School leaders pour time and energy into others all day, every day. To keep them energized and build their capacity to lead, principals need to connect with others and engage in conversation around effective practices. A new model of professional development known as Edcamp offers a place where school leaders can stay abreast of emerging practices…

The author looks through Albert Bandura's self-efficacy lens onto the effects it likely has on school principals' effectiveness. Self-efficacy should be viewed as a principal's belief in his or her capabilities to structure a particular course of action in order to produce desired outcomes. Principal self-efficacy has been linked with effective…

The idea that principals should focus more closely on teaching and learning did not emerge prominently until the mid-1990s. Then educators and policy makers began to realize that school leadership matters to student achievement. In a dozen years of working with states, districts, researchers and others, the Wallace Foundation has pinpointed five…

Interim assessments are hot in American schools. Also called benchmark or periodic tests, these assessments are given every four to nine weeks to check on students' progress. Although interim assessments are an important tool for school improvement, they are easy to misuse. In the author's work coaching principals in a number of districts, he has…

Most new principals are thrown into the job to sink or swim. This article describes how a well-designed mentoring program can be one of the best ways to ensure success if schools are going to improve. In 2002, realizing the need for high-quality administrators, the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP) identified six key…

The Common Core of Standards project has strong national support, but it will not succeed if it doesn't involve teachers in grassroots development activities. The initiative should involve local consortia of schools in working with the new standards, assessments, and support tools. Local teachers would design teaching units and then share these…

Current research points to five essential categories defining principals' responsibilities: defining and communicating a mission, managing curriculum and instruction, supervising teaching, monitoring student progress, and promoting an effective instructional climate. The Illinois Administrators' Academy offers a statewide leadership development…

Describes New Jersey's Academy for the Advancement of Teaching and Management, a central, state-funded training center designed to improve students' education by sharpening teachers' and administrators' professional skills. The program's success depends on three critical qualities--relevance, consistency, and continuity. (MLH)

To substantially raise student achievement, the U.S. must address serious problems in educational leadership. Most analysts support proposals for the initial training and professional development of all principals and superintendents across the board. This type of widespread help is needed, but in the author's view, it is important to concentrate…

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg (North Carolina) Public Schools have replaced checklists with a result-based, profit-sharing administrator evaluation system that rewards educational excellence and provides principals with needed assistance or support. Effective principals enjoy substantial autonomy; marginal principals receive massive central-office…

Has the culture of accountability become a culture of fear for school leaders? In this article, the authors share the stories of three successful principals whose careers and reputations were altered by the impact of a set of test scores. The authors suggest that perhaps this culture of educational accountability, created by well-intended policy…

When administrators put their ideas into writing, they produce a durable public record. An administrator's paper trail should compliment rather than haunt its creator. Effective communicators treat writing as a reflective process that helps sharpen and clarify ideas and considers both audience and purpose. (Contains 17 references.) (MLH)

A study of Chicago school reform revealed that principals of productive elementary schools skillfully use various strategies to promote parents' and teachers' work with children. These include resolving highly visible problems quickly, focusing on the instructional core, adopting strategic orientation, attacking incoherence, involving parents, and…

Reflecting on 43 interviews with eminent educational leaders from all backgrounds and political stripes, the author isolates five common characteristics: a bedrock belief in their work's usefulness, courage to swim upstream on behalf of their beliefs, possession of a social conscience, seriousness of purpose, and situational mastery. (MLH)

Leaders bring to new jobs their values and vision, the authority of their position, and their reputation and accomplishments. How new superintendents conduct themselves during the critical entry/"honeymoon" phase affects their subsequent working relationships and leadership effectiveness. Structured interviews with staff, parents, and…