چکیده (انگلیسی):

In spite of inconclusive and often contradictory findings regarding educational
administration and the factors impacting it, the general agreement among researchers,
policy-makers, and practitioners is the importance of leadership to teacher and school
effectiveness and student educational achievement. Notably, in the educational
accountability era, “school improvement rests to an unprecedented degree on the quality
of school leadership” (Hess & Kelly, 2005, p. 245). The efforts to measure and assess
leadership quality have resulted in an increased attention to principal preparation,
support, evaluation, development, and retention (e.g., Hess, 2003; Levine, 2005; Wallace
Foundation, 2005, 2009). On the national level, the U.S. Department of Education (2010)
encouraged school districts to improve teacher and leader effectiveness by awarding
grants to support innovations at the state and district level.