Case and Need
Principal’s Role Crucial to Student Success
Every major study on School Reform points to the principal as the lever in making schools places where all students achieve at high levels.
As a “central variable,” or the “central ingredient” in the equation of school success, research suggests that school leadership is second only to teaching among school-related factors in terms of impact on student learning.
School Leaders Require Training and Development
Unfortunately, insufficient attention is being paid to the professional development of principals after they have completed training and induction programs. A Wallace Foundation study, conducted in 2003, found that “typical leadership programs in graduate schools of education are out of touch with the realities of what it takes to run today’s school districts.”
Reports conclude that principals need practical training aimed at helping them do their jobs more effectively from the start, additional professional development to keep them fresh and adaptable, and continuous support in order to incorporate new thinking about what constitutes effective leadership.
Numerous research projects and questionnaires have sought input from current and past school principals on how to retain, sustain, and develop quality principals. Findings show that principals yearn to engage with each other about the crucial work they do because they believe this will enable them to be more effective leaders in their schools.
SLN Fills the Gap
SLN is unique in the education reform non-profit arena in that SLN provides services that a district, region or state cannot provide. We provide ongoing leadership development for school principals focused on improving learning and the conditions in which it occurs, to make sure that all children graduate with college- and career-ready skills.
While most principal professional development focuses on building the individual capacities of principals, the distinctive SLN approach focuses on developing a principal’s ability to lead targeted school-wide reforms as powerful change agents. SLN’s approach develops strong collaborative communities of principals engaged in action research; capable of mobilizing principals to take strategic actions to improve school cultures, teacher performance, and ultimately student achievement.
The Research
“A Nation at Risk, The Imperative for Educational Reform”, National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983.
Tough Choices or Tough Times: The Report of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, by National Center on Education and the Economy, published by Jossey-Bass, 2007.
Educational Leadership, Fall 2006 Wallis, Claudia, “How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century”, Time, December 18, 2006.
Day, C., Sammons, P., Hopkins, D., Leithwood, K., Kington, A., 2008. Research into the impact of school leadership on pupil outcomes: policy and research contexts. School Leadership and Management: Special Issue: The impact of School Leadership on Student Outcomes, 28(1), 5-25.
Leithwood, K., Jantzi, D. (2000), "The effects of transformational leadership on organizational conditions and student engagement with school", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 38 No.2, pp.112–29.
Murphy, J., Elliott, S.N., Goldring, E., & Porter, A.C. (2007). Leadership for Learning: A Research-based Model and Taxonomy of Behaviors. School Leadership & Management, 27 (2), 179-201.
Waters, J. T., Marzano, J. S., & McNulty, B. (2004). Developing the Science of Educational Leadership. Spectrum, 22(1), 4–13.
Leithwood, K., Louis, K.S., Andersen, S., Wahlstrom, K. (2004), How Leadership Influences Student Learning: Review of Research, Center for Applied Research, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.
National Staff Development Council. “Leaders and leadership” Retrieved 10/1/2008 from www.nsdc.org/library/leaders/leader_report.cfm
