Education Funding

Leadership Grants Find Plenty of New Takers

By Mark Stricherz — December 12, 2001 3 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Until this fall, the Denver-based Public Education and Business Coalition had never before trained school principals. But that changed when the organization won a $42,000 grant from the Wallace-Reader’s Digest Funds.

“We’ve done a lot for teachers, but we came to believe that good leadership really counts for a good school,” said Barbara L. Volpe, the executive director of the 16-year-old coalition, which advocates high standards for public school students. The nonprofit group will use the money to train more than 100 principals in the Denver area to be better instructional leaders.

Ms. Volpe’s is one of 50 nonprofit organizations, colleges and universities, and schools and districts that were awarded the grants this fall. The biggest awards are for $50,000.

While the amounts are small by foundation standards, the need for better professional development for principals and superintendents is often great. Too often, some education experts argue, administrators have been overlooked as policymakers and funders have concentrated on learning needs of teachers.

Districts are currently not required to spend any of the federal Title II money they receive for professional development on principals and assistant principals. An amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization now being ironed out by a House-Senate committee would require districts to show they are training such leaders, said Stephen DeWitt, a lobbyist for the National Association of Secondary School Principals.(“Groups Pushing for Measures to Attract, Retain Principals,” July 11, 2001.)

‘Good Ideas’

Partly responding to such concerns, the New York City-based foundation may extend the $2.5 million Ventures in Leadership program another year. Mary Lee Fitzgerald, the director of education programs for the Wallace- Reader’s Digest Fund, said she would recommend to its board of directors, which was scheduled to meet Dec. 11, to spend another $2.5 million on the grants for 2002.

“There’s a lot of good ideas around the country, and we want to build from the ground up,” Ms. Fitzgerald said.

Foundation officials hope the grants, in addition to increasing opportunities for professional development, will help change the principalship and superintendency to focus on instructional leadership and help attract a broader pool of applicants to the jobs.

The grants are part of the foundation’s $150 million Leaders Count initiative, which will last for at least three more years, spokesman Lee Mitgang said.

Nonprofit organizations have received 41 percent of the grants awarded so far under Ventures in Leadership, school districts 28 percent, colleges and universities 19 percent, and schools 12 percent.

To relieve the cumbersome grant-application process, the philanthropy required, for the first time, that all applications be filled out entirely online.

Rachel B. Tompkins, the president of the Washington-based Rural School and Community Trust, expressed delight with the process.

“It was just four or five hours of my time,” Ms. Tompkins said. “It wasn’t three visits and a bunch of meetings. Their officer got right back to me, asked me a lot of questions, and that was it.”

The rural trust plans to use its $50,000 grant to provide workshops for principals and superintendents in predominantly black towns in four Southern states. School leaders will learn how to evaluate projects in which students work in their communities. In one such program, students in Alabama publish a newspaper in a town where the previous one had folded.

Ms. Tompkins’ advocacy organization had never trained school leaders before.

“We learned we had to work better with principals and superintendents,” she said. “There are some who are doing good work, but there are many who aren’t.”

The same was true of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, based in Princeton, N.J.

Marue E. Walizer, a senior consultant for school-university collaboration, said the foundation would spend its $41,000 grant on an academic program for principals that was once provided exclusively to teachers. Fifteen principals will take classes for a week or two at a major research university. In the past, topics have included Dante’s Inferno and Greek tragedy.

“The purpose is to give them experience as learners, as students,” Ms. Tompkins said of the principals. “It gives them the opportunity to be teachers, to learn.”

A pilot program will start in summer 2003, and the Wilson fellowship foundation plans to seek funding from other groups to enlarge it.

A version of this article appeared in the December 12, 2001 edition of Education Week as Leadership Grants Find Plenty of New Takers

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and other jobs in K-12 education at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Teaching Webinar
Teacher Perspectives: What is the Future of Virtual Education?
Hear from practicing educators on how virtual and hybrid options offer more flexibility and best practices for administrative support.
Content provided by Class
Reading & Literacy Webinar How Background Knowledge Fits Into the ‘Science of Reading’ 
Join our webinar to learn research-backed strategies for enhancing reading comprehension and building cultural responsiveness in the classroom.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Education Funding 4 Ways States Are Trying to Fix How They Fund Schools
Advocates in many places are pushing for reforms that precisely target more robust aid to schools and students in need.
6 min read
one woman and two men with a large calculator and next to large stacks of bills and coins.
DigitalVision Vectors/Getty
Education Funding Pennsylvania School Funding Is Unconstitutional, Judge Says. Here's What Could Happen Next
An appeal could be on the way, but advocates are already gearing up to make the case for funding reform.
6 min read
Stock image of a gavel on top of a pile of money.
iStock/Getty Images
Education Funding 6 Lawsuits That Could Shake Up How States Pay for Schools
Far removed from annual budgets, these lawsuits hold the potential to force states to direct more funds to their schools.
6 min read
Large white hand holding a weighing scale with a bag of money on one side and books with floating letters on the other side showing a balance of knowledge and money
iStock/Getty
Education Funding States Are Rolling in Surplus Cash, But It's Not All Good News for Schools
Some states are ramping up education spending, while others are leaving districts disappointed.
7 min read
Illustration of a man holding oversized money.
Nuthawut Somsuk/iStock/Getty