components. The study looked in-depth
at eight exemplary programs1 and found
that they
; Explicitly recruit dynamic teachers
and leaders into programs that focus
on instructional and organizational
transformation.
; Create a theoretically rich and
practice-sensitive curriculum linking
theory to practice.
; Wrap relevant coursework around
field-based experiences organized so
that candidates learn a coherent form of
practice from expert leaders and
instructors.
numeracy over three successive years
(Ontario Ministry of Education, 2009).
These schools have collaborative
cultures; focus on specific, high-yield
instructional practices; have distributed
leadership clearly headed by the principal; use assessment data precisely to
improve learning; and participate in
learning networks with other schools. A
job-embedded internship in such a
school enables the developing leader to
experience up close what effective
leaders do to get results.
And it works. On almost every
component, graduates of the exemplary
point of education reform is to make all
schools highly effective. And for that,
leadership development programs need
to focus on developing not just individuals, but also organizations and systems.
Leadership development needs
to be job-embedded, organization-
embedded, and system-embedded.
; Blend coaching that models and
supports practice with analytic work
that clarifies the basis for practice.
; Create cohorts of professionals who
learn to collaborate and turn to one
another for learning and resources.
; Secure the financial support and
other material resources that allow
candidates to spend significant time
learning about practice in practice.
These programs focus on the nitty-gritty of success. By that, I mean
apprentice leaders have the opportunity
to observe, participate in, and learn
from a specific set of processes that
exemplify high-quality leadership in
action. Successful job-embedded leadership development programs place their
candidates in schools such as those
identified by Ontario’s Schools on the
Move initiative, which have registered
strong achievement gains in literacy and
programs studied by Darling-Hammond
and colleagues (2009) had significantly
more positive perceptions of the quality
of their experiences than did those in a
national sample (typically 4. 4 on a 5-
point scale, compared with 3. 5).
Even so, job-embedded leadership
development is not enough. Why not?
If you look closely, most job-embedded
programs are individualistic. They may
include cohorts, mentors, and coaches,
but such components are primarily in
the service of producing better individual leaders.
A developing leader who receives a
strong apprenticeship in an exemplary
school is not necessarily prepared to
take on his or her first job in a less-than-exemplary school—to tackle the
challenge of improving another organization. There are not enough exemplary
schools to go around. Indeed, the main
Organization-Embedded Learning
Organization-embedded leadership
development focuses directly on
improving the organization—its culture,
structure, and processes. As City,
Elmore, Fiarman, and Teitel (2009)
make clear in their groundbreaking
Instructional Rounds in Education, this
work is difficult:
You can tighten up on standards and
incentives, raising the level of expected
performance. You can clarify the content
you expect to be covered . . . and adopt
curriculum materials to support that. You
can fill the system with information about
student performance and create the
expectation that people will monitor and
change the practice. You can provide
training and professional development for
teachers and administrators and you can
provide support for schools that are
building higher-level instructional practice. The aggregate effect of these measures is that some schools move in the
desired direction; some essentially stay
where they are . . . and typically some
schools actually continue to get worse
against an increasingly challenging
standard. (p. 36)
Organization-embedded learning is
essential to meaningful leadership
development. Although the 2009
Darling-Hammond study found that
participants in job-embedded leadership
development programs felt more qualified to lead on just about every important dimension, an additional finding
from that study is telling. Principals
who graduated from the exemplary
programs and a sample of comparison
principals who graduated from typical
programs were asked to rate their
schools on a scale of 1–5 on three
school improvement strategies (teacher
