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School Leadership Can Be a Powerful Driver of Improved Education Outcomes

• Activities designed to improve school leadership demonstrate positive impact on student, teacher, and principal outcomes, based on research that is consistent with ESSA evidence tiers.
• ESSA expands opportunities for states and districts to use federal funding for initiatives that strive to improve the quality of school leaders.

ESSA's Evidence Tiers Provide a Framework for Using Evidence in School Leadership Policy and Practice, as Well as Flexibility for States to Tailor to Context

• ESSA's framework with tiers of evidence, coupled with the U.S. Department of Education's nonregulatory guidance, strongly emphasizes the use of evidence in setting direction for improving school leadership and prioritizes more-rigorous evidence.
• Unlike prior legislation and policy, ESSA also provides avenues to consider and build the evidence base for new and underresearched interventions.
• ESSA provides some flexibility for states to interpret and apply evidence requirements.

This report was updated in January 2017 to include Appendix C and again in December 2017 to include Appendix D. The reauthorization of the U.S. Elementary and Secondary Education Act, referred to as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), emphasizes evidence-based initiatives while providing new flexibilities to states and districts with regard to the use of federal funds, including funds to promote effective school leadership. This report describes the opportunities for supporting school leadership under ESSA, discusses the standards of evidence under ESSA, and synthesizes the research base with respect to those standards. The information can guide federal, state, and district education policymakers on the use of research-based school leadership interventions; help them identify examples of improvement activities that should be allowable under ESSA; and support the rollout of such interventions. This report updates an earlier version and incorporates nonregulatory guidance from the U.S. Department of Education, analysis of tier IV evidence, and reviews of additional studies.

• Chapter One:

  Introduction

• Chapter Two:

  How Does ESSA Support School Leadership Improvement?

• Chapter Three:

  How Does ESSA Define Evidence?

• Chapter Four:

  What Is the Evidence of Effects of ESSA-Eligible School Leadership–Improvement Activities?

• Chapter Five:

  Recommendations for Using This Review

• Appendix A:

  State Exemptions to ESSA Evidence Requirements

• Appendix B:

  Evidence Requirements Across Federal Legislation and Policy

• Appendix C:

  Summary of Updates to Evidence Report in December 2016 Release

• Appendix D:

  Descriptive Summaries of Evidence-Based School Leadership Interventions