In three “knowledge syntheses” commissioned by The Wallace Foundation, education scholars pore over and describe what research since about the year 2000 has to say about the principalship and the path to the job. Each report also provides the authors’ own analyses of data about matters including measurement of an effective principal’s influence; the surge in the number of assistant principals in recent decades; and the prevalence of high-quality learning opportunities for aspiring and sitting principals today compared with the past.

In addition, the reports examine the educational equity dimensions of school leadership—offering ideas on everything from how the characteristics of effective principal leadership could be seen through an equity lens to how principals might be developed, and the assistant principal role better used, to foster equity in schools.