School Principal as Instructional Leader: Connections Between Principal Evaluation and Student Achievement

This study\u27s purpose was to investigate the connections between principal evaluations and student achievement. First, the study examined the relationship between principal effectiveness and student achievement. Principal effectiveness was measured by the Ohio Principal Evaluation System ratings and student achievement was measured by Performance Index (PI) scores. A statistically significant moderate positive correlation existed between principal effectiveness and student achievement. This relationship indicated that as principal effectiveness increased, student achievement increased as well. The study\u27s second purpose was to determine if there were differences in principal effectiveness and student achievement among Ohio typologies. The results of the MANOVA determined that there was a significant difference between the combination of principal effectiveness, as measured by the OPES rating, and student achievement, as measured by the PI score. Post hoc comparisons determined that there was a significant difference among the mean OPES ratings for rural and suburban schools, rural and urban schools, small town and rural schools, small town and urban schools, and suburban and urban schools. In addition, the post hoc comparisons determined that there was a statistically significant difference in the mean Performance Index scores among the rural and suburban schools, rural and urban schools, small town and suburban schools, small town and urban schools, and suburban and urban schools. The third purpose of this study was to classify Ohio typologies using existing principal effectiveness and student achievement data. The discriminate function from the analysis successfully classified more than half of the schools in this study. The existing data, OPES ratings and PI scores, classified suburban and urban schools accurately at a higher percentage when compared to small town and rural schools