 School Leadership Publications
New and Featured Publications | NCSL Publications | Wallace Foundation Publications | Legislative Reports | Other Publications
New and Featured Publications
Leveraging Leadership Development Through Principal Evaluation
Published: February 2008
According to Vanderbilt researchers, the tools we have today for assessing leaders are not up to the task. A reliable assessment tool should reinforce standards for current and future leaders; privilege instructional and transformational leadership that raises student achievement and changes organizations; and assist decision-makers in creating strategies to improve leader performance across the district and the state. With Wallace support, Vanderbilt has developed the only research-based, validated “360 degree” assessment involving the principal, superintendent and every teacher in the school. This article provides background on the conceptual framework of The Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education, or VAL-Ed, and updates readers on its development process. There are two dimensions of VAL-Ed: six core components of school performance and six key processes of leadership. The article notes that the conceptual framework of VAL-Ed is “anchored in and significantly aligned with the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium standards.”
 Becoming a Leader: Preparing Principals for Today’s Schools
Published: June 2008
If there is a national imperative to improve our failing schools, there is also an imperative to strengthen the preparation of those who lead them. The good news is that new research and a growing range of efforts by states and districts point more clearly than ever to effective ways to greatly improve the training principals receive for their jobs. This Wallace Perspective describes the key attributes of effective principal preparation and offers a set of action-oriented lessons that could help states, districts and universities do a better job in providing that training.
Published: 2008
A document published by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) represents the latest set of high-level policy standards for education leadership. It provides guidance to state policymakers as they work to improve education leadership preparation, licensure, evaluation, and professional development.
Published: May 2008
This report from the Institute of Education Sciences that contains specific recommendations on turning around low-performing schools.
Published: April 2008
Under the federal No Child Left Behind law and similarly demanding state requirements, school leaders (principals and superintendents) are under increased public pressure to turn around low-performing schools and significantly improve student achievement. Landmark research commissioned by The Wallace Foundation tells us that leadership is second only to classroom instruction among all school-related factors that contribute to student learning, especially in high-need schools. More than ever, states need to develop and implement comprehensive strategies to ensure that today’s leaders have the skills, knowledge and support required to guide the transformation of schools to meet higher standards and new requirements for progress.
Published: March 2008
This report from New Leaders for New Schools offers a look at the lessons learned from those schools that are making dramatic gains in student achievement through improved school leadership. The report also includes an account of the implications of redefining urban principalship.
Published: February 2008
This report, recently released by the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE), highlights the importance of principals in turning around low performing schools. The policy update discusses using evaluation systems to implement change in principal practice and focuses specifically on the VAL-Ed model or Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education to evaluate principal standards.
Published: December 2007
Comments by Linda Darling-Hammond, Kati Haycock, Richard Colvin and Wallace President M. Christine DeVita on the cirtical importance of school leadership, and how states and districts are improving it, are featured in this special report on the Foundation's recent national education conference.
 Schools Need Good Leaders Now: State Progress in Creating a Learning-Centered School Leadership System
Published: October 2007
Today’s principals must understand how students learn, provide teachers with leadership and support, and create an environment in their schools in which all students and adults can improve their skills. To achieve this vision of “learning centered” leadership, principals also need to be supported by the school system, university and state education leaders. Yet a new report by the Southern Regional Education Board that rates the progress of 14 states in adopting the necessary policies to reach this school leadership goal concludes that the pace of change in all but a few states remains “modest at best.” The report lists a number of policy strategies to accelerate progress: (1) say what you mean about school leadership; (2) choose the right people for the job; (3) get university leadership programs on track; (3) make sure aspiring principals learn on the job; (4) use licensing power to drive reform; (5) cast a wider leadership net; (6) make low-performing schools a top priority; and (7) learn from the pacesetters.
 Executive Summary: Preparing School Leaders for a Changing World Lessons from Exemplary Leadership Development Programs
Published: April 2007
Principals play a vital role in setting the direction for successful schools, but existing knowledge on the best ways to prepare and develop highly qualified February candidates is sparse. What are the essential elements of good leadership? What are the features of effective pre-service and in-service leadership development programs? What governance and financial policies are needed to sustain good programs? The School Leadership Study: Developing Successful Principals is a major research effort that seeks to address these questions. Commissioned by The Wallace Foundation and undertaken by the Stanford Educational Leadership Institute in conjunction with The Finance Project, the study examines eight exemplary pre- and in-service program models that address key issues in developing strong leaders. Lessons from these exemplary programs may help other educational administration programs as they strive to develop and support school leaders who can shape schools into vibrant learning communities.
 A Wallace Perspective: Leadership for Learning: Making the Connections Among State, District and School Policies and Practices
Published: September 2006
A Wallace Perspective paper describes how a cohesive leadership system for K-12 public education could support improved teaching and learning.
 How Leadership Influences Student Learning
Published: 2004
Leadership not only matters: It is second only to teaching among school-related factors that affect student learning. And its impact is greatest in schools with the greatest needs, according to a comprehensive review of evidence on school leadership by researchers at the Universities of Minnesota and Toronto. This report, the first in a series that seeks to establish how leadership promotes student achievement, summarizes the basics of successful leadership and sets out what leaders must do — including setting a clear vision, supporting and developing a talented staff, and building a solid organizational structure — to meet the challenge of school reform.
Published: April 2008
More states are beginning to examine how they prepare school leaders. Several legislatures acted to help prepare and support high-quality school leaders during the 2007 legislative session.
Published: June 2006
Leadership is increasingly regarded as a key factor in whether schools fail or succeed. Pressure on school leaders has intensified since the passage of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. The multiple expectations of the job may be deterring many prospective leaders who feel unprepared to keep pace with the changing demands of contemporary school leadership. The shortage of quality teachers is translating to a shortage of potential school leaders.
Wallace Foundation Commissioned Research & Reports
 Out of the Office and Into the Classroom: An Initiative to Help Principals Focus on Instruction
Published: January 2008
For many principals weighed down by the time demands of bus schedules and budgets, improving instruction too often takes a back seat. This brief journalistic account describes how schools in nine states are testing a new position, called School Administration Manager (SAM), whose job is to help free principals of many of these administrative distractions and allow them to spend more time on instructional matters. The goal of this promising new approach, pioneered by the Jefferson County (KY) Public Schools with Wallace’s support, is to hire a SAM to assume operational functions, track the principal’s time to see how much she is spending on instruction, and provide coaching to ensure that the principal actually becomes more focused on instruction.
 Making State Accountability Count: How New Mexico Supports Principals with Data Tools
Published: November 2007
Good, usable data is a must for wise decision making, especially as district and school leaders struggle to meet tough standards aimed at making all students successful as learners. Too often, however, states supply their school leaders indecipherable mountains of test data with no guidance on how to use it. New Mexico, a participant in The Wallace Foundation’s education leadership initiative, is among states leading the way to making data much more useful by increasing the “data literacy” of district and school leaders and by transforming the vast amount of student achievement data it collects into a tool that can help leaders transform instruction and chart the progress of individual students. This lively journalistic account shows how it’s being done.
 A Mission of The Heart: What Does It Take to Transform a School?
Published: October 2007
Transforming failing schools presents special leadership challenges. What do successful “turnaround” principals actually do? What skills do they need? Where should we be looking for such leaders and what support do they need? For answers, The Wallace Foundation asked Public Agenda to interview principals currently working in high-needs schools as well as education leaders with experience working with effective principals. The results of these interviews can be found in this preliminary report (a final report by Public Agenda is expected later this year). Among the many preliminary insights from these interviews: school leaders tend to fall into two categories – “transformers” who have a clear vision for their schools and a can-do attitude that enables them to get past obstacles; and “copers” who seem overwhelmed by the challenges and have difficulty prioritizing teaching and learning.
Preparing School Leaders for a Changing World: Lessons from Exemplary Leadership Development Programs
Published: April 2007
For years, the training and ongoing professional development of schools principals have been criticized as inadequate for the demands of their jobs. This executive summary of a Wallace-commissioned report by Stanford and Finance Project researchers fills a major knowledge gap with case studies of eight effective programs that document the key characteristics of high-quality school leadership training.
 Assessing Learning-Centered Leadership: Connections to Research, Professional Standards, and Current Practices
Published: March 2007
Responding to a longstanding field need, this report and two companion documents preview the basics of a new learning-centered principal assessment system that will allow districts to evaluate how school leaders' on-the-job behaviors add value to student achievement.
 A Wallace Perspective: Getting Principal Mentoring Right: Lessons from the Field
Published: March 2007
With more states and districts than ever enacting principal mentoring, a close-up look by Wallace analyzes the common strengths and shortcomings of these new programs and offers guidelines on how they might be improved.
 When Learning Counts: Rethinking Licenses for School Leaders
Published: December 2005
State licensure requirements for principals could play a valuable role in ensuring that schools get the kinds of leaders they need to meet current demands for improving student achievement. But a Wallace-commissioned national study by the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education concludes that in most states, licensure requirements are not sufficiently focused on the skills and knowledge leaders need to improve learning. The report offers policymakers a new “Licensing-Plus” framework to restructure state licensing systems to include “entry-level” and “expert-level” certifications and to better align licenses with the current job demands on principals.
 Buried Treasure: Developing a Management Guide From Mountains of School Data
Published: January 2005
Educators confront mountains of data about district performance but frequently lack the resources or know-how to break it down and use it effectively. This Wallace-commissioned publication offers a “management guide,” grounded in seven evidence-based indicators, that can help district leaders mine the richest nuggets that can inform school improvement and reveal critical problems or promising opportunities. It explains how school systems can find a valuable middle ground between oversimplification and too much information.
Published: February 2008
This report presents the findings of the Illinois School Leader Task Force in response to HJ0066.
Published: January 2008
A report by the Virginia Board of education regarding the Commonwealth Educational Roundtable as required by House Joint Resolution 622.
Published: February 2008
A new report from McREL that explores how case methodology plays a role in developing effective school leaders.
Principal Compensation: More Research Needed on A Promising Reform
Published: December 2007
This report, from the Center for American Progress, includes new empirical research using national data on principals and their salaries to determine whether there appear to be significant shifts in the way principals are paid over a 10-year period from the 1993–94 school year to the 2003–04 school year.
Progress Being Made in Getting a Quality Leader in Every School
Published: July 2007
This report, from the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), examines how 16 states have fared in producing principals who can improve student learning. In benchmarking these efforts, the Southern Regional Education Board poses four questions for all states to consider: Are we training people with potential? Do we teach them strategies to improve student learning? Do our licensing standards reflect their actual ability to do the work? Are working conditions conducive to their success? The report recommends how state policymakers, districts and universities can work together toward answering those questions in the affirmative.
Good Principals Aren’t Born — They’re Mentored: Are We Investing Enough to Get the School Leaders We Need?
Published: June 2007
Drawing on a new survey of seasoned principal mentors and other data, this report by the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) concludes that the weak quality of many mentoring programs for aspiring principals “is retarding state efforts to ensure that every student attends a school where strong leadership results in high academic performance.” Among the common failings: haphazard selection of mentors, poor training for those mentors, and mentoring that often consists of busy work rather than meaningful experiences in leadership. The report calls on districts and universities who provide training for aspiring principals to assume more shared responsibility for mentoring, clarify expectations, and make the process and its participants much more accountable for achieving agreed-upon standards, so that new principals arrive assume their positions much better prepared to lead needed changes.
Schools Can't Wait: Accelerating the Redesign of University Preparation Programs
Published: May 2006
Arguing that states have displayed “a lack of urgency” in pressing universities to improve the way they prepare principals, this Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) report offers a detailed action plan for states to pick up the pace in creating better training programs and assessing their effectiveness against progress indicators. The report gives mediocre grades to a sample of 22 universities in SREB states for their efforts to date in meeting core quality indicators. And it calls for a number of steps, including the development of state-level commissions, to encourage and guide statewidecritical redesign of principal training programs.
SREB Leadership Curriculum Modules Engaging Leaders in Solving Real School Problems
Published: March 2007
This guide catalogues 17 innovative training modules developed by the Southern Regional Education Board with Wallace's support to help universities, state academies and districts to redesign their school leadership preparation programs around the goal of improving instruction and student achievement.
The Principal Internship: How Can We Get It Right?
Published: April 2005
Internships offered by many principal-training programs fail to adequately prepare school leaders. They may lack hands-on activities tied to improving student learning, high-quality mentor relationships, or a chance to gain experience in real leadership situations. In this report, the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) evaluates more than 60 internship programs within its states and urges policymakers, universities and school districts to create apprenticeships that better prepare aspiring principals for the current demands and expectations of their jobs.
Good Principals Are The Key to Successful Schools: Six Strategies to Prepare More Good Principals
Published: June 2003
Too often, argues this report from the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), finding qualified school principals is more a matter of chance than deliberate policies. To cultivate successful principals, the report recommends that states and districts redesign training programs; choose people with real potential to enter them; ensure that they receive full licenses only after demonstrating job performance; provide alternative certification programs that will broaden the field of good candidates; and offer support for school leadership teams that have a collective impact on student achievement.
 Return to School Leadership Page
To view PDF files, you must install Adobe Acrobat Reader.
NOTE: NCSL provides links to other Web sites from time to time for information purposes only. Providing these links does not necessarily indicate NCSL's support or endorsement of the site.
|
Strong Leaders Strong Schools: 2007 State Laws
Education Leadership: A Bridge to School Reform - The Wallace Foundation
Preparing High-Quality School Leaders
Developing Leaders for Successful Schools