A Content Analysis Of The Congruence Between The Evaluation Criteria Of Superintendents And The Iowa Standards For School Leaders

Abstract

The Problem: This study was designed to analyze the evaluation criteria of the instruments used to evaluate superintendents, the job descriptions for those superintendents, and the goals written as part of their Individual Administrator Professional Development Plans (IAPDPs) to determine whether superintendents are being held accountable for serving as instructional leaders. Procedure: The job descriptions, evaluation instruments, and goals contained in IAPDPs provided by superintendents were coded using content analysis to identify those that describe instructional leadership as part of Standard 2 of the Iowa Standards for School Leaders (ISSL). The criteria were disaggregated and further sorted by district size. An analysis was conducted from the sampling units representing 20 of the 86 eligible superintendents in certain school districts with large high school enrollments, indicated by their membership in Class 3A or 4A for football during the 2009–2010 school year. Of the 20 randomly selected superintendents, 18 provided the three documents to be analyzed. A total of 52 sampling units were analyzed as part of this study. Findings: There was little congruence between the job descriptions and the criteria associated with instructional leadership in Standard 2. Only 17% of the 518 recording units were coded as Standard 2 in the ISSL. Additionally, there was little congruence between the goals written in IAPDP and the criteria in Standard 2 of the ISSL. Of the 87 recording units, only 25% were coded as Standard 2 in the ISSL. The size of the school district made little difference related to Standard 2 criteria in the sampling units. Of the 18 districts reporting, 15 (83%) have implemented the ISSL standards as part of their evaluation criteria. There were nearly twice as many recording units (29%) from the evaluation instruments coded to Standard 2 than there were in the job descriptions (17%), so it was determined that the instruments were not congruent with one another.