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Roles of Each Partner
In addition to conducting the research that led to the genesis of the program, FCCF secured the financial resources to start and sustain the program, contributing real dollars and in-kind support, and worked with individual donors and other foundations to obtain full funding. Leveraging relationships and professional connections, FCCF executives curriculum, facilitated collaboration across the multiple organizations, and served as the central instructor for the program. The professors from Hofstra and board members brought prospective donors to USLF sessions, allowing advocates of educational improvement to see the promise of the fellows as well as the rigorous learning exercises in which they took part.
The Connecticut Center for School Change is an organization with distinct expertise in district-level leadership coaching around systemic improvement. The Center also has a well-developed infrastructure – from administrative support to curriculum design – for supporting high-quality leadership development programs. Consequently, the Center provides much of the back-office support to the program while providing leadership for curriculum development. Center staff also teach within the program, sharing experience and expertise about school-level leadership with the fellows.
The institutions of higher education have contributed different expertise to the partnership. The University of Connecticut faculty member researches and works with numerous districts on issues of systemic instructional improvement and instructional leadership. He led the development of the University and Bank Street College possess expertise in evaluating leadership development programs. These faculty members serve as external evaluators, systemically studying the efficacy of the program. They provide a fresh and unbiased perspective, feeding back patterns they observe and raising issues and questions of program structure, content, and implementation for the USLF faculty to consider.
USLF is an inter-organizational collaboration that attempts to identify and leverage the most appropriate and advantageous contribution of all the partners. The University of Connecticut faculty member does not help fellows solve day-to-day dilemmas – from scheduling to discipline – that tax the lives of urban leaders. District leaders do not try to provide theoretical frameworks that offer new means of seeing and reflecting upon leadership practice. Evaluators do not raise money for the program. Instead, the respective partners work at what they do best.
Successes and Challenges
USLF faculty members, district administrators, and foundation executives are believers in this new leadership development partnership. The program is job embedded and experiential, the curriculum challenging and relevant. Fellows reported the program had a positive impact on who they are as educational leaders. Here are some typical comments:
USLF fellows experienced changes in their practice as a result of participation in three areas: using data to monitor progress and solve problems, providing professional development, and engaging others in change efforts. Fellows gained new leadership perspectives, developed a shared understanding of quality instruction, demonstrated improvement in leadership skills, and led teams in new ways. Eighty-five percent to 90 percent of the fellows rated the program as excellent in providing highly relevant content on leadership, urban schools, and instructional improvement.
Other signs of success have also emerged. FCCF secured the funding required to support the 2009–2010 cohort. There were more applications for the second year’s cohort, and thirty-seven candidates were selected. District leaders are beginning to report systemic results, noting how USLF is impacting hiring practices and other professional development. Fellows from the 2008–2009 cohort continue to meet on their own or with support from their central office and the Connecticut Center for School Change. Four fellows, one from each district, have been hired as principals.
Despite these accomplishments, the USLF program still has much work to do in terms of its larger goal of transforming the districts. Liz City, Richard Elmore, Sarah Fiarman, and Lee Teitel (2009) write in their new book that instructional improvement at scale requires that professional development move beyond individuals and groups of educators to the school and district level. They suggest that improvement efforts have to become embedded in the district’s DNA and central to the core work of the district. The USLF program was developed and implemented not solely as high-quality professional development for individual aspiring leaders, but as a central element in changing the organizational conditions of how districts support instructional improvement.
