Developing and Validating the Next Generation of Leadership Evaluation Tools: Formative Assessment for High-Stakes Accountability

Our proposal aims to develop and validate the next generation of on-line, formative assessment tools necessary for middle and high schools to establish the conditions for improving student learning. In today’s high-stakes accountability world, school and district leaders need guidance to design the kinds of school environments that improve student learning. Elmore (2002) explained that instructional leadership had long been dominated by models of professional autonomy in which leaders provided adequate organizational support and professional guidance for teachers to flourish in loosely coupled school organizations. Highstakes accountability in general, and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) in particular, has changed the expectations for school leaders. Leaders must now tighten the connections between classroom practices and school-wide outcome data to build the capacity for intentionally improving student learning across the school. Our tool, called the School Leadership Assessment Tool system, will provide leaders with a set of formative rubrics that can be used by middle and high schools to self-evaluate and to guide the development of critical leadership practices. While the standards-based, theory-driven assessments now in place measure where leadership currently is, formative feedback systems are needed to help school leaders understand the gap between where they are and where they need to be.