News Brief
Wallace Releases New Expanded Edition of "The School Principal as Leader: Guiding Schools to Better Teaching and Learning"
By Mary CanoleThe Wallace Foundation has issued an expanded version of its report, "The School Principal as Leader: Guiding Schools to Better Teaching and Learning," which details the key practices of effective school leaders - and why such leadership is important to teachers. The original edition of this report was the focus of a blog posted on the SCEE website on January 17, 2012. New features of this expanded report include an interview with education scholar Linda Darling-Hammond, and one teacher's observations of how leadership has made a difference in schools where she has worked.
This version focuses on the value of collaborative leadership and how teachers can take on leadership roles. According to the report, "...the more willing principals are to spread leadership around, the better for the students. One of the most striking findings of the universities of Minnesota and Toronto report is that effective leadership from all sources - principals, influential teachers, staff teams and others - is associated with better student performance on math and reading test"
One of the new sections of the report describes one teacher's leadership experiences of being recruited to organize a Parents Night at her school and spending a summer with middle school English teachers to help ensure that middle-school lessons flowed well into the senior high school courses. This particular teacher reflects: "Principals have found talents in me that I didn't know I had. You can feel enriched beyond the classroom, and it's great to feel you are a part of helping the whole school succeed"
This report describes what can happen when principals and teachers work together. As the report states, "University of Washington research on leadership in urban school systems emphasizes the need for a leadership team (led by the principal and including assistant principals and teacher leaders) and shared responsibility for student progress, a responsibility reflected in a set of agreements as well as unspoken norms among school staff." This report can be used as a companion to CCSSO's recently released report on educator preparation: "Our Responsibility, Our Promise: Transforming Educator Preparation and Entry into the Profession."