- A Bold Move to Better Prepare Principals: The Illinois Story
- (October 2016). This is a four-part video series that explores Illinois’ actions to revamp the way school principals are prepared. The series begins with the tale of how the state of Illinois and its partners, including universities, districts and teachers’ unions, accomplished this change. Two of the videos profile exemplary preparation programs at the University of Illinois at Chicago and New Leaders Chicago, which helped to inspire the higher standards and whose graduates effectively lead Chicago public schools. The final video features Chicago principals who describe how their training programs prepared them for the real demands of their jobs.
- State Policy to Develop Excellent Principals: A Washington Brief
- How can state policy improve the effectiveness of school principals? Educators, including New York State’s commissioner of education gathered in Washington, D.C., on November 3, 2015, to discuss a major Wallace Foundation report that seeks to answer that question. Keynote speaker Paul Manna, professor of government and public policy at the College of William & Mary and the author of the report, Developing Excellent School Principals to Advance Teaching and Learning: Considerations for State Policy, summarized key findings from his research. He described three matters policymakers must understand before taking action: principals’ place on their state’s policy agenda; six possible levers that could trigger change; and their state’s unique context, including the ways in which key education-related institutions interact.
- School Leadership in Action: Principal Practices
- (2015). This video series follows 10 principals in four metropolitan areas through their workdays, showing how they use five practices of effective school leadership to improve teaching and learning in their classrooms. The practices, described in The School Principal as Leader, are based on more than a decade of Wallace-supported research to identify what successful principals do.
- Six Superintendents’ Experiences Building Principal Pipelines
- (2015). Six large school districts have been participating since 2011 in The Wallace Foundation’s Principal Pipeline Initiative, a six-year effort to train, hire and support talented principals. In this series of eight videos, the superintendents of these districts discuss details of their effort, lessons they have learned and advice they can offer to other districts. Many of the experiences they recount are detailed in a January 2015 report about the initiative, one in a series by independent researchers evaluating the effort.
- The Principal Story Learning Guide
- (May 2014). This web-based professional learning guide uses excerpts from the award-winning PBS documentary film, The Principal Story, to illustrate the five practices. The guide is intended to help those who prepare and support aspiring and current principals probe these essential practices. Use this facilitator guide to explore options for using these tools.
- Wallace Foundation Videos: “Great School Leadership in Action.
- (April 2013). These videos ask, “What makes for an effective principal?” And they answer: Five practices, done well. Listen as 13 school leaders talk about how they have put those practices to work. Identified by local administrators for their efforts to boost teaching and learning, often under difficult circumstances, the principals come from districts receiving Wallace Foundation grants to improve school leadership.
- THE PRINCIPAL STORY
- (September 2009) – a critically-acclaimed PBS documentary that follows two school leaders determined to make successes of the difficult schools they lead – with specially-prepared materials to help users promote excellence among principals. Videos and conversation guides can be used by principals, state or district officials, policymakers and concerned parents.
