Research review kicks off:

largest-ever study of links
between educational leadership and student achievement

Does school leadership make a direct difference in students' achievement levels? If so, how and how much? What patterns of leadership-distributed across states, districts, and schools-are most productive? Until now, answers to these questions have relied more on faith than on fact.

However, a five-year study, "Learning from Leadership," based at the University of Minnesota and OISE/UT intends to provide scientifically-based answers to the question of influence of specific leadership actions on student learning and concrete advice on how best to prepare future school leaders. The $3.5 million study is being funded by The Wallace Foundation.

The first project, "Review of Research: How Leadership Influences Student Learning," completed by the research team, released this week, is a review of research literature that shows:

Leadership not only matters: it is second only to teaching in its impact on student learning. While evidence about the influence of leadership on student learning can be confusing to interpret, much of the existing research actually underestimates its effects. The total (direct and indirect) effects of leadership on student learning account for about a quarter of total school outcomes.

The power of leadership tends to be greatest in schools where the learning needs of students are most acute. No troubled school can be turned around without a strong leader at the helm.

The chances of any reform improving student learning is remote unless district and school leaders agree with its purposes and appreciate what is required to make it work.

"This review of the available evidence makes important headway in clarifying just how much leadership matters to meet the challenge of promoting the learning of all children," said M. Christine DeVita, president of The Wallace Foundation. "What it also makes clear is that we have undervalued and under-reported the importance of leadership to student learning for far too long and are now in a position to pay greater attention to what will make a difference for school improvement."

The research review supports the present widespread interest in improving leadership as a key to the successful implementation of large-scale reform. The Learning from Leadership study hopes to provide current and future educational leaders with specific, research-based advice that will allow them to be successful in improving student learning and achievement.

"Further research will help us to better understand successful leadership practices and how those practices seep into the fabric of the educational system to improve students' learning," says Kyla Wahlstrom, lead investigator for the study and director of the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement at the University of Minnesota.

"Most efforts to improve schools rise or fall on the quality of the leadership provided to them," said Kenneth Leithwood co-lead investigator of the study at OISE/UT (with Stephen Anderson). "Leadership acts a catalyst for the changes that must be made to significantly improve student learning. Our study has enormous potential to teach us much more about both the nature of successful leadership and how it works at all levels in the school system."

Contacts:

Peggy Rader, College of Education and Human Development, 612-626-8782, rader004@umn.edu

Jessica Schwartz, The Wallace Foundation, 212-251-9711, jschwartz@wallacefoundation.org

Review of Research: How Leadership Influences Student Learning (PDF)

Published: September 2004, 87 pages

Author(s): Kenneth Leithwood, Karen Seashore Louis, Stephen Anderson and Kyla Wahlstrom

Publishing Organization: Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement and Ontario Institute for Studies in Education