Executive Summary of Proposed Project: The Oregon Leadership Network (OLN)

The demographics of Oregon students are rapidly changing and the need to support those who are most vulnerable and have the highest needs is paramount. To address this challenge, Oregon will strengthen its education system by ensuring there is strong and effective leadership that drives high-quality teaching and learning. Oregon’s approach is to createtransformational, aligned systems of leadership development that include the alignment of leadership standards with leadership training, a stable and sustainable funding structure,and an evaluation process that can support, improve and assess leadership practice by linking driver behaviors with leadership standards. This ensures that the “critical bridge” across multiple strategies creates genuine and sustainable change (Knapp, Copland, Plecki, & Porkin, 2006).

Over the past six years, the State has created policy and practice improvements that enhance leader development. However, there is still much to do within this vital work. Oregon remains committed to strengthening its school and district leadership development. At this juncture, five essential and integrated strategies interact with our condition of assessing leadership effectiveness to create the aligned system of leadership development that embodies theOregon Leadership Network:

  1. Enhance pre-service preparation programs by focusing on recruitment and retention, aligning policy and practice, developing leader performance tools, and researching alternative paths to licensure.
  2. Develop principal and superintendent induction programs that are aligned with standards and contribute to leadership effectiveness through State legislation (HB2574), Beginning Administrator Institutes and continuing licensure performance evaluation.
  3. Implement the Oregon Leadership Network Institutes to sustain leadership development through structured opportunities to learn, collaborate, and build on best practice
  4. Utilization of Professional Learning Initiatives to ensure flexibility and innovation in ongoing professional development that reaches all levels of the Leadership Continuum.
  5. Create an Oregon Leadership Network State Consortium used to increase district access to research and best practice, report progress across the state to local and national policy makers and build capacity among non-OLN districts

These five strategies come together under the umbrella of The Oregon Leadership Network (OLN). The OLN will have a tremendous impact on Oregon’s current leadership system as evidenced by: 1) increased quantities of diverse and culturally competent instructional leaders throughout the system; 2) instructional improvement and eliminated achievement/opportunity gaps; 3) improved capability to determine the behaviors that drive standards; 4) frequent use of valid measurement tools to assess leadership effectiveness based on behavioral standards; 5) articulation of state leadership standards that reflect local realities; 6) strengthened networks that help build statewide capacity; 7) sharpened accountability that “transforms leadership to new heights;”8) sustainable partnerships with higher education;9) increased culture of inquiry and support; 10) growth in statewide awareness and understanding of how effective leadership can contribute to improved student performance.

All strategies and outcomes listed above build upon the leadership work that Oregon has done for the past six years. Oregon has already laid the groundwork for pre-service preparation and induction by revising state administrative standards and crafting mentoring legislation at the state level. Now, Oregon seeks to take the work further by taking the lessons learned to scale and sharing the best practices with other urban, high-need districts across the state. The work will also grow because of Oregon’s choice to weave the chosen condition of assessing leadership performance into all levels of the aligned leadership continuum. In the next three years, Oregon educators will have a strengthened system of leadership development grounded in powerful performance measures and success.