Education Leadership
How districts can grow and support a
pipeline of highly effective leaders
Presentation to: SREB Leadership Forum
Jody Spiro
Senior Program Officer
The Wallace Foundation
May 5, 2011
Today’s presentation
I: Lessons learned from a decade of work in
education leadership work
II: What Wallace is doing – the “principal pipeline”
initiative
Page 2
Wallace’s education leadership
initiative: 2000-2010
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Began in 2000 as a “big bet”
24 states; 15 main urban districts
Commissioned research to fill gaps
Learning community
 Resulting in:
- Over 70 research reports
- 21 sustained, high-quality leader preparation
programs
- Strengthened laws and regulations
- 7 new nonprofit organizations
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Leadership is key –
to improving teaching & learning
“Leadership is second only to classroom instruction among all
school related factors that contribute to what students learn at
school.”
― How Leadership Influences Student Learning, Kenneth Leithwood, et
al, University of Minnesota, University of Toronto, 2004
“Six years later we are even more confident about this claim.”
― Learning from Leadership: Investigating the Links to Improved
Student Learning, Leithwood, et al, 2010
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Leadership is crucial to making
school reform succeed
“There seems little doubt that both district and
school leadership provides a critical bridge between
most educational reform initiatives, and having
those reforms make a genuine difference for all
students.”
― How Leadership Influences Student Learning, 2004
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Especially in difficult situations
“…there are virtually no documented instances of
troubled schools being turned around without
intervention by a powerful leader.”
― How Leadership Influences Student Learning, 2004
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Improving principal preparation is a
cost-effective strategy
Superintendents and principals are the leaders
with the most influence in schools.
“Efforts to improve their recruitment, training,
evaluation and ongoing development should be
considered highly cost-effective approaches to
successful school improvement.”
― How Leadership Influences Student Learning, 2004
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A new look at the principal role –
leader of leaders
 Set transformational vision and make it happen
 Share leadership
 Use data
 Promote and join in teacher learning and development
 Develop policies and incentives that support learning
of both students and adults
Sources: Learning-focused Leadership and
Leadership Support, Knapp, et al, 2010; Investigating
the Links to Improved Student
Learning, Leithwood, et
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al, 2010
Effective principals are key to
retaining good teachers
 “It is the leader who both recruits and retains highquality staff. Indeed, the number one reason for
teachers’ decisions about whether to stay in a school
is the quality of administrative support – and it is the
leader who must develop this organization.”
-- Preparing School Leaders for a Changing World, Linda DarlingHammond, et al, Stanford University, 2007
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Wallace’s “Principal Pipeline”
initiative: 2011-2016
When an urban district and its principal
training programs provide large numbers of
talented, aspiring principals with the right preservice training and on-the-job evaluation and
support….
…. the result will be a pipeline of
principals able to improve teaching quality
and student achievement district-wide.
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The pipeline components
 Leader standards
 High quality pre-service training
- Recruitment and selection
- High quality training
 Selective hiring
 Evaluation and on-the-job support for new principals
(including mentoring)
And….
 All aligned and all in support of the district’s reform
agenda
 Brought to district-wide scale
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Leader standards
Districts and training programs adopt clear
standards for principals based on the
effective leadership characteristics that
research has identified.
 ISLLC 2008
 VAL-ED
 Gallup
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High quality pre-service training
Effective training programs are:
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–
–
–
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More selective of applicants
Based on leadership standards
More focused on improving instruction
More closely tied to the needs of districts
Including robust, paid internships
Making efforts to place graduates
They are more expensive, but graduates are:
– Better-prepared
– Perform better in high-needs schools
– Twice as likely to actually become principals (60 percent vs.
20-30 percent)
Source: Preparing School Leaders for a Changing World, Linda DarlingHammond,et al, Stanford University, 2007; The New York City Aspiring Principals
Program: A School-Level Evaluation, New York University, 2011
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Selective hiring
 Rigorous selection progress for
filling principal and assistant
principal job openings with the most
qualified applicants
 The district also gives hiring
preference to graduates of high
quality programs and places them
in schools based on the best fit and
match between the candidate and
available vacancies
Source: Districts Developing Leaders: Lessons on Consumer Actions and Program
Approaches from Eight Urban Districts, Education Development Center, 2010
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Evaluation and on-the-job support
for new principals
 Professional development based on continuous
improvement
 Carefully selected, well-trained principal mentors –
and mentoring lasting for one year, ideally two
 Supported by state and local funding that ensures
mentors receive high-quality training and
appropriate stipends
 Evaluations that reflect leader
standards, measure those
behaviors, and school and student
outcomes
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The district role is essential
 “Both
our qualitative and quantitative evidence
indicate that district priorities and actions have a
measurable effect on professionals at the school
level.”
 Leaders in higher performing districts communicated
explicit expectations for principal leadership and
provided learning experiences in line with these
expectations; they also monitored principal followthrough and intervened with further support where
needed.
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The Wallace Foundation seeks to
support and share effective ideas
and practices that will strengthen
education leadership, arts
participation and out-of-school
learning.
For a digital library of the
publications cited here on education
leadership, as well as others, visit
the online Knowledge Center at
The Wallace Foundation
5 Penn Plaza, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10001
212-251-9700 Telephone
Info@wallacefoundation.org
www.wallacefoundation.org
www.wallacefoundation.org