Effective leadership promotes student achievement
Tim Waters, CEO of Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL), told the audience at a workshop Sunday that school leaders can have an important influence on student achievement.
In fact, research by the Denver-based McREL dispels the myth propagated by former Education Secretary William Bennett, who called a district’s administrators and school board a “blob” that drains resources from students and classroom.
A meta-analysis by Waters and McREL Senior Fellow Robert J. Marzano found that “when district leaders effectively address specific responsibilities, they can have a profound, positive impact on student achievement in their districts.”
So how can a superintendent be effective in raising student achievement? The answer, according to Waters, is to set goals on teaching and learning and keep the district focused on meeting them. This means:
• including all relevant stakeholders—central office staff, building-level administrators, and school board members—in establishing the goals;
• ensuring that the collaborative goal-setting process results in non-negotiable goals that all staff members must act on;
• ensuring that the school board is aligned with and supports the goals and that the goals remain the board’s primary focus;
• monitoring district progress toward meeting the goals; and
• allocating sufficient resources—time, money, personnel, and materials—toward accomplishing the goals.
The research also found a superintendent’s tenure positively correlated with student achievement. According to Waters, a district with stability—as long as the superintendent is focused on the right priorities—is more likely to have improved student achievement.
The research results are mixed when it comes to the impact of site-based management on student achievement.
Waters suggested that superintendents provide principals with “defined autonomy.” This means the superintendent sets clear, non-negotiable goals for learning and instruction yet provides school leadership teams with the responsibility and authority for determining how to meet those goals.
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