Performance evaluation reform act (pera): A case study of principal evaluation implementation in illinois

With reform efforts heavily focused on improving educational opportunities for students in the United States over the last decade, schools have been called to task to revamp their teacher and principal evaluation processes. The related empirical published research focuses on the evaluation of teachers, and there exists a very limited research base devoted to the evaluation of principals. We know that effective teachers and sound leadership have an effect on student achievement. Much of the research on this topic is related to improving teaching practice in the classroom and shifting from the managerial roles of a principal to being an instructional leader. This qualitative case study investigated how principals and their evaluators in two Illinois school districts made sense of and constructed new meaning around policy for principal evaluation as outlined in the Performance Evaluation Reform Act, PERA. This study further examined how these individual perceptions and district resources or structures effect the effort to implement a new performance-based evaluation system of principals including professional practice, performance indicators/measures of student growth, and self-assessment. Participants in this study were principals and the principal evaluators from two large, urban-fringe school districts. Policy implementation and sensemaking were the theoretical frameworks used to examine the understanding, structures, and practices involved in the implementation of the new evaluation process. Data sources were demographic survey information, semi-structured interviews of principals and their evaluators, and document review