Three Models for Portfolio Evaluation of Principals

School Administrator, May, 1999 by Catherine Eggleston Hackney

In this age of competency-based education, externally imposed standards and pressure for continuous school improvement, superintendents and principals are anxious about their own performance and its impact on school effectiveness.

Furthermore, the movement toward schools as learning communities has illuminated the need for school adults to model continual learning for students. Yet traditional attempts at evaluation of principals have contributed little to this effort, to their own professional growth and development or to the improvement needs of the school.

These yearly evaluations are at best a formality one must endure to ensure employment for another year. At worst, these one-size-fits-all evaluations have done nothing to create a climate of continuous learning, collegiality and reflection--all marks of a learning organization.

However, Genevieve Brown and Beverly Irby, co-authors of The Principal Portfolio, have suggested an alternative evaluation route superintendents might take with principals: portfolio evaluation. If superintendents are interested in evaluation that goes beyond the cursory and that can initiate and sustain professional growth, encourage collegiality and reflective practice, portfolio evaluation is something they may want to consider.

Colleagues and I have developed a model for portfolio evaluation of school principals. The process we use with participating superintendents and principals embodies those elements that will lead toward collaborative goal setting, reflective dialogue and writing, formative assessment and a summative presentation of the portfolio.

As part of a portfolio cohort group, participating principals from several districts meet monthly with us. The discussion centers around the technical assistance and professional support participants may need to develop goals and action plans, reflect on their work, select documentation for inclusion in the portfolio and develop rationale for defense of the final product.

Three Alternatives

Participants choose one of three models for the construction of their portfolios. The models differ in their approach by respecting the principals' levels of development, guidance they may need for analyzing their own work and in the presentation of their work through the portfolio.

The first, known as the competency-based model, is tightly structured around six competencies based on the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium standards. The principal collects artifacts, or tangible evidence, to support his or her work around each of the standards.

For example, to demonstrate fulfillment of Standard No. 1--the responsibility to create and sustain a vision--a principal could include faculty meeting agendas that acknowledge time spent in formulating a vision. Parent newsletters, PTA meeting minutes and notices of student assemblies also might document a principal's efforts. The composition of the entire portfolio would reflect efforts toward the achievement of the other five standards in a similar fashion.

The second, known as the targeted-competency model, would pivot around a selected goal or target. Perhaps a principal and the superintendent have recognized a need for more meaningful family involvement in the school. The principal may target that need as a goal around which his or her work would be focused and the portfolio composed.

Artifactual documentation could include invitations to families to join a family advisory council, the advertisement for a series of family education sessions concerning new pedagogical practices or minutes from revised volunteer orientation meetings.

The third model is one that is most loosely constructed and best lends itself to professional inquiry. The inquiry-based model is appropriate for the principal who is the more mature or experienced practitioner interested in doing action research to study his or her own leadership practice.

The principal who asks the question, "How can I lead the faculty advisory council away from concerns over parking spaces, recess duty and lunch procedures and toward critically informed decisions about teaching and learning in our school?" could engage in action research over the course of the school year to analyze the progress made toward answering this question. Any artifactual documentation that supports the action research could be considered for inclusion in the portfolio.

Cautionary Advice

Though portfolio evaluation can be a viable tool for personal and professional growth as well as continuous school improvement, a few words of caution are required.

The value of the portfolio lies in the opportunity for personal reflection and authorship of the process. Creating a portfolio, whether it be tightly structured around a set of standards or composed as a result of action research, must be a highly individualized endeavor. The emphasis must be on the individual's self-examination, the value of the artifacts that represent his or her work, the rationale used as defense of the product and the growth experienced as a result. The last thing a portfolio should become is a scrapbook."