Developing and Sustaining School Principals: Lessons from the Greater New Orleans School Leadership Center

Introduction

Being a principal is tough work—rewarding for many, but tough for all. In some locations, attitudes toward school leadership seem paradoxical. Reformers, members of the public, and many education professionals, for example, view principals as absolutely key to successful school improvement, even when such improvement is initiated by others (e.g., Wikeley, Stoll, Murillo, & De Jong, 2005). At the same time, salaries paid to principals in many U.S. states, at least, offer almost no material incentive for teachers to seriously consider volunteering to work the additional 15 or 20 hours per week that has become the norm for ...