During the past decade, there has been a growing recognition among educators and policymakers that school principals must be instructional leaders who ensure that high-quality teaching occurs in every classroom. This view is backed up by a solid body of evidence showing that leadership places second only to teaching among school-related influences on learning.

In culling lessons from 13 years of research that describes what effective principals do well, The Wallace Foundation has found they perform five key practices:

1. Shape a vision of academic success for all students;
2. Create a climate hospitable to education;
3. Cultivate leadership in others;
4. Improve instruction; and
5. Manage people, data, and processes to foster school improvement.

These practices are explored in depth in the Wallace Foundation report, The School Principal as Leader: Guiding Schools to Better Teaching and Learning (The Wallace Foundation, 2013).

Learning Forward has developed a web-based professional learning guide using excerpts from the PBS documentary film, The Principal Story, to illustrate the five practices.

The guide is intended to help those who prepare and support aspiring and current principals probe these essential practices. By following the five units in The Principal Story Professional Learning Guide, learners can read the research, discuss practices, view film clips, and complete a range of activities as individuals or in groups.

The tool on pp. 49-51 is from Unit 1 of the learning guide, which explores the first key practice: shaping a vision of academic success for all students. Use this tool as part of the learning guide or on its own to explore, individually or with a group, several assumptions related to this practice and implications for principals.