Forum for the American School Superintendent
January 2002
There is a deepening shortage of strong principals and superintendents in American public education, especially those willing to work in urban and rural schools. It is well established that good schools have good principals, and effective school districts have first-rate superintendents. Hence a growing coalition is forming around the effort to improve school leadership. The "Statement of the Wingspread Coalition" is an effort by the Danforth and Johnson foundations, partnered with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds, to spotlight the need to improve the quality of school leaders in the United States. Leaders from these philanthropic organizations gathered in October 2001 with superintendents and principals at the Wingspread Conference Center in Racine, Wisconsin, to define a new grantmaking agenda in this area, one based on the premises that school leaders are learners; that effective leaders are made, not born; and that therefore they can be developed and improved. To these ends, the coalition coalesced around five ideas. They are:
- Urban Schools Leadership Roundtable-to improve big-city schools. The Coalition wants to develop a roundtable that will work to improve education in the nation's 100 largest school districts. (Presumably they know to seek out the Council of the Great City Schools-a coalition of nearly 60 of the nation's largest urban public school systems founded in 1956 to improve urban education.)
- Presidential Commission or Conference on School Leadership-to develop future leaders. The Coalition urges the President to use his "bully pulpit" to elevate national consciousness around today's shortages of teachers, principals, principals, and superintendents, etc.
- Leaders as Learners. The Coalition calls for helping current superintendents and principals reshape their responsibilities from management and administration to transformational leadership of learning organizations.
- New Thinking for New Times. The Coalition seeks "break the mold" thinking about the leadership and direction of schools. (It does not, however, advocate opening the leadership ranks to non-traditional candidates from corporate, nonprofit, military and business backgrounds. This seems a wasted opportunity.)
- A Forum on Race, Class and Gender-to develop a sense of urgency about continuing inequities.
If this report is seen as part of a larger dialogue that seeks to include other ideas and partners, then it is a useful piece of a greater enterprise. Taken alone, it's too limited in depth and scope to have much impact. To get a copy, contact The Forum for the American School Superintendent at [email protected] or call 206-526-5336.—Terry Ryan
