Enhancing Leadership Quality

Effective school leaders may be the linchpin of a successful school system. Research has identified school leadership quality as second only to teacher quality in its influence on student achievement. Therefore, investments and strategies that aim to attract and retain more high quality school leaders through better preparation, licensure, recruitment and hiring, induction and mentoring, professional development, working conditions, compensation, and performance management are likely to lead to improvements in student achievement. Indeed, efforts to raise the quality of the U.S. public school system are unlikely to succeed without attention to the crucial issue of school leadership.

This publication summarizes three key issues in this topic area:

• Enhancing teacher leadership
• Identifying how highly effective leaders support teachers
• Improving the preparation of school and district leaders