Overview

This guide is designed to offer strategies for building leadership capacity in schools and to assist school administrators in finding new ways to encourage and support teachers and students in their efforts to succeed. The guide answers four questions: (1) What do leaders do to create curriculum and instruction that push all students to higher levels of proficiency? (2) How do school leaders demonstrate that nearly all students--with their own effort and that of teachers and administrators--can master challenging curricula? (3) How do leaders generate the efforts of many to focus on the success of every student? ( 4 ) How can leaders put these ideas into practice? The guide is intended to give school leaders and school-system leaders practical ideas for encouraging and supporting effort as a means of improving student performance. Building leadership capacity means using effort to elicit effort from others. All members of the education community play significant roles. School boards need to promote programs and activities that encourage and support effort by the community. Administrators need to exhibit day-to-day behaviors that encourage and support effort by teachers and students. Teachers need to challenge students with rigorous, meaningful assignments and provide the extra time and support for students to complete them. Students need to understand that today's effort leads to tomorrow's success.