Principal Leadership and School Effectiveness: Perspectives from

Principals and Teachers

Principal leadership and its effect on student achievement have been well documented over the past two decades.
However, the link between the principals' level of engagement in leadership practices and whether their schools
met the accountability measure remains unexplored. The purpose of this study was to examine four research
questions regarding (a) the extent of principals' engagement in seven leadership practices that are identified as
enhancing student achievement in the literature, and (b) whether the level of engagement is associated with
schools' success in meeting the accountability measure. The study used data collected by the National Center for
Education Statistics (NCES) and were taken from the 1999-2000 School and Staffing Survey (SASS). Data were
collected from 4,842 districts and included 9,893 principals and 56,354 teachers. Among others, the survey
collected data on teachers' and principals' perspectives on principals' engagement in various leadership practices
and whether the schools met the accountability measure. The findings indicated principals' perceived that they had
a high level of engagement in leadership practices associated with order, discipline, resources, and input; and low
level of engagement in culture, focus, and intellectual stimulation; and teachers perceived their principals had a
high level of engagement in intellectual stimulation and input, and low level of engagement in culture, order,
discipline, resources, and focus. The logistic regression analyses suggested that the principals' fulfillment of the
leadership responsibilities, both from the principals' and teachers' perspectives, can be used to predict the
likelihood whether the school would meet the accountability measure. From the principals' perspective, resources,
focus, and culture are statistically significant predictors for school success; from teachers' perspective, resources
and culture are statistically significant predictors for school success. Implications of the findings were discussed.
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