Principal Pipeline

School Leadership

February 15, 2021

Principal effectiveness matters for student outcomes, and strong principal pipelines matter for principal effectiveness. School districts looking to invest in such principal pipelines can use this guide to find the most promising federal funding sources to support their work.

What’s in the toolkit?

A self-study guide for districts, a pipeline financing guide, a sustainability guide, a guide for school districts, quality measures self-study tool, progress continuum and quality measures partnership effectiveness continuum

Principal Pipeline Self-Study Guide for Districts

This guide is designed to help school districts take stock of and improve their policies, processes and structures related to school leadership.

Strong Pipelines, Strong Principals

A Guide for Leveraging Federal Sources to Fund Principal Pipelines. This guide can help school district decision-makers understand the federal funding sources that can be tapped to develop sound principal pipelines.

Principal Pipeline Sustainability Guide

This guide explains what it takes to sustain an effective principal pipeline and provides tools to help school district teams keep the pipeline going.

Assistant Principal Advancement to the Principalship

A Guide for School Districts This guide can help school districts that want to examine and improve how they prepare assistant principals for the principal’s job.

Quality Measures: Principal Preparation Program Self-Study Toolkit

This self-assessment toolkit can help principal preparation program leaders and others assess the quality of pre-service principal training.

Quality Measures: University Principal Preparation Initiative

Program Redesign Progress Continuum

Quality Measures: Partnership Effectiveness Continuum

This tool is designed to help guide discussions between school districts and principal training providers interested in forming effective partnerships.

Self-Study Guide for Districts

Recent research demonstrates the important difference that building comprehensive and aligned principal pipelines can make in districts and schools. Implementation studies have analyzed in depth how school districts can strategically put in place policies, processes and infrastructures to strengthen school leadership. Research on achievement effects has shown that schools in these districts with newly placed principals outperformed comparison schools to a statistically significant and meaningful extent over three years.

This guide offers help for districts looking to create and operate a principal pipeline, based on the research evidence.

Key Takeaways

With the American Rescue Plan Act providing billions of additional dollars for education, school districts interested in strengthening their principal pipelines may need help navigating the federal funding landscape.
Principal effectiveness matters for student outcomes, and strong principal pipelines matter for principal effectiveness. Districts looking to invest in principal pipelines can use this guide to find the most promising federal funding sources.