Despite years of education reform, improved student learning, especially for the most disadvantaged, remains an elusive goal for many states and school districts. An often-missing ingredient: high-quality leadership, which research shows is second only to instruction among school-based factors in its impact on learning.
The core goal in our education work has therefore been to develop and test approaches in state and district sites that can improve the quality of leadership and leaders’ impact on teaching and learning; capture lessons from our sites and funded research; and share them within our network and beyond to strengthen the work of our states and districts and enable other sites that will never receive our funding to benefit. (For a list of our current state and district partner sites, click here).
Drawing on lessons learned to date about leadership improvement efforts, Wallace has developed a working hypothesis called a “cohesive leadership system.” The idea is that in order to achieve widespread, sustainable leadership improvement, state and district policies and practices affecting the standards, training and conditions of leaders should be well-coordinated. Click here to read more about the cohesive leadership system concept in Leadership for Learning: Making the Connections among State, District and School Policies and Practices.
A growing body of research commissioned or produced by Wallace offers a range of new ideas and insights about leadership for learning. Examples: Becoming A Leader: Preparing School Principals for Today’s Schools describes key attributes of effective principal training and offers lessons on how states and districts can achieve it. Preparing School Leaders for A Changing World, by Stanford researchers, provides case studies and guidelines for reinventing how principals are prepared for their jobs. Getting Principal Mentoring Right: Lessons from the Field, analyzes common strengths and shortcomings of state and district mentoring programs and offers guidelines on how they might be improved. How Leadership Influences Student Learning, by researchers at the Universities of Minnesota and Toronto, establishes the central role of leadership in improving student performance.
In each of Wallace’s three current areas of activity — arts participation, education leadership and out-of-school learning — we seek to create widespread change by sharing lessons that public and private institutions can use to promote benefits for the people they serve. Please visit the Education Leadership section of Wallace’s Knowledge Center to download publications that offer field-based insights.
Partner institutions
In each of its three focus areas, The Wallace Foundation supports public and private institutions that are committed to pursuing innovative ideas and practices and producing results. Wallace sponsors their work so that their experiences and lessons can ultimately help the field nationwide.
For more information about Wallace’s grant policies and restrictions, see our Funding Guidelines page. To download publications that can help further your own organization’s work, please visit the Knowledge Center.