Tim Waters & Sally Grubb, Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning
2004
The bottom line of this critical review of the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) standards for licensing school principals - incorporated into the policies of forty states - is that the ISLLC standards omit a quarter of the leadership practices that research has shown to be effective. According to McREL, "twenty-one specific leadership responsibilities, and 66 associated practices, have statistically significant relationships with student achievement." Yet "the ISLLC standards . . . do not offer any indication about which knowledge, dispositions, or performances have a greater impact on student learning than others." And 17 "leadership practices" are absent entirely, including at least a few that strike me as important: "Uses hard work and results as the basis for reward and recognition"; "Uses performance vs. seniority as the primary criterion for reward and achievement"; and "Is involved with teachers to address assessment issues." The bottom line for policymakers: Don't suppose that building the ISLLC standards into your licensure expectations for principals adequately incorporates everything that's important for effective principals to know and do. ISLLC should make some repairs to its standards and/or states should recognize their limits and augment them. The ten states that haven't yet wrapped themselves around ISLLC may also want to pause before doing so. You can get it here.
