0
.068
) (-
0.05
4)
(-0.
136"
*)
(-0.
075)
(-
0.07
9)
(-0.
074)
P.
his
p. ×
T.
hisp
. 0.
012
0.23
2**
0.42
6***
0.
202*
0.
054
0.22
2**
0.23
3**
0.23
1"*
P. n
ot h
isp.
x T
. hi
sp.
0.02
3 0.
055
0.13
2"
0.04
0 -0
.083
0.
014
-0.0
05
0.08
3 P.
his
p. ×
T.
not
hisp
. 0.
023
-0.0
74
-0.0
28
-0.1
15
-0.1
54"*
-0
.110
-0
.141
" 0.
155"
~,
P.
not
his
p. x
T.
not
hisp
. 0.
942
..
..
..
.
"~
Sam
ple
size
27
,530
27
,530
28
,317
28
,348
28
,348
28
,352
28
,364
28
,339
9
* **
*, *
**S
igni
fica
nt a
t 10
, 5
and
1 pe
rce.
~t,
resp
ecti
vely
. .~
In
add
itio
n to
the
var
iabl
es r
epor
ted
in t
he t
able
, the
mod
el a
lso
incl
uded
15
scho
ol-l
evel
var
iabl
es:
scho
ol l
ocat
ion
(lar
ge c
ity,
med
ium
cit
y, s
mal
l ci
ty,
subu
rb,
smal
l to
wn)
; sc
hool
lev
el (
elem
enta
ry,
mid
dle,
sec
onda
ry,
com
bine
d);
med
ian
valu
e of
ow
ner-
occu
pied
hou
sing
in
the
coun
ty (
1990
); s
choo
l si
ze (
# of
stu
dent
s);
% m
inor
ity
stud
ents
; %
eli
gibl
e fo
r fr
ee o
r re
duce
d-pr
ice
lunc
hes;
% m
inor
ity
teac
hers
; sc
hedu
led
star
ting
pay
for
tea
cher
s.
~:T
his
vari
able
was
con
stru
cted
as
foll
ows:
1
= pr
inci
pal
repo
rts
cons
ider
able
inf
luen
ce o
ver
hiri
ng d
ecis
ions
and
tea
cher
s te
nure
's a
t sc
hool
<
prin
cipa
l's
tenu
re a
t sc
hool
; 0
othe
rwis
e.
§Est
imat
es i
n pa
rent
hesi
s ar
e fr
om a
con
stra
ined
mod
el w
hich
inc
lude
s on
ly M
ale,
Bla
ck,
and
His
pani
c du
mm
y va
riab
les
for
the
prin
cipa
l.
......i
248 Economics of Education Review
thresholds. The continuous variable in turn is taken to done, it is seen that the regressors of greatest policy be a linear function of a set of explanatory variables: relevance affect the probability of a favorable rating
by only a few percentage points. (Whether this is Z~ = 13p Pi + 13s Si -I- [~t Tij+ [~pt Pi x Tij + % (1) "small" from a policy perspective is another question.
With more than two million teachers in the U.S., a where Z~j is the latent assessment of the i-th principal move of a few percentage points still affects tens of by the j-th teacher. P~, Si, and Tij are principal, school, thousands of instructors.) The effect of demographic and teacher characteristics, respectively, and % is an variables is often substantially larger. 6 i.i.d, logistic disturbance with mean zero and unit variance. Administrator Credentials
By construction, high values of Z~j reflect a positive The first panel of Table 2 contains the effect of an assessment of a principal and low values a negative administrator's education and experience on perform- one. Estimates of the coefficients (13) and the thresh- ance evaluations. One interesting finding concerns the olds can be obtained by maximizing the sample likeli- influence of education credentials, reported in the first hood function, yielding ordered logit estimates three rows of the table. Principals with graduate (Greene, 1993, pp. 672--676). Principal characteristics degrees receive significantly lower performance rat- (P0 include demographic characteristics, education ings. Specialized training in Education Adminis- credentials, salary, and work history information, tration is typically insignificant or of the wrong sign. School characteristics (SO serve primarily as back- On the other hand, in-service administrative training ground controls and are meant to capture other factors is associated with better performance evaluations which may affect administrator performance or teach- while administrative internships are not. Management ers' attitudes toward the school administration, training occupies an intermediate position, beneficial Teacher characteristics (Tij) include age, race, sex, with respect to questions concerning interpersonal and ethnicity. The model also contains interactions relationships with the teachers but negative with between selected demographic characteristics of the respect .to overall leadership and rules enforcement. teacher/evaluator and those of the principal being The effects of prior employment vary with the type evaluated (P~ x T~j). of experience. Prior experience in education adminis-
tration (including principalships at other schools) is 4. ESTIMATES generally associated with lower evaluations, as is
experience outside education. 7 However, teaching Ordered logit estimates for the seven performance experience is a plus: principals who spent more than
ratings are presented in Table 2. The columns labelled 15 years as teachers receive higher marks on every (1)-(7) of each table correspond to the seven depen- question. This finding is particularly interesting in dent variables described in Table 1. The rows present light of the fact that most states set teaching require- estimated logit coefficients for subsets of the explana- ments for principal certification quite low, usually no tory variables. To facilitate comparison of the coef- more than 3 years. (Mean years of teaching experi- ficients we have multiplied dependent variables 2-7 ence in the sample is 9.8 years.) Length of service as in Table 1 by -1. Thus a positive coefficient on any principal of one's current school is generally unre- variable implies better performance, lated to performance evaluations, given age. Finally,
While many coefficients pass conventional tests of salary has a mixed effect on ratings: higher-paid prin- statistical significance, it is harder to judge the magni- cipals are somewhat better at articulating school tude of the effects, since the coefficients in Table 2 goals, but give less attention to teachers individually. express the influence of regressors on the latent con- These results provide little support for proposals to tinuotjs variable, not on the actual survey responses. "professionalize" education administration by requir- Let P denote the probability that a survey answer is ing doctoral degrees and professional internships of favorable to the principal (e.g. a strongly agree or all principals. Advanced degrees and training in edu- mildly agree on items 2 through 7). The marginal cation administration are generally associated with effect of a particular regressor on P can be approxi- lower performance ratings. These results are, more- mated as OPIOX = b P (l-P), where b is the estimated over, consistent with findings in Eberts and Stone logit coefficient and P is the relative frequency of fav- (1988), who report a negative relationship between orable answers as reported in Table 1. 5 When this is principals' advanced degrees and student test scores,
What Makes a Good Principal? 249
and with Hanushek's (1986) widely-cited survey of The first item measures teachers' satisfaction with the education production function literature, which their pay, the second the degree to which teachers finds no evidence that teachers' advanced degrees found parents cooperative and involved with their raise student test scores, children's education. Both variables were highly sig-
nificant, indicating that satisfaction with other aspects School Characteristics of the job colors a teacher's assessment of his or her
The models reported in Table 2 also included a principal (a "halo" effect). Nonetheless, coefficients number of controls for school characteristics. In the on the principal's education credentials remained interest of space, we do not report these in the table negative although significance levels tended to be and simply summarize our main findings (a full set reduced. of coefficients is available from the authors). The per- cent of students eligible for free or reduced-price Teacher Characteristics and Principal-Teacher school lunches and the percent of minority students Interactions were consistently insignificant, as was a large-city The bottom panel of the table reports coefficients dummy (rural omitted). So too was a measure of start- on several teacher characteristics and on interactions ing pay for teachers at the school. With elementary between administrator and teacher demographic school teachers as the omitted group, a high school characteristics. Teachers' age and tenure tend to raise dummy variable had a uniformly large and significant evaluations. This result is not altogether surprising, negative effect on ratings? Interestingly, school size since veteran teachers presumably require less sup- (as measured by the number of students) had a mixed port, assistance, and guidance from the principal. effect. It had a significant, negative effect on three of Moreover, teachers most dissatisfied with a princi- the dependent variables (1,2,4), suggesting that in a pal's performance are likely to have higher exit rates bigger school any individual teacher has less contact from the school (and the profession), leaving a pro- with the principal (1,2) and performance monitoring gressively more sympathetic workforce as time pass- deteriorates (4). On the other hand, school size had a es. positive effect on variables 5 and 6, consistent with Teachers hired by the principal tended to give a reduction in teacher autonomy and an increase of much more favorable evaluations to that principal. bureaucratic control in larger schools. This provides further support for Brewer's (1994)
At this point it is useful to consider an alternative argument that hiring decisions are an important mech- interpretation of the negative relationship beween anism by which principals shape their schools. When administrator credentials and performance ratings, this variable is omitted from the model, its effect is Eberts and Stone (1988) suggested that their similar picked up by administrator tenure at the school, which finding might be the outcome of a sorting process in becomes positive and highly significant. which principals with better credentials receive more We now turn to teacher demographics. For the sake difficult assignments. 9 This is a reasonable caveat, of comparison, we report in parentheses coefficients particularly given that their model included only four from a restricted model lacking interactions between school-level variables, none of which captured the administrator and teacher demographic variables. socioeconomic status of the community in which the These restricted estimates thus indicate how a princi- school was lOcated, pal's sex, race, and ethnicity affect his overall ratings.
Fortunately, the SASS data file provides an exten- The original, unrestricted estimates reveal how the sive list of such controls, such as poverty rates, min- teacher's race, sex, and ethnicity interact with those ority enrollment rates, and urbanicity, which capture of the principal to influence the former's assessment a good deal of the variation in job difficulty across of the latter. schools. Thus we doubt that such sorting can explain The restricted estimates show that male principals our negative coefficients on education credentials, generally receive lower evaluations than female prin- However, in order to examine further this issue, we cipals. The unrestricted estimates show the source of have reestimated equation (1), including more con- these lower evaluations. For example, consider trols for a difficult school environment. The dependent variable 1. Male teachers regard male and additional controls are two measures of teachers' dis- female principals as about equally (un)helpful. The satisfaction with their jobs, both largely beyond the coefficients on principal's gender are --0.189 (female) control of the principal (thus avoiding simultaneity), and -0.218 (male), and the difference is not statisti-
250 Economics of Education Review
cally significant. Female teachers, however, consider by their instructional staffs. Data from the 1987-88 male principals as significantly less helpful than SASS are used to investigate the influence of princi- female principals (the coefficients are: 0.217 for men, pals' educational credentials and work histories on and 0, the omitted category, for women). The result several measures of leadership, including assistance is a lower overall rating for male principals, given the provided teachers, the articulation and communi- high representation of women in the work force. A cation of school goals, and the enforcement of rules similar pattern is evident in all seven columns, with for student conduct. the exception of the discipline variable (7), where Our findings provide little support for recent pro- male teachers tend to rate female principals lower, but posals to enhance "professionalism" by requiring female teachers see no difference between male and advanced degrees and additional administrative train- female principals? ° ing for principals. Indeed, they raise questions about
The pattern is rather different when we turn to the criteria currently used to certify (i.e. license) black and hispanic principals. The restricted esti- school principals. Graduate degrees were consistently mates show that the evaluations of black adminis- associated with lower performance ratings, as were trators generally do not differ from those of whites, administrative internships. One characteristic with a However, important interactions are observed. Again, positive effect on performance ratings appears to be using dependent variable 1 to illustrate, black teachers undervalued by state authorities: although principals report that they are more likely to get help from both with more than 15 years teaching experience received black and white principals (0.549 and 0.475, better marks from their faculties, most states require respectively). On the other hand, white teachers find no more than a few years' teaching on the part of black principals significantly less helpful than white principals. Moreover, there appears to be no easy sub- principals (-0.255). stitute for such experience: work experience outside
As was the case for blacks, the average perform- of education does not raise ratings, while tenure at ance evaluation for hispanic principals generally does the current school improves ratings only to the extent not differ from that of non-hispanic principals. The that the~ principal is able to hire like-minded teachers. interactions, however, show that hispanic teachers The models we have estimated contain numerous report that they are more likely to get help from his- background controls for school characteristics and for panic principals. However, on several other measures teacher and principal demographic variables, some of of performance hispanic administrators are rated which are of interest in their own right. There is a below average by non-hispanic staff, pronounced tendency for teachers to rate an adminis-
In sum, teachers tend to view their principal's per- trator of their own demographic group higher. This formance differently depending on their own sex, effect is most pronounced for women, who consist- race, and ethnicity as well as that of their principal, ently give male principals lower evaluations. It is also Female teachers rate female principals as more help- present, though to a lesser extent for whites and his- ful, supportive, and better leaders. To a lesser extent panics. Whether this reflects differences in adminis- the same can be said of white teachers' evaluations trator behavior, or different perceptions on the part of of white principals, and (to a lesser extent still) of teachers, cannot be ascertained with our data. hispanic teachers rating hispanic administrators.
Acknowledgements--The authors wish to acknowledge the CONCLUSION research support from the Economic Research Service of
the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Massachusetts Institute for Social and Economic Research, and helpful
This paper examines the association between prin- comments from Robert Costrell and Steven Rivkin. The cipals' characteristics and job performance, as rated usual disclaimers apply.
NOTES
1. Our sample includes four full-time teachers per school on average. 2. Eberts and Stone (1988) also find that a measure of divergence between the principal's and teacher's perceptions over performance and conflicts was significant. Unfortunately, the SASS administrator sur- vey did not permit replication of this type of variable.
3. Also see Cross (1981), De Bevoise (1984), and Valentine and Bowman (1991).
What Makes a Good Principal? 251
4. Private schools are presumably under stronger competitive pressures to adopt efficient managerial practices. Thus it is interesting to note that principals at both religious and secular private schools tend to score better on the Table 1 measures than do public school teachers. For example, the mean score on question one (principal helps improve teaching/solve instructional problem, public school mean 3.85) is 4.39 in Catholic schools, 4.38 in other religious, and 4.11 in secular private schools.
5. For example, probability of an "agree" for dependent variable (2) is (0.118 + 0.362) = 0.480. The coefficient on principal's possession of an MA is -0.159. Thus an MA lowers the probability that a principal obtains a favorable rating on this criterion by 0.159 x (0.520) × (0.480) = 0.040. Similar computations can be performed for any pair of dependent variables and regressors, using the cell prob- abilities in Table 1.
6. Missing values of one or more regressors reduced our estimation sample by approximately 20%. Some of the missing values arose from non-response to particular question items on the administrator or teacher surveys; however, most are due to the failure of school officials to respond to either the school or district-level surveys. The distribution of the seven dependent variables is virtually identical in the sample with missing values of regressors and our estimation sample, and the mean values of the remaining regressors are similar.
Within-school variation accounts for approximately one-half of the total variation in the dependent variables. This share is likely increased by the fact that the dependent variables are categorical.
7. We experimented with quadratic terms in all of the administrator experience terms. These were gener- ally insignificant except for teaching experience (TE), where we consistently found small negative coefficients on TE (occasionally significant) and positive coefficients on TE squared (always significant). A cubic term in TE was insignificant.
8. When the samples are stratified at school level (high school versus elementary and middle), similar patterns of coefficients are observed; however, the coefficients on administrator characteristics tend to be somewhat smaller in absolute value.
9. Within districts, this might occur through deliberate policy. Across districts, a similar pattern could emerge if "difficult" districts believe that administrators with strong credentials could best handle the challenges of running their schools and thus more actively recruit them.
10. A study of teacher responses from the Administrator and Teacher Components of the High School and Beyond Survey by Lee et al. (1993) reports rather similar patterns for male and female teachers.
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