Illinois Education Research Council Bringing Research to Policy and Practice Policy Research : IERC -

Much attention has been paid of late to teachers’ contributions to student gains (Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, 2005; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2010), but how big of an impact do principals have on student achievement? Compared to the research on teacher quality, the literature on the characteristics of effective principals has remained relatively untapped until quite recently (Branch, Hanushek, & Rivkin, 2009; Clotfelter, Ladd, Vigdor, & Wheeler, 2007). However, the emerging research consensus is that principal eff ects are both measurable and consequential (though smaller than teacher eff ects) and that eff ective principals are at least a prerequisite for highly successful schools (Creemers & Reezigt, 1996; Brewer, 1993; Wheeler, 2006). Yet research has also found that there are substantial variations in principal eff ects (Rice, 2010). As a result, recent studies have begun to investigate in more depth what diff erentiates principals who are more eff ective from those who are less so. In this report, we summarize recent research on the characteristics associated with principal eff ectiveness and examine Illinois data on the relationship between principal characteristics, student profi ciency, and teacher qualifi cations.