What McCain and Obama Can Learn From Successful School Principals

By Lew Smith

In a 2005 special edition of U.S. News & World Report devoted to leadership, David Gergen, an adviser to four U.S. presidents, said this: “The 20th century taught us that progress is not inevitable. Each generation has to struggle and sacrifice to secure a better future for its children. When it fails, the world slips backward. Whether America moves forward will hinge in significant degree upon the quality and number of those who lead.”

School reformers would readily agree with Gergen’s assessment of the “struggle and sacrifice” needed to secure a better future for our children—and with his assertions on the consequences of failure and the importance of leadership. But when we talk about leadership, whether it is leadership of the nation or of the local school, critical questions arise. How do we define leadership? What do we want and need in our leaders? Why do we admire and appreciate some leaders and not others?

From 2000 to 2008, I had the chance to ponder these questions and look for answers in a study of 54 successful school principals. All of them had led schools considered to be low-performing, embarrassing, failures. And all had managed to raise their schools to exemplary status—not only in academic achievement, but also in student engagement, innovative instructional practices, professional growth, school...