A nonprofit charitable foundation has spent six years partnering with a group of school districts across the country to develop a pipeline of “equity-minded” school leaders — and create a support system to help keep them on the job.
Since 2021, the Wallace Foundation, a philanthropic organization dedicated to advancing educational leadership, has given multi-year grants to eight large urban school districts to develop effective principals, according to a report on the grant. The foundation specifically worked with school districts in which a large share of students came from low-income families.
The school districts were in Baltimore, Columbus, Ohio; the District of Columbia; Fresno; Jefferson County, Kentucky; Portland, Oregon; San Antonio; and Winston-Salem/Forsyth County, North Carolina. Each of them developed a unique strategy to develop school leaders who ensure all students have access to opportunities to succeed.
“One of the great missions of public schooling is to create learning environments where everybody’s got an equal chance,” Rich Halverson, a co-author of the report and a professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says. “And I think that the equity-centered schooling discussion really focuses on those features of public schooling that need to be improved so everybody can start with an even playing field.”
In Fresno, for example, the city’s school district used its grant to help recruit and retain a diverse pool of educators, according to the report. The central California school district created an affinity group — a network of educators from similar backgrounds — to help bolster the recruitment and retention of principals and assistant principals of color.
Fresno Unified worked with the advocacy organization Men of Color in Educational Leadership to bring in mentors for the affinity group. The school district also created another affinity group for Black women educators leaders.
Fresno Unified retained a higher share of its leaders of color over the first four years of the initiative, according to the report.
In the 2023-24 school year, for example, the district hired 141 principals of color. That number increased to 150 the following year. Although it is difficult to pinpoint whether the affinity groups were responsible for the increase in leaders of color, Kim Villescaz, the executive director for the leadership development department at the Fresno Unified School District, said they played an important role.
“Mentorship of our Black educators that we’re starting, that’s coming from our affinity groups,” she said. “Designing structures and policies [in our system] that will support student outcomes, that comes from our affinity groups. Capturing a representation from each voice is instrumental to our district’s improvement.”
Another district, Baltimore County Public Schools, established a residency program in which candidates are coached by experienced principals to address the district’s needs. In Washington, D.C., the school district featured the voices of parents, community leaders, students, and non-instructional staff in their assessment of school leaders.
In Columbus, Ohio, the city’s schools partnered with The Ohio State University to create a new framework for culturally responsive school leadership. They also reviewed all syllabi to ensure alignment with educational equity and reworked professional experiences for school leaders.
“For other school districts eyeing similar efforts or already engaged in them, the report provides practical strategies to anticipate and navigate the challenges that will inevitably arise,” according to a summary of the report. “Indeed, sustaining equity-centered leadership requires systems that not only support school leaders but shift the culture of learning and relationship-building in schools and districts.”
