Contents

A letter from Wallace president M. Christine DeVita
Coordinating state, city and district policies
Turning around the lowest-performing schools – the role of district leaders
Turning around the lowest-performing schools – the role of the principal
Preparing and developing effective school leaders
Expanding opportunities for out-of-school learning

 

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Turning around the lowest-performing schools – the role of the principal - p. 5

 

“There are virtually no documented instances of troubled schools being turned around without intervention by a powerful leader…” and, “…the impact of good leadership is greatest in schools where it is most needed.”¹⁵

RESEARCH FINDINGS:

Regardless of the turnaround approach used, effective school leadership is essential to success.

• Investments in good principals are a particularly cost-effective way to improve teaching and learning.
• Principals are uniquely positioned in their schools to ensure that excellent teaching and learning spreads beyond single classrooms.¹⁶
• A good principal is the single most important determinant of whether a school can attract and keep the high-quality teachers necessary to turnaround schools.
• As education policy analyst Linda Darling-Hammond recently stated: “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.”¹⁷
• Turning around failing schools must be the shared work of many in a school. But the principal must lead that work by:
• Aligning resources with learning activities, needs and priorities, and creating structures and incentives for learning around a common agenda.
• Creating well-functioning instructional teams and distributing authority among many different staff in the school building (including teacher-leaders) to realize that vision.
• Building external relations that can support a school-wide learning agenda, including garnering community support, sufficient resources and anticipating resistance or conflict.¹⁸

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References

15 Kenneth Leithwood, How Leadership Influences Student Learning, Universities of Minnesota and Toronto, 2004, 3
16 Leithwood, 12
17 Education Leadership: A Bridge to School Reform, Speech by Linda Darling-Hammond, 2007, 17
18 See, for example, Michael Knapp et al., Leading for Learning: Reflective Tools for School and District Leaders, 2003; Leithwood, op. cit.; and upcoming research by Bradley S. Portin et al., Leadership for Learning Improvement in Urban Schools of the University of Washington.