Two articles by the same authors estimate the effects of principals on student achievement. Both report school-level, value-added Texas state test results for school principals, controlling for gender, race, free and reduced-price lunch, and earlier academic performance. They find large to small effect sizes depending on the model examined. The study is severely limited by methodological issues, including the age of the data (12-18 years old) and failure to account for several variables: experience as a principal, the effectiveness of comparison principals, district assignment policies, nonlinear effects of principals on schools, other influences on high-poverty schools, and non-principal influenced teacher mobility. Regarding principal mobility, the authors failed to account for district policies and career mobility patterns. Finally, the authors could not estimate the effects of first-year principals. These flaws raise serious questions about the actual effect sizes of principals on student test scores and thus the validity of the analyses. The report is most useful for methodological discussions about value-added estimates for principals, the validity of different models, and principal effects on teacher and principal turnover. The most important policy-relevant conclusion that can be derived from this report is that estimating principal effectiveness is simply not possible given current methodology and sample size restrictions. Thus, such estimates should not be used to evaluate principals.

Gateways to the Principalship: State Power to Improve the Quality of School Leaders proposes state policies for improving principal effectiveness and student achievement. It uses policy examples from eight “lagging” and eight “leading” states as a means of advocating for a wide range of policy actions aimed at influencing principal preparation, licensure and retention. The report, however, has several flaws that undermine its usefulness. It provides little explanation on how the state exemplars were selected or why they were considered to be leading or lagging. It makes little use of existing research. It does not report on extensive current state and professional activities on leadership standards, program accreditation and licensure requirements that address exactly these features. It recommends ending the “monopoly” of higher education in principal preparation and broadening (or lowering) the criteria for becoming a principal, but it provides no research or other evidence that such changes are warranted, will improve student achievement, or have other beneficial effects. The report’s endorsement of broadly accepted, almost platitudinous reform principles, coupled with unsupported and possibly counterproductive recommendations, renders the report of little value in improving the quality of principals.