Rebecca Herman

School Leadership Interventions Under the Every Student Succeeds Act: Evidence Review: Updated and Expanded

(ESSA)1 acknowledges the importance of school principals to school improvement and effective instruction. The act allows states and districts to use federal funds for activities targeting school principals and other school leaders. ESSA repeatedly calls for the use of evidence-based activities, strategies, and interventions.2 The rationale is clear: Investments in education must produce results. Students’ efforts, teachers’ time, and scarce financial resources are more likely to be well spent when education-improvement activities are selected because there is evidence that they are effective. To select educationimprovement activities without considering their prior, proven impact may be seen as an irresponsible use of limited resources. In many areas, such as English-language learning or literacy, there is a strong existing research base (such as the Institute of Science Education’s What Works Clearinghouse [WWC] review) to inform which interventions might qualify as evidence-based. However, the language used in ESSA to define the term evidencebased differs in important ways from prior legislation, leaving open questions about which school-leadership practices, activities, strategies, and interventions might qualify as evidence-based. In the face of such ambiguity, states and districts might hesitate to take advantage of the opportunities that ESSA provides to support activities and interventions targeting school leaders. Additional guidance or clarification about what is allowable under the law could facilitate school-improvement activities that are consistent with the intent of the law. The RAND Corporation conducted a synthesis of the evidence base on school-leadership interventions to better inform the rollout of school-leadership interventions under ESSA. This report is intended to help federal, state, and district education policymakers understand and implement school-leadership-improvement efforts that are consistent with ESSA. C O R P O R A T I O N

Logic Models for Selecting, Designing, and Implementing Evidence-Based Leadership Interventions: Companion Guide to School Leadership Interventions Under the Every Student Succeeds Act

Many states and districts are engaged in efforts to design, implement, and evaluate evidence-based school leadership interventions. This guide supports these efforts by describing six types of school leadership interventions, summarizing evidence-based components of these interventions, and unpacking the relationships between the intervention activities and student outcomes. The tool also provides guidance on creating logic models.