A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

What Are the Implications for Policy?

Local, state, and national policymakers have not come to grips with the problems of educational leadership described in this report. Many think that "leadership is something that just happens," as Pennsylvania state legislator Ron Cowell noted, and do not realize how their policy decisions affect the quality of leadership or how leadership relates to other educational reforms. Even among policymakers who do pay attention to leadership needs, instructional skills are a low priority compared with management skills and fiscal stewardship. Pessimism and lack of consensus among educators about how to address leadership needs exacerbates the feeling among policymakers that there is little they can do to improve the current state of leadership.

Educational leaders and other concerned groups could help policymakers play a more supportive role by being clearer about what they want and need. For example, educators could define more clearly what leadership involves, and perhaps develop standards for the skills and knowledge that administrators, superintendents, and school board members should have. They could also revise standards for effective administrator preparation programs. They could identify common principles for designing professional development and preparation that are subject to policy influence.

Principals, superintendents, and, in some cases, teachers are also gaining more direct influence over policy as a result of governance models that decentralize decisionmaking. Rather than waiting for others to act, local leaders can use this authority to strengthen their own profession.

The Forum produced a list of several options for policymakers (including educational leaders themselves) to consider at the local, state, and national levels.

Options for Local Policymakers

• Make changes in school and district policies that strengthen local leadership and empower principals to take charge of their own profession.

• Establish collegial networks and "critical friends" programs that will reach every principal and engage school leaders in inquiry about specific instructional issues.

• Use multiple measures, including performance, to assess administrator effectiveness.

• Develop programs to identify and cultivate indigenous leaders from early in their careers. Create incentives for veteran principals?such as higher pay and reductions in other responsibilities?to encourage them to identify and mentor teachers with leadership skills.

• Revise local administrator hiring policies to make them more explicit about performance expectations.

• Create a districtwide leadership academy where new and experienced leaders and other professionals can work in teams on school improvement.

• Explore radical reforms to better focus professional development on the challenges found in real schools.

• Involve the local private sector in efforts to develop new leaders. Create partnerships with universities, business, and others to make local schools into professional development schools.

• Develop alternative routes to leader certification.

• Provide professional development to school boards and hold them more accountable for creating policies that support effective leadership and higher student learning.

• Give schools greater flexibility to create incentives for leaders and teachers to develop their instructional expertise. These incentives could include release time, job restructuring, greater flexibility over resource allocation, and others. Give schools flexibility to buy professional development services from the best provider.

• Create an accountability and incentive system that links everyone's evaluation to expectations for student learning.

• Rethink the time demands placed on administrators.

• Ensure that all staff meetings focus primarily on instruction.

• Use the influence of those who have the greatest stake in new leadership policies?superintendents, principals, and teachers?to develop these new policies.

Options for State Policymakers

• Rechannel state higher education funding to provide generous two--phased grants to institutions: the first phase would be provided when candidates are recruited and enrolled in a leadership preparation program, and the second phase would be allocated when graduates are placed in principals' positions.

• Authorize full-time, 2-year fellowships for senior teachers to pursue national board certification and train for a leadership position through a site--based preparation program.

• Involve private sector representatives in planning incentives to reform administrator preparation.

• Revise state standards for leadership preparation programs based on the new standards recommended by national professional associations for administrators, and require these programs to collaborate with practitioners.

• Mandate an external quality review of all leadership preparation programs and eliminate those that are not working.

• Make the criteria and assessments for principal certification more relevant to the skills actually needed to do the job, and align them with new standards for educational leadership suggested by national professional associations.

• Establish comprehensive professional development centers that would be designed and operated through collaborations of government and business.

• Create principals' networks and other collegial opportunities for professional learning.

• Fund demonstration programs that encourage school districts and higher education institutions to collaborate on new approaches to professional development.

• Encourage local districts to explore different governance models that promote new definitions of educational leadership.

Options for National Leaders and Policymakers

• Create a high-powered national commission on leadership?similar to the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future?that would highlight the need for reforms in educational leadership. This commission could suggest systemic strategies for improvement and could identify good models of preparation and professional development.

• Continue the work of national professional associations to develop national standards for leadership preparation and certification that are rigorous and instructionally oriented. Support the development of a national model for board certification of administrators.

• Support alternative approaches to certification that reward expertise as well as course taking.

• Fund alternative professional development approaches for educational leaders.

• With involvement of business organizations, develop model school-business-university partnerships for preparing and strengthening the instructional leadership of principals.

• Provide federal funding to demonstrate different effective approaches to leadership development.

• Provide grants to states to design model state reforms of accreditation and certification of leadership development.

• Develop academies to identify and encourage young professionals with leadership potential and train them to model good practice.

• Support research and dissemination of research findings.

• Enact legislation patterned after the "Land Grant" Act to encourage reform of leadership preparation programs.

• Work to create a broad public constituency that recognizes the need for reform and will advocate for long-term changes in educational leadership. Establish ``consensus panels" to sort out what we know about educational leadership and hold public dialogues to educate citizens.

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[ What are the Implications for Research? ]

[ Summary and Conclusion ]