About Us

As part of the Arizona Leadership Project, states have been leading a national effort to ensure that their laws and policies strengthen, rather than inhibit, the capacity of education leaders to improve teaching and learning, as well as to harvest and spread useful knowledge on a broad scale. For more information about Arizona’s goals and breakthrough ideas: Executive Summary.

Our efforts include three breakthrough Ideas:

1. commitment to institutionalize long-term leadership development
2. implement incentives for accomplished leaders
3. link leadership to student learning.

Commitment to institutionalize leadership development entails corralling all players around a long-term vision favoring shared responsibility for building leadership capacity and creating supportive conditions that lead to improved achievement for students.

Implementing incentives for accomplished leaders involves establishing a system to identify and publically recognize highly accomplished educational leaders which will provide models of effective practice to others.

Linking leadership to student learning means individual leaders and leadership teams will build the knowledge and skills needed to focus professional efforts in their school or district. Building leadership capacity includes organizing and implementing a system of preparation, professional development, coaching, and online support.

One strategy used to link leadership to student learning is to create a comprehensive system of professional development. One portion of professional development is provided through a leadership coaching model. The Arizona Leadership Project provides coaches to superintendents and principals.

Experienced principals and superintendents have been hired to serve as leadership coaches.

Coaches were selected based on the following criteria:

• leadership skills in improving student achievement.
• successful mentoring of adults in administrative positions
• background in working with diverse groups of students and adults
• excellent oral and written communication skills
• strong analytical and problem solving proficiencies
• experience in analyzing and using data to influence a continuous change process
• knowledge of best practices in education
• excellent human relations abilities

Beyond the initial training, coaches meet periodically and continue their support, research and dialogue online through Leadership Coaches discussion, accessed by logging in on this website. They also participate in the ongoing institutes and trainings in which their assigned school improvement teams participate.

Some of the topics for ongoing training include the following:

• ISLLC Administrative Standards review
• relationship building strategies with clients
• effective coaching techniques
• professional development planning
• the latest research on urban and rural schools and poverty
• use of data to improve instruction and student achievement
• use of web resources dedicated to this project

Click here for Leadership Coaching information.