Keynote speech by Professor Steven Rivkin | | Professor and Head, Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago, Director of the John. F. Kain Center for Education Research, University of Texas at Dallas, Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research A growing emphasis on leadership as the focal point of school improvement has led governments and school management organizations to adopt various strategies to elevate the effectiveness of school principals. These policy initiatives can be divided into two broad categories: 1) more stringent performance evaluation linked with employment and compensation; and 2) improvements in principal preparation. This public lecture presented the results from research that investigated the following questions: Do school principals affect future academic, social and future labor market outcomes? Do the benefits of an intensive and expensive principal residency training program justify the costs? Can higher salaries for effective educators willing to work in low-achiewing schools improve academic outcomes? Is it good policy to require principals to consider student outcomes and measures of satisfaction rather than just their own observations and perceptions when evaluating teachers?