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The idea that education leadership is key to improving teaching barely registered among policymakers in 2000. A decade later, however, officials from the federal Department of Education to individual school buildings agree on the necessity of strengthening the corps of principals leading the nation’s lowest-performing schools. They also acknowledge that the task is complex and difficult. This report on Wallace’s 2009 national education leadership conference takes stock of how far the field has come in the last ten years and looks at the crucial issues in leadership today, such as improving principal training programs and changing district offices so they focus squarely on what principals need to improve schools. It also offers ideas and insights from prominent researchers in the field as well as from leaders in federal and state government, central district offices and schools. Conference speakers quoted include U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan; Delaware Governor Jack Markell; Adrian Fenty, mayor of Washington, D.C.; district superintendents Joel Klein of New York City and Michelle Rhee of Washington, D.C.; and the two principal-protagonists of The Principal Story, a PBS documentary.

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