Evaluating Instructional Leadership: Recognized Practices for Success

Improve principal evaluation and create highly effective leaders!

Even with great teachers, student achievement hinges on an effective principal. Behind every high-quality principal is an airtight system of leadership evaluation that consistently rewards excellence and remedies deficits. 

While teacher evaluation methods have improved, instructional leadership evaluation has often stood still―and student learning and achievement have paid the price.

This book identifies the major problems in this process and articulates clear solutions. The result is a blueprint for ensuring the best person for the job is occupying the principal’s chair. Content includes:

• Extensive data, presented in a user-friendly manner
• Clear connections to the ISLLC Standards for School Leaders
• A suite of interactive tools including sample self-assessments, mid-year and final evaluation forms, and professional growth plans

"This book not only highlights the key messages about the role of the leader, but it is does so in a way that is engaging, practical, and reflects the Smiths’ long history of being school leaders, teaching school leaders, and seeing the effects of their teaching.  I have seen the Smiths in action, separately and together, and they know how to lead and how to teach, they have a strength of purpose they do not waver from, and these attributes come through in this book."
-John Hattie, Director
Melbourne Education Research Institute, University of Melbourne

"After reading this book, you′ll truly understand what it takes to grow as a lead learner. We can always get better. This book provides quality insight on strategies that will make good leaders great."
-Brad Currie, School Leader, Corwin Author and Co-Founder of #Satchat

Dr. Julie R. Smith is a thirty-five year veteran educator, speaker, consultant, and author. Her passion, area of focus, and expertise is in building leadership capacity within people and systems; school improvement planning, and teacher, principal, and district evaluation models.  Dr. Smith continues her learning by providing workshops in North America and Canada around Professor John Hattie’s research in Visible Learning as a Visible Learning^Plus Consultant with Corwin. She is also trained to provide workshops in Dr. James Popham’s research around designing and implementing defensible teacher evaluation programs and Dr. Russ Quaglia’s Student Voice and Aspiration Framework.  She most recently co-authored Evaluating Instructional Leadership: Recognized Practices For Success (2015).

Dr. Raymond Smith is an Author Consultant with Corwin Press. Prior to joining Corwin Dr. Smith served as adjunct professor at the University of Colorado Denver Health Sciences Center teaching within a principal preparation program and currently works with Florida Atlantic University in their aspiring leader program. Dr. Smith’s diverse experience includes over 38 years of teaching and leadership at the building (high school principal), central office (Director of Secondary Education), and university levels.

Subsequent to completing his doctorate in educational leadership and innovation in 2007, Dr. Smith pursued his area of specialty and passion in leadership development by authoring several articles for the Ohio Department of Education, coauthoring three books: the first entitled School Improvement for the Net Generation (2010), the second entitled The Reflective Leader: Implementing A Multidimensional Leadership Performance System (2012), and the third entitled The Responsive School (in print).

In addition to writing about leadership and leadership development, Dr. Smith is an activator of learning, leading others in workshops around Professor John Hattie’s research in Visible Learning as one of 21 Visible LearningPlus Consultants with Corwin. He also conducts workshops around Dr. James Popham’s research regarding designing and implementing defensible teacher evaluation programs.