Educational Leadership » Resources

Available resources:

• Professional Organizations
• Centers for Educational Leadership
• Supporting Foundations
• Professional Development Providers

Supporting Foundations

Increasingly, foundations are supporting the development of innovative programming for educational leaders. For example, the Wallace Foundation is the leading funder in the field of educational leadership preparation, development, and research. The work supported by these funders has dramatically impacted the state of the field and continues to promote innovation and change. In this section we briefly describe the two national foundations that are leading the privately-funded work in educational leadership.

Broad Foundation
The Broad Foundation’s mission is to “dramatically improve K-12 urban public education through better governance, management, labor relations and competition.” To achieve that goal, the Foundation has funded a number of initiatives including the Broad Center for the Management of School Systems to raise student achievement by recruiting, training and supporting executive leadership talent from across America to become the next generation of urban school district leaders.

The Center operates two executive development programs: The Broad Superintendents Academy and The Broad Residency in Urban Education. As the program is still very new, there is no information posted of the impacts of the residency on factors related to student outcomes.

The Broad Residency in Urban Education is a two-year management training program for “talented emerging executives” who want to lead urban school districts for “significant impact.” The program recruits graduates of top business, law, and public policy schools who have at least 4 years of management experience in the private, not-for-profit or government sectors. Residents are immediately placed in high-level management positions in urban districts and report directly to the district superintendent. They are given responsibility for major projects in their respective districts, such as opening new schools, and earn salaries in the range of $80-90,000 per year.

During the two-year program, residents participate in eight training sessions across the US. Course fees and travel are covered by the program. Instructional methods include case studies, site visits, lectures, expert panels, readings, and interactive projects that focus on the context of and challenges to urban education in the current accountability environment.

The curriculum includes coursework in instruction management (the achievement gap, standards and accountability, instructional leadership, etc.); operations (becoming an effective manager and team member, a 360 assessment from colleagues, and participation in coaching sessions); district strategy (through case study materials addressing the challenge of how a failing district becomes a high-performing one).

It is expected that graduates will be hired by a district whose superintendent is a graduate of the Broad Foundation’s companion Superintendents’ Academy. The Residency Program assists graduates in securing positions. To date there have been 45 Broad residents in 16 districts. Currently, 22 large urban districts have indicated an interest in hiring graduates of the Broad Residency in Urban Education. Of the first graduating class, over 90% are working in the arena of urban education reform.

Wallace Foundation
The Wallace Foundation’s mission is “to enable institutions to expand learning and enrichment opportunities for all people.” To achieve the mission, the Wallace Foundation focuses on three objectives: strengthening education leadership to enhance student achievement; improving after-school learning opportunities; and expanding participation in arts and culture involvement.

Within their focus on Education Leadership are two major initiatives:

• Policy framework initiative: A policy framework for enabling educational leaders to improve student achievement
• State Action for Educational Leadership Project (SAELP), helps states to strengthen their laws and policies with regard to improved working conditions, pre-service and professional development programs, and licensing and certification processes for educational leaders to enhance their performance in improving teaching and learning.

Leadership for Educational Achievement in Districts (LEAD) has involved 12 “high-need” local school districts in SAELP states in efforts to better connect leadership policies and practices at the state, district, school, and classroom levels to improve student achievement. These efforts include forging district-university and district-community partnerships, developing coaching and principal induction programs, creating distributive leadership structures, and improving educational focus and accountability systems.

Commissioned research: Research published by the Foundation and its collaborators that expands understanding of issues related to school leadership.