Transcript The Wallace Foundation

Education leadership:
How districts can grow and
support a pipeline of
highly effective leaders
The Wallace Foundation
July 2012
Contents
1. Recap of Wallace education leadership initiative 2000-2010
2. The role of the principal: Practices of effective principals
3. The importance of leader training: Five lessons
4. The unanswered question and therefore our new theory of
action
5. The principal pipeline initiative
2
Wallace’s education leadership
initiative: 2000-2010
Our strategies:
 24 states; 15 main urban districts
 Commissioned research to fill knowledge gaps and evaluate
across sites
 Professional learning communities for states, districts, partners
Resulting in:
 Over 70 research reports
 140 sustained, high quality initiatives (including 24 pre-service
training programs)
 15 new non-profit organizations
3
The school principal as leader:
What we have learned
4
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,
Louis, et al, 2010
5
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
6
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
7
Effective principals are key to
retaining good teachers
“It is the leader who both recruits and retains
high quality 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 Darling-Hammond, et al, Stanford University, 2007
8
What effective principals do
 Shape a transformational vision of
academic success for all students
 Create a hospitable climate
 Cultivate leadership in others
 Lead the leadership team
 Lead the professional learning community
 Manage people, data and processes
 All in the service of improving instruction
Source: The School Principal as Leader: Guiding Schools
to Better Teaching and Learning, January 2012
9
How leaders improve instruction
 Share decision-making
 Principals are most effective when they see themselves as working collaboratively


towards clear, common goals with district personnel, other principals and teachers
Sharing leadership increases credibility – doesn’t diminish it
Balance clear expectations with fair accountability measures
 Lead the professional learning community – the most direct
means of improving instruction at all levels
 Lead the leadership team
 Create a common learning agenda among all staff
 Provide support and clear expectations for teachers
 High performing schools leaders both set the climate of high
expectations and lead instruction
 This is all most difficult at the high school level
10
Leader preparation is important
and cost effective
11
Effective preparation programs
make a difference
 Graduates of effective programs are:
 Better-prepared
 Perform better in high-needs schools
 Twice as likely to actually become principals (60
percent vs. 20-30 percent)
 And ... can improve instruction in their schools
Graduates of the NYC Leadership Academy – which
incorporates the above practices – were placed in
extremely low-performing schools and improved their
schools’ academic performance at higher rates than
other new principals in English-language arts and
mathematics.
-- The New York City Aspiring Principals Program:
A School-Level Evaluation, New York University, 2011
12
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
13
Elements of effective leader
preparation programs
 Based on research-based leader standards
 A more selective process for choosing candidates
based on the needs of the districts
 Training that prepares them to lead improved
instruction and school change, not just manage
buildings
 Robust, paid internships
 High-quality mentoring and professional
development tailored to individual and district needs
 Following up on the progress of graduates
Source: Preparing School Leaders for a Changing World, Linda DarlingHammond, et al, Stanford University, 2007
14
The state role in strengthening
leader preparation programs
15
Steps states can take to
strengthen leader preparation
 Set standards for preparation programs
 Accredit and reaccredit preparation programs
 Define requirements for leader certification
 Define and fund requirements for mentoring of new
principals
 Offer financial support for highly-qualified
candidates
16
What districts can do
17
Why the district role is important
 “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 follow-through and
intervened with further support where needed.
- Wahlstrom, et al, Executive Summary of Research Findings, 2010
18
Key steps districts can take

Clearly define standards for principals – and for types of principals (such as elementary, middle,
high, “turnaround”)

Define accountability and leader evaluation measures and gives principals the authority and
support to achieve them

Be an active consumer of leader preparation programs to ensure high quality candidates

Place and retain effective principals in the highest needs schools

Provide timely, relevant data to enable principals to accurately diagnose and address students’
learning needs

Use leader evaluation to focus more attention on their role on improving instruction

Provide time for principals to focus on instruction

Design and implement a pipeline to develop, train, place and support effective principals for all
schools
19
Wallace’s principal pipeline
initiative
20
The theory of action
When an urban district and its principal training programs
provide large numbers of talented, aspiring principals with the
right pre-service 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.
21
Putting it all together:
a “principal pipeline”
Highquality
aspiring
leader
training
programs
Leader
standards
Selective
hiring
Evaluation
and onthe-job
support
That are all:

High quality

Aligned

In support of district reform agenda

District-wide scale
22
Leader standards
 Districts and training programs adopt clear standards for
principals based on the effective leader characteristics that
research has identified such as:
 ISLLC 2008
 VAL-ED
 Gallup
23
High-quality leader preparation
 Selective recruitment of candidates
 Focus on improving instruction, not just managing
buildings. Includes internships where candidates lead
instructional work
 Districts exercising their consumer power so graduates
better meet their needs
 States use their power to set standards for program
accreditation, principal certification and financial support
for highly qualified candidates
 In a principal’s early years on the job, have high-quality
mentoring and professional development tailored to
individual and district needs
Source: The Making of the Principal: Five Lessons in Leadership Training (The Wallace
Foundation, June 2012)
24
Making smart hires
 Rigorous selection process for filling principal
and assistant principal job openings with
most qualified applicants
 Preference to graduates of high-quality
programs
 Placing 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
25
Evaluation and on-the-job
support for new principals
• Evaluations that reflect leader standards, measure those behaviors
as well as school and student outcomes
• Professional development based on needs assessed by the
evaluation; value placed on continuous improvement
• Carefully selected, well trained mentors working with new principals
for at least one year, preferably more
• Supported by state and local funding that ensures mentors receive
high quality training and appropriate stipends
26
The principal pipeline initiative is
supported by:
 An independent evaluation by Policy Studies Associates and
RAND with six public reports – the first will be released in
second quarter 2013
 Professional learning communities for grantees (in-person
meetings, webinars, on-going project group work)
 Technical assistance across all participating districts
 Tools to help implement the research and lessons
27
For these and other resources on
leadership and other topics:
www.wallacefoundation.org
28
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 www.wallacefoundation.org
The Wallace Foundation
5 Penn Plaza, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10001
212-251-9700 Telephone
[email protected]
www.wallacefoundation.org