As it turns out, a little-known component of the Every Student Success Act (ESSA) will create opportunities to support the lynchpins of school success: principals.
Over the last decade, research has made clear that school leaders play a critical role in student outcomes. But federal allocations have provided relatively little in the way of financial and professional development resources. Although support for school leaders wasn’t expressly prohibited in the past, most interpretations of ESSA’s predecessor, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), led to an outsized emphasis on teachers. Moreover, direct allocations to individual school districts often diluted scaled investments in leadership—and distracted from the potential benefits of aligned and streamlined development structures for school leaders.
Organizations and companies innovating in leadership and talent development now have a new opportunity to scale at the state level. ESSA now offers state education agencies the chance to set aside up to 3% of their Title II grant money to support activities focused on school leadership. The law guides state education agencies to collaborate with higher education—as well as non-profit and for-profit companies—to provide services that improve principal talent systems (recruitment, certification, evaluation, development, career pathways and compensation), principals’ knowledge of student learning skills and how to implement them, and personnel evaluation and development skills. It also promotes support to local school districts to do the same.
As state education agencies enter the process of developing their state plans this fall, they’ll benefit from partnerships with innovators who can help realize the promise of well-prepared, well-supported school leaders. For more on the new federal law, check out W/A’s ESSA overview.
Sarah Silverman is a Vice President at Whiteboard Advisors, and most recently served as education program director at the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices.
