PLI Impact Report: Experiments with Student Outcomes

In the last two years, UC Berkeley’s Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) has published three impact reports: one focused on the breadth of regional impact and strength of program model, another focused on alumni and district partner feedback, and the third on collective leadership of all PLI alumni teams. This final report focuses on our experiments with evaluating impact using student outcomes. In its fifteenth year, the PLI now has 491 graduates, 88% of whom work in the Bay Area; 50% work in PLI’s four partner districts. In response to growing calls from districts, government agencies, and foundations to increase accountability for preparation programs to “prove” their impact, PLI conducted an experimental evaluation related to school level outcomes focused on alumni who served as principals for a minimum of three years. We learned that our alumni as a group are more diverse than California’s school leadership. PLI alumni principals were also more likely to work in schools that serve the most disadvantaged student populations. We were unable to draw conclusions about our program related to standardized test scores and suspension rates. However, we did find that PLI-led schools had stronger school cultures, especially related to developing positive relationships with students as measured by the California Healthy Kids Survey. Finally, we were able to identify major shortcomings and barriers related to rigorous analysis related to both insufficient data and methodological challenges.