The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs--which prepare the majority of school principals--have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. To test a path forward, The…

Over half of U.S. public school students are children and teens of color, yet only about 8 percent of their teachers and administrators are people of color. Convinced that teacher and leader diversity is an essential component of an equitable education for all students, state boards of education have adopted a variety of strategies to attract,…

The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs -- which prepare the majority of school principals -- have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. This report shares lessons…

This report in brief shares findings from the RAND Corporation's five-year study of The Wallace Foundation's University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI). The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs (PPPs)--which prepare the…

State policymakers, including state leaders, districts, and professional associations, play a role in fostering an environment that supports the development of effective school principals, with the broad policy objective of achieving high principal quality across the state. This report examines how seven states use state policy levers to advance…

States play a role in fostering an environment that develops and supports effective school leaders. Prior research has highlighted opportunities to enhance state involvement in supporting school leadership through a range of policy levers, especially by promoting improvements to principal preparation (Manna, 2015; Davis, 2016). The Wallace…

Federal education funding has often been overlooked by districts in search of sources of support for prevention. This guide is intended to help school districts take advantage of those funds by identifying K-12 grant programs in the U.S. Department of Education (ED) that could be used to implement prevention efforts in elementary and secondary…

Improving teacher preparation is critical to long-term improvement in teacher quality. More than 200,000 new teachers enter classrooms each year. Increasing student enrollment, the retirement of baby boom generation teachers, and high attrition in their first five years (between 40 and 50 percent of new teachers leave the profession) have…

The program profiles presented in this paper provide background for the research report "Building Local Leadership for Change: A National Scan of Parent Leadership Training Programs." The full report describes four types of parent leadership training programs identified in the scan and gives examples of each. These four types are: (1)…

School district administrator openings are occurring across Texas and many other states at an increasing rate. The high rate of turnover in the superintendency has become a national problem. Texas was chosen for the study due to the total number of school districts in the state and the high percent of rural districts. The other selected states,…

Although states have maintained a focus on recruiting and retaining teachers, many schools and districts still face daunting challenges in ensuring a qualified and competent teaching corps. It is particularly difficult for schools considered hard to staff-those with high concentrations of low-performing, low-income students; high teacher turnover;…