The Peer-Assisted Leadership (PAL) Program created at Far West Laboratory (San Francisco, California) gives principals and vice-principals a year-long professional development program to reduce their isolation and improve their instructional leadership performance through nonevaluative peer observation and reflection. A key element is challenge…

Summarizes a survey of Ohio superintendents' and other administrative supervisors' perceptions of the career-threatening problems experienced by principals. Respondents were asked to rate the deficiency effect of 23 administrative competencies later grouped into 7 clusters. Principals perceived as at risk most frequently experience problems with…

The ways in which principals use performance appraisal data for personal professional development, the characteristics of those who use such information, and the features of performance appraisal systems and decision contexts that are predictors of appraisal use were studied through a series of interviews at four sites (two with high appraisal…