During November and December, 2008, the NEW YORK TIMES, Wallace Foundation, Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and Kentucky Association of School Administrators sponsored eight regional Linking Leadership to Learning meetings throughout Kentucky. From the mountains of Pike County to the lake country of Southwest Kentucky, people gathered to discuss the importance of highly effective educational leaders in our schools. Public school teachers and administrators, university education faculty and administrators, and representatives of various business and community agencies participated in lively forums about the qualities of effective principals, their role as instructional leader, and how to ensure their preparation to effectively lead our schools.
From these forums, several ideas emerged:
· All schools, regardless of level, demographics, or achievement level, need highly
effective principals who provide instructional leadership for their students and faculty.
· Aspiring principals must be prepared to meet the challenges of all types of schools.
· University principal preparation programs must be designed to prepare them with field
practice lead by principal-mentors/coaches, as well as by university faculty.
· The preparation programs must be organized in a medical school model.
· The universities must work with districts to identify strong principal candidates and equip
them with the knowledge and skills necessary to be highly effective principals who can “hit
the ground running” in any school they lead.
· District administrators must be willing to support principals as they train, retrain, and
continue to learn about becoming strong instructional leaders; districts must allow principals
to experience high quality professional development that will support their goals, and
encourage them to network/confer with their peers in order to continue to grow in their
jobs.
· District leaders need to find and implement new school leadership models that include
sharing responsibilities for the many demands on a principal’s daily work, such as the School
Administration Manager (SAM) model.
· Principals and teacher leaders must work together to lead change and create professional
learning communities that will serve their schools and place them on the track of high
academic achievement.
· Finally, district, state, and regional leaders must support these endeavors with allocation of
funds and vocal political support for implementing new ideas.