With Wallace Foundation Support, New Study Finds Principal Development Pipelines Both Beneficial and Affordable
It's no secret to readers of IP that the Wallace Foundation believes in the importance of high-quality school principals. More than any K-12 funder in the country, Wallace places school leadership front and center of its education funding. In the last few years, the funder has put more than $100 million into initiatives aimed at improving programs and pipelines for developing principals.
Wallace's emphasis on school leadership makes a lot of sense. A rich body of research places principals second only to effective teachers as the most important in-school factor influencing student academic performance.
Principals manage school facilities, supervise students and staff, and serve as their schools' instructional leaders, observing classrooms and coaching teachers to improve their instruction. While there is plenty of research evidence supporting the value of developing excellent principals, there has been a dearth of research on the cost of actually doing so...