We wanted to share some highlights from our November 10 event ? School Leadership Matters?which we co-hosted with the Rainwater Charitable Foundation and the Center for American Progress. The event highlighted the release of Rainwater's report, A New Approach to Principal Preparation: Innovative Programs Share Their Practices and Lessons Learned. The panelists were: Ben Fenton, Co-founder and Chief Strategy and Knowledge Officer, New Leaders for New Schools; Sandra Stein, CEO, New York Leadership Academy; Steve Tozer, Coordinator of the Ed.D. Program in Urban Education Leadership, University of Illinois at Chicago; and Kelly Wright, Senior Leadership Officer, KIPP Foundation.
Below we've paraphrased some of what was said. (All courtesy of Daniela Fairchild, who ?tweeted? throughout the event! #schoolleaders)
Fordham's Chester Finn welcomed folks to the event; he said excellent principals are critical to the success of a school and the Rainwater report is a promising mechanism to improve school leaders, offering viable, sometimes proven, approaches to principal preparation.
CAP's Cindy Brown said that without effective principals we can only have islands of effective teachers?and we need better.
Then Rainwater's Kelly Garrett explained a bit about the report, which you can find at www.anewapproach.org. He said its goal was twofold?to show that principals are central to kids' schooling and to show examples of quality programs.
Here are a few thoughts from the excellent panelists.?
Ben Fenton: Twenty-five percent of school impact is attributed to principals. They hire, develop, and retain teachers, and they create the school culture.
Sandra Stein: Data systems help to determine where the most high-leverage interventions are ? for individuals, groups and the community.
Kelly Wright: Breaking it down, effective principals do NOT spend all their time in the office.
Steve Tozer: Principalship is the most cost-effective lever to improve student learning at scale. Also?..the U.S. has 1/3 the number of principals as physicians. Make principal prep programs more selective than medical school.
And we should have our recording of the event posted soon, so you can watch it in its entirety.
?Amy Fagan and Joe Portnoy