Research Paper on:
Administrator Assessments and Leadership Identification

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
result of different events and conditions (NUC, 2002). This same article argued that leadership is not a thing nor is it a person, leadership only exists in the mind (NUC,  2002). Research over the last twenty years has consistently concluded that the principal is the key component in an effective school. It is the principals leadership that leads to  the schools success. Portin and Shen reported a compilation of what the literature says about the principal: "Principals remain key individuals as instructional leaders, initiators of change, school managers, personnel  administrators, problem solvers, and boundary spanners for the school" (1998, p. 93). Even though leadership models have changed to that of more collaborative operations and decision making, the principal is  still the single person in the school that is responsible (Portin and Shen, 1998). One of the many reasons for the principal being the nexus of leadership is the fact  of increasing diversity of the school population (Portin and Shen, 1998). Another reason has to do with the demands placed on schools to become more effective. Principals, then,  are concerned with organizational, instructional and statutory leadership (Portin and Shen, 1998). There are numerous ways in which an educational administrator can be evaluated. For instance, Hughes reported that  one school district in Texas is tying the principals evaluation to student test scores (2002). In fact, the district will eventually link a principals salary to student test scores (Hughes,  2002). To begin, though, one-third of the assessment of the principal will be based on test scores (Hughes, 2002). The state of Texas offered a model for evaluating  the performance of principals that consists of eight different areas (Hughes, 2002). These include instructional leadership and student management (Hughes, 2002). The state had already added student performance as a