THE PRACTICE: A school administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all students by advocating, nurturing, and sustaining a school culture and instructional program conducive to student learning and staff professional growth.
Content Presented By:
Council of Chief State School Officers
The Education Alliance at Brown University

Resources related to this practice:

• "Leadership for Accountability" Research Roundup
  http://eric.uoregon.edu/publications/roundup/Spring_2001.html

  For school leaders, the accountability challenge is three-fold. First, principals must lead their staffs in a search for instructional strategies that will meet the new expectations. Because so many of today's standards call for achievement that transcends traditional academic skills, the task requires significant teacher learning, not just better implementation of traditional methods. An overview of a number of important works addressing the school leader in today's highly accountable environment.

• Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC)
  http://www.ccsso.org/isllc.html

  The Consortium's vision of leadership is based on the premise that the criteria and standards for the professional practice of school leaders must be grounded in the knowledge and understanding of teaching and learning. The purpose of the ISLLC Consortium is to provide a means through which states can work together to develop and implement model standards, assessments, professional development, and licensing procedures for school leaders. The overarching goals of ISLLC are to raise the bar for school leaders to enter and remain in the profession, and to reshape concepts of educational leadership.

• Isolation is the enemy of improvement: Instructional leadership to support standards-based practice
  http://www.wested.org

  Instructional leaders must understand the demands of standards-based instruction and foster the conditions that support it. This book by Kate Jamentz of WestEd's Western Assessment Collaborative is designed to assist principals and teacher leaders in this effort.

• Leading School Improvement: What Research Says
  http://www.sreb.org/main/leadership/pubs/leadingschool_improvement.asp

  Leading School Improvement: What Research Says by Gary Hoachlander, Martha Alt and Renee Beltranena, MPR Associates Inc, Berkeley, CA was supported by a grant awarded to the Southern Regional Education Board from the Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds. This review of the literature presents much of the best thinking about practices that promote student achievement and their connection to educational leadership. It shows that there is a common consensus about what leaders need to know and be able to do to lead schools in which students are successful.

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This resource is developed and maintained by The Education Alliance at Brown University. Seed funding was provided by the U.S. Department of Education. Send comments to: loom@alliance.brown.edu