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“The reform movement put a spotlight on school leadership,
highlighted its importance for school success, made student
achievement the measure of school performance, and demanded
accountability from leaders for results.”
- Arthur
Levine, Educating School Leaders (p.17)
Over the last decade, like its counterparts across the country,
the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) has focused
on the improvement of student achievement through the development
of a strong system of accountability and related initiatives.
The
Wallace Foundation, a non profit organization interested
in the improvement of student achievement, concluded that, “across
the nation, after more than a decade of investments aimed at
improving education performance, strengthening district and
school leadership was a highly promising, but generally undervalued
avenue for catalyzing wide-scale improvements in teaching and
learning,” and subsequently committed resources to this
focus on education leadership.
In February 2001, RIDE applied for and received a design and
implementation grant from the Wallace
Foundation to begin a State
Action for Education Leadership Project (SAELP). The request
for proposals was made available to all states; while Rhode
Island was one of only 15 states awarded the grant. With this
award, and the subsequent cycles of Wallace Foundation funding,
RIDE has begun to realize its vision of a fully integrated,
strategic, and comprehensive statewide system for supporting
highly qualified leaders and high-quality educational leadership
development. Prior to the application for SAELP
funding, the quantity and quality of the initiatives already
underway in Rhode Island were evidence of a beginning focus
on enhancing school and district leaders and leadership. However,
while this focus was manifest in some organization it was not
yet a coordinated statewide effort. SAELP
provided a stimulus and resources for Rhode Island to craft
a unified and coherent system for supporting school leadership
and leaders.
As the Wallace denoted “SAELP” work began, Rhode
Island coined “The Highly Qualified Leaders Project”
name to reflect the alignment of this initiative with its ongoing
focus on the development of highly qualified teachers. The Project
also encompasses the Wallace
Foundation funded
Providence Leadership for Educational Achievement in Districts
(LEAD) project for which Providence was chosen along with
eleven other school districts nationwide.
At the start of the project, a
Policy
Board was formed, in an advisory capacity, to assist in
moving the agenda of work outlined in the Wallace
Foundation’s SAELP grant. This policy board reflects
the priority placed on this work not only by the state’s
elementary, secondary and higher education community, but also
by the RI legislature. The legislature has taken a leadership
role in crafting school
improvement and accountability legislation that has guided
the development of specific statewide policies and programs.
Additionally, a variety of education stakeholders have contributed
to the work thus far and are included in the list of
supporting
organizations.
Demonstration
Sites – Best Practices and Toolkits
“The function of leadership is to cope
with change…to lead change;
skills are needed for creating an attractive vision of the future
and making it a real possibility. The test of good leadership
is the
achievement of intended change in systems and people."
- John Shtogren (ed.), Skyhooks for Leadership: A New Framework
That Brings Together Five Decades of Thought - from Maslow to
Senge
(New York: Amacom, p. 2-3)
As part of the second cycle of SAELP
funding, districts and professional education organizations
responded to RIDE’s request for proposals that defined
the focus of leadership needs in Rhode Island. Each applying
entity chose in which area(s) they wanted to work, in support
of the original framework of the project: recruitment and candidate
pool; prep and pre-service; licensure, certification and program
accreditation; induction; and/or mid-career professional development.
These areas were highlighted after the stakeholders reviewed
the
leadership rubric of guiding questions developed by the
Education Commission
of the States, a document that helped to form their shared
vision. Demonstration sites’ proposals were awarded funding
ranging from $2500 to $20,000.
As of the 2005-2006 school year, 17 districts and organizations
have participated in the project: Bristol Warren Public Schools,
Central Falls Public Schools, Cranston Public Schools, East
Bay Educational Collaborative, The Education Alliance at Brown
University, The Education Partnership, Newport Public Schools,
North Kingstown Public Schools, Pawtucket Public Schools, Providence
College, Rhode Island Association of School Committees, Rhode
Island College, South Kingstown Public Schools, Southern Rhode
Island Regional Collaborative, Smithfield Public Schools, West
Warwick Public Schools and Woonsocket Public Schools.
A network of the demonstration site leaders was formed in 2004
and became operational in 2005, meeting as needed to share and
discuss common issues, successes and challenges. The demonstration
site programs have been very successful at reaching a large
number and diversity of education leaders, some in their own
districts and some across the state.
Click
here to see the most current demographic data. The
Providence
Leadership for Educational Achievement in Districts (LEAD) project
is part of a 15-state initiative funded in 2002 by a separate
grant from the Wallace
Foundation. Providence has partnered with RIDE through this
interrelated initiative to put leadership at the core of systemic
school reform by strengthening and diversifying the pool of
potential leaders, improving the training of leaders and their
professional development, and creating conditions in which they
can do their jobs better. The
LEAD
initiative provides support to districts that enroll large numbers
of low-income students and that show the willingness and capacity
to achieve system-wide reform of leadership that increases student
achievement. Each of the 12 urban districts selected by the
Wallace
Foundation to participate in
LEAD
partners with one or more universities to develop and deliver
a new model of leadership training that prepares aspiring and
practicing school leaders to improve student achievement. Providence
and its partner, the University
of Rhode Island, have designed a leadership preparation
program that they believe will result in better-prepared principals
who can lead urban schools to success. (From “Case
Study: A District-driven Principal Preparation Program Design
- The Providence School Department and the University of Rhode
Island Partnership”.)
The ultimate objective of the demonstration sites has been
to develop
best practices
and toolkits that address statewide needs in the specifics
of the local context. The Highly Qualified Leaders Project Website
is the result of the work of RIDE with members of the Project
Planning Team and in concert with
Providence
LEAD and the demonstration sites. The website serves as
an education leadership development reference guide intended
to be utilized as a tool that provides:
- A base knowledge on the topic of education leadership
- A view of models of successful and tried leadership practices
- A listing of relevant resources and linkages
- A guide to reflect and assess the status of leadership
in an organization.
The primary goal is to connect education leaders to relevant
information about leadership issues and to inventory leadership
efforts intended to change systems and people that are underway
across the state as a result of the work of the demonstration
sites. It provides an opportunity to share the successes of
colleagues and to share ideas that may serve as a catalyst to
assist all leaders in the state with the challenges of bridging
the gap between theory and practice and to provide other schools,
districts and organizations throughout Rhode Island and across
the country with practice-friendly details and tips to develop
their own high-quality and effective education leader and leadership
development programs.
"Leadership is the process of persuasion
or example by which an individual (or leadership team) induces
a group to pursue objectives held by the leaders or shared by
the leader and his or her followers… they are integral
parts of t
he system, subject to forces that affect the system, They perform
(or cause to be performed) certain tasks or functions that are
essential if the group is
to accomplish its purposes.”
- John W. Gardner
The Jossey-Bass Reader on Educational Leadership (2006, p.3)
Priorities, Goals, Guiding Themes and Strategies
From the inception of the project, integrating individual efforts
into one system and developing a continuum from preparation
through professional development and lifelong learning were
overarching priorities and remain so today. The project design
was based on the recognition that Rhode Island, despite many
initiatives addressed to leadership development, lacked an integrating
vision, structure, and process. The work in Rhode Island is
based on the premise that effective leadership includes:
Enhancing the knowledge and skills of leaders,
AND
Improving the working conditions and systems in which they
work
The original goals focused primarily on increasing the size
and quality of the applicant pools for, improving the practice
of, and increasing the retention rates of administrative leaders
(principals and superintendents). With the creative and bold
thinking offered by the demonstration sites, the Highly Qualified
Leaders Project was able to focus as well on other levels of
leadership including, parent leaders, school committee members,
teacher leaders, aspiring principals and novice principals.
The following key messages reflect the critical, guiding themes
addressed by the Highly Qualified Leaders Project:
- There is a direct correlation between improved student
achievement and effective leadership.
- Improved leadership is dependent on a system of a continuum
of appropriately aligned supports.
- Professional development is a necessary tool for all stakeholders
as they work together to enhance the leadership development
process.
- Professional supports must be aligned with current proven
research, problems of practice, and the reform agenda.
- School boards, superintendents, principals, and teachers
need to be empowered with appropriate competencies and authority
to successfully organize human and material resources to support
student learning.
- Governance designs need to focus on shared responsibility
for decision-making that directly improve student learning.
For the second phase of the Wallace
Foundation’s SAELP funding, each of the original 15
states was required to develop and implement two major strategies
that improve the development of leaders and enhance the conditions
of leadership within which they work to lead to improvements
in student learning.
Strategy #1: Create a system of leadership education,
training, and support and align it with the state accountability
system to improve student learning.
This initiative entails two simultaneous thrusts: 1) strengthening
the synapses and coherence between the many education, training,
and support services provided to leaders at the several stages
in their careers, and 2) embedding the essential functions related
to Rhode Island's reform and accountability strategy. District
and school leaders need to be competent in these seven areas
of school performance in order to ensure that each school is
addressing Rhode Island's
Comprehensive
Education Strategy:
- Leading the focus on instruction and achievement
- Guiding the selection and implementation of curriculum,
instruction and assessment.
- Recruiting, supporting and retaining high-quality personnel
- Engaging parents and the community
- Providing safe and supportive environments for students
- Ensuring equity and adequacy of fiscal and human resources
- Using data for planning and accountability
Each of these key functions serves as the anchor for building
school capacity and as the principle vehicle for school reform.
Together they constitute the umbrella of school reform. RI’s
Consolidated
Resource Plan (all of the money that goes to the schools)
is intended to reflect commitment to the seven strategies.
Strategy #2: Align authority and responsibility with
the state reform and accountability system
Both of these strategies are ambitious for different reasons.
The challenge in the first strategy is creating a seamless continuum
of professional preparation, transition, and ongoing training
and support that is collaboratively developed and implemented
by RIDE, the institutions of higher education, professional
associations and organizations, and the school districts. Such
a system will move beyond the islands of preparation and in-service
programs and supports to a coherent and aligned system focused
on leaders and leadership for school reform.
The challenge in the second strategy is bringing together organizations,
groups, and individuals to design and implement a system of
policies, programs, and practices for empowering, through competence
and authority, school board members, superintendents, principals,
and teachers to share accountability for the improvement of
student learning.
Accomplishments and Continuing Challenges
As each demonstration site defined the focus of their initiative,
they were asked to align their work to the strategies laid out
in RIDE’s original proposal to the Wallace Foundation.
These strategies, separated into those that have been successfully
addressed by these groups and those that remain continuing challenges
to Rhode Island,
are
defined here. Most importantly, state protocols such as
the Consolidated
Resource Plan (CRP),
Individualized
Learning Plans (I-Plans), Progressive
Support and Intervention (PS&I), and
School
Accountability for Learning and Teaching (SALT), are now
promoting, accommodating and/or incorporating the critical elements
of leadership development identified as part of the Highly Qualified
Leaders Project.
The Wallace Foundation’s Education Leadership
Initiative
In 2000, the Wallace
Foundation began its education leadership initiative. Its
goal has been to find ways to develop and support effective
school leadership to drive significant improvements in student
learning. After more than a decade of investments aimed at improving
education performance, the Foundation concluded that strengthening
district and school leadership was a highly promising, but generally
undervalued, avenue for catalyzing wide-scale improvements in
teaching and learning. (from SAELP
II RFP)
Click
here to read more about the Wallace Foundation’s SAELP
initiative.