Giving Compass' Take:

• Effective leadership from principals can happen by empowering teachers to do their best, rather than focusing on achieving assessment outcomes. 

• The desired outcomes should happen if school principals are providing high-quality support for their students and educators. How can principals show effective leadership? What are ways that donors can support them?

•  Read about the six biggest struggles for school principals. 

Matthew Howell, a New Jersey middle school principal, shares in an Edutopia article his journey to recognizing that producing high test scores is not a principal's primary mission; instead, it's helping teachers succeed in their mission of helping students realize their full potential.

To succeed as a leader, Howell says, principals must face the hard task of letting go of outcomes, along with resisting the temptation to overanalyze information and micromanage teachers. These efforts, he adds, can stifle the growth of a leader, impede the school’s progress, and create an atmosphere of tension and discouragement that can affect the school’s climate.

As principals face pressure from district leaders and the community to produce quantifiable results in terms of achievement data, it is easy for them to become overwhelmed.

Though principals are responsible for ensuring their students receive a quality education, many factors that influence school performance — including students' socioeconomic statuses and the amount of sleep they get each night — are beyond their control.

However, keeping the main mission in mind can help school leaders gain a fresh perspective and allow them to focus on what is most important. The goal of education is to help students succeed and, in doing so, realize their full potential — even if that potential does not translate well to standardized test performance.

If principals focus too much on scores, rather than learning and applying of new concepts, they can both discourage students from a lifelong love of learning and drive teachers away from classrooms. Alternatively, principals can end up making poor choices to motivate teachers, such as one principal who staged a mock funeral for an infant in an effort to underscore the need for achievement.

Read the full article about principals and outcomes by Amelia Harper at Education Dive