http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification 720 https://escholarship.org/uc/ucb_education_leadershipprograms/rss Recent eScholarship items from Leadership Programs Thu, 27 Aug 2026 08:57:52 +0000 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8qs9w7mr The third edition of the Leadership Connection Rubric was developed amidst the increasingly polarized national context that has challenged our conception of equitable schooling and threatened our democracy. Holding steadfast to our commitment to preparing, inducting, and supporting inclusive, justice-oriented school leaders, in this edition, we aim to respond to the current climate that leaders must traverse. As our students and alumni grappled with crises at the site and systems levels, upheavals from the COVID pandemic, and reckonings around racial justice, we found ourselves testing the strength of our conceptual frameworks for social justice leadership. What does it mean to lead in this context? What skills and dispositions are needed for the current and future education landscape? Rather than returning to “normal” operations, the current context requires leaders who are savvy about local and national political tensions and strategic in their approach to creating a more just... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8qs9w7mr Wed, 26 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Tredway, Lynda Cheung, Rebecca Sablo Sutton, Soraya Nguyen, Viet Stephens, Daphannie Leader-Picone, Linda Hernandez, Janette https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9k4962j9 The Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) at the University of California, Berkeley, has three areas of work: preparation, induction, and leadership outreach. All programs are designed based on the principles of equity and social justice and focus on improving education for the most vulnerable and historically underserved public school students. In 15 cohorts, PLI has prepared over 500 educational leaders who are 50% students of color, 95% working in public education, and 88% working in the Bay Area. Leadership Support Program, PLI’s induction program, has inducted over 100 leaders in 11 years. Originally designed as a continuation of the preparation program, Leadership Support Program now inducts PLI alumni who work in the San Francisco Bay Area, selected new leaders who graduate from other preparation programs and work in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as alumni of our sister program, the Principal Leadership Institute at University of California, Los Angeles. There are... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9k4962j9 Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Cheung, Rebecca https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8rz582h0 The Tripartite Framework for Leadership Evaluation provides a comprehensive examination of the leadership evaluation landscape and makes key recommendations about how the field of leadership evaluation should proceed. The chief concern addressed by this working paper is the use of student outcome data as a measurement of leadership effectiveness. Since leaders do not have direct influence over student achievement and mediate instructional influence with students through teachers, we find that the use of student test scores as a measurement of leadership effectiveness is neither fair nor useful. The collective actions of teachers and the leader lead to improved student achievement, but the leader should concentrate his or her work on teacher working conditions and teacher motivation as a part of that collective responsibility (Leithwood, 2012). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8rz582h0 Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Tredway, Lynda Stephens, Daphannie Hedgspeth, Carol Jimes, Cynthia Rubio, Rudy https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8gz5t4qp Online learning is increasingly embraced in K-12 teaching, professional development, as well as graduate education, because the interactive tools and platforms of Web 2.0 have the potential to offer learning opportunities that help transcend distance and maximize time. But howcan the depth of learning and connection that is derived from face-to-face interactions bereplicated in the online environment, especially when engaging in deep reflective equity centered conversations? For three years, the Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) at the University of California at Berkeley engaged in experimentation and discussion around four related questions: What are the barriers for equity centered discussions in the online space? What are the facilitation challenges and adaptations needed? How and when does the online space best support equity centered discussions? What support is needed for participants and facilitators who are new to online environments? Through our extended experimentation,... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8gz5t4qp Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Cheung, Rebecca https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8489s0qn There is increasing interest in the field of leadership preparation about the opportunities that robust performance assessments may provide to capture and evaluate the complexity of school administrators’ work. Heretofore, the conversation about administrator performance assessment in leadership preparation has mainly centered on the development and impact of large statewide assessments that grow out of a Cartesian epistemology of individual knowledge possession, in which individuals must demonstrate mastery of a set of static knowledge and skills. We analyzed the characteristics of a performance assessment system that deliberately accounts for the organizational complexity of practice and knowledge generation in its design. Candidates are assessed by faculty and coaches on state-wide and program standards, but instead of producing evidence of their practice as individuals, they are assessed within simulated practice-based scenarios that require them to both draw on their extant... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8489s0qn Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Charles, Jessica E. Cheung, Rebecca Rosekrans, Kristin https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8196d3f7 In October 2012, UC Berkeley Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) published an impact report focused on the breadth of regional impact and strength of the PLI model. This 2013 report describes PLI’s impact as identified by alumni and district administrator feedback from our four partner districts, Berkeley Unified School District, Oakland Unified School District, West Contra Costa Unified School District, and San Francisco Unified School District, who employ 50% of our graduates. The triangulated results of alumni surveys, district partner feedback, and quantitative and qualitative studies indicate that UC Berkeley’s Principal Leadership Institute consistently provides rigorous and effective preparation for school leaders in the Bay Area and beyond. These studies highlight PLI’s strengths, including a focus on equity, social justice, instructional leadership, and the formation of leadership identity and relationships. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8196d3f7 Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Cheung, Rebecca https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7t93t618 Education is engulfed in an age of accountability and evaluation. Teachers have been subject to several waves of evaluation, first in the 1980s with teacher competency exams, and more recently in efforts to measure effectiveness with value-added measures (or test score gains) plus other mechanisms like teacher observations. States imposed their own test-based accountability systems on schools during the 1990s; then the federal government created its own accountability system in No Child Left Behind, based on state tests but with different consequences. In theory these accountability systems could be used to improve the quality of schooling, but much more often they have served to punish (and only sometimes reward) teachers and schools. Now accountability and evaluation have spread to principals and other school-level leaders, usually with the understanding that they may be second in importance only to teachers. A small empirical literature has tried to ascertain what specific... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7t93t618 Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Grubb, W. Norton Liao, Patrick Cheung, Rebecca https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7d33f2qj Founded in 1999, the Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) at the University of California, Berkeley, has three areas of work: aspiring leader preparation, early career leader induction, and professional learning support of a diverse community of equity focused leaders who will improve education for vulnerable and historically underserved students in California. Fifteen years ago, Berkeley PLI began the practice of leader induction as an innovative model for early career support. Originally designed as an invitational and voluntary continuation of the preparation program, the current mission of PLI’s Leadership Support Program (LSP), is to induct a diverse community of equity focused school leaders who will improve education for vulnerable and historically underserved students in California’s public schools in support of social justice. In total, LSP has inducted over 300 leaders in California to earn the Professional Clear Administrative Services Credential or full administrative... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7d33f2qj Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Cheung, Rebecca Gong, Nathan Nguyen, Viet https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7cm5j2v9 Researchers have turned attention toward principal turnover and its impact, especially in hard-to-staff schools. For example, the National Association of Secondary School Principals and the Learning Policy Institute recently issued a report indicating that nearly one in five principals leave their position every year (Levin, Bradley, & Scott, 2019). To inform the issue with the perspective of practicing principals, the Principal Leadership Institutes at UC Berkeley and UCLA, with support from the Stuart Foundation, launched a state-wide initiative entitled the Change Maker project, to support the well-being and improve retention of alumni principals. Change Makers includes a small cohort-based model of professional learning that focuses on reflection, networking, and content related to understanding well-being. Then in June 2020, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the project developed a first-of-its-kind survey focused on what erodes and supports the resilience of school... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7cm5j2v9 Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Cheung, Rebecca Stomski, Meg Gong, Nathan https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6rn766jh In 1999, as a response to teacher and principal shortages across the state, Governor Davis and the California Legislature man- dated the creation of Principal Leadership Institutes at UC Berkeley and UCLA. The Principal Leadership Institutes were part of Gov. Gray Davis’ education initiatives that were enacted soon after he took office in 1999. In a written statement, California Education Secretary Gary Hart noted that by proposing the institutes, “Gov. Davis hopes to offer world-class management training to school principals in order to help them create more successful schools.” Assembly Bill ABX1 of 1999 earmarked new funding for the University of California to provide scholarships for outstanding students committed to making a difference in hard-to-staff schools. This funding has created a virtuous cycle, enabling many young people from low-income and working class communities to return to their neighborhoods as highly trained teachers and school administrators. Re-authorized... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6rn766jh Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Cheung, Rebecca Parachini, Nancy Rogers, John https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6kd1c5w1 UC Berkeley’s Principal Leadership Institute is composed of three areas of work: leadership preparation, leadership induction, and leadership outreach. The preparation program is a fourteen month program leading to a Master’s degree and the issuance of the Preliminary Administrative Services Credential. The induction program, Leadership Support Program, is a two year program leading to the issuance of the Professional Clear Administrative Services Credential. Leadership Connection (outreach) consists of short term programs for supporting PLI alumni, as well as local and visiting educational leaders. Founded in 2000, the Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) has prepared over 500 educational leaders for the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Ninety- five percent of PLI alumni work in public education, 88% in the Bay Area, 50% in our four partner districts: Berkeley Unified School District, Oakland Unified School District, San Francisco Unified School District, and West Contra... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6kd1c5w1 Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Tredway, Lynda Cheung, Rebecca Nguyen, Viet Stephens, Daphannie Leader-Picone, Linda Hernandez, Janette https://escholarship.org/uc/item/69t1t8wv This framework lays the foundation for integrating performative modalities in social justice leadership preparation as a strategy for teaching future leaders how to understand and address the conditions necessary for truly transformative teaching and learning in schools. It is situated at the intersection of several theoretical and contextual spaces within social justice leadership, leadership preparation, and the defunding of the arts in California. Through systematic engagement across these three spaces, a distinct and novel approach at the UC Berkeley Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) has emerged and is receiving increased recognition. This document is an attempt to describe and frame PLI’s integration of performative modalities through conceptual frameworks and living examples. We lay this foundation to memorialize all of the efforts to date with full expectation that our work will continue to be refined, shaped, and influenced in the future. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/69t1t8wv Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Cheung, Rebecca Tchetgen, Pierre https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5rc243wp Social justice school leaders can amplify the voices and activism of marginalized students by shifting from hierarchical relationships to working as allies. An ally is commonly defined as a person who is associated with another or others for some common cause or purpose. By transferring Kendall’s (2013) concept of “allyship” from racial privilege to leadership, this paper applies this theory through three dimensions: developing a radar, breaking ranks and creating space for student voice, and making intentional strategic moves. Ultimately, the school leaders highlighted in this study are tipping the balance to disrupt hierarchical relationships between leaders and students, in service of marginalized students. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5rc243wp Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Cheung, Rebecca Flores, Chuck Sablo Sutton, Soraya https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5098t2nv Research confirms that the influence of the school principal on student achievement is second only to that of teachers. However, the growing demands and difficult working conditions have reduced the pool of principals prepared to face these challenges, particularly in underperforming schools. California must face the urgent necessity to attract and prepare school leaders to meet the challenges of working in urban schools. Since its founding in 2000, the Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) at UC Berkeley has been answering this call. Over its twelve-year history, PLI has successfully recruited and prepared 432 diverse and highly skilled school leaders; 98% of whom currently work in education, 90% of whom work in California, and 88% of whom work in the greater Bay Area. In this report, we describe the breadth of UC Berkeley’s Principal Leadership Institute’s regional impact in the area of staffing with a special focus on our four district partners Berkeley Unified School District,... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5098t2nv Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3x22x387 Research confirms that diversifying the educator workforce has a strong positive influence on student achievement, particularly for vulnerable and historically underserved student populations. However nationally, 80% of all school principals are White, 10% of all school principals are African American, 7% are Latino, and 3% are Other Races. More concerning, the percent of people of color in school principal positions over the past 15 years has remained the same while the rate of another underrepresented group (female principals) has doubled. The contributing barriers to diversifying the principal workforce are many including the low number of teachers of color, attrition of teachers of color in the profession, and barriers to promotion within the system. In addition, traditional leadership programs do not embrace the need to racially diversify their curriculum or students as a central part of their mission. Since 2000, the Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) at UC Berkeley... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3x22x387 Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Cheung, Rebecca https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3k96w2j8 While California is not the only state with an ambitious universal preschool policy, its UTK policy is the most recent effort and has the opportunity to benefit from the early work in other states such as Illinois, Georgia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. How have other state level leaders prepared principals to implement universal preschool? What can California learn from these experiences as UTK is implemented by 2026? What kinds of partnerships have contributed to success? https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3k96w2j8 Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Cheung, Rebecca King, Laura Powell, Anna Thomas, Chris https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3g9073zv There is increasing agreement in the field of leadership preparation that robust performance assessments are needed to capture and evaluate the complexity of school administrators’ work. For this paper we studied one such assessment, developed by the Principal Leadership Institute at UC Berkeley, called Assessment Center. We see it as a valuable case because it illuminates how an assessment constructed from an epistemology of practice, rather than an epistemology of possession (Cook and Brown, 1999), can work in the service of candidate and program learning, as well as for the development of the profession. We make this distinction based on the organizational theory of Cook and Brown, who argued that the learning of individuals within organizations and the learning of organizations themselves should be conceptualized as a “generative dance” between tacit, explicit, group and individual knowledge. We identify that PLI has an assessment developed from an epistemology of practice... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3g9073zv Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Charles, Jessica Cheung, Rebecca Rosekrans, Kristin https://escholarship.org/uc/item/37j4k8g3 In this paper, we analyze the value of collective or team leadership as a result of multiple leaders attending the Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) at the University of California, Berkeley, a program that prepares leaders for urban schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. In its fourteenth year, the PLI now has over 450 graduates, 88% of whom work in the Bay Area, with 50% in just four partner districts. This has led to the phenomenon of teams composed entirely of PLI alumni, ranging in number from 2 to 9. (Other programs that prepare individuals for a small number of districts, or even one large district, should find themselves in the same situation.) We wondered what difference it makes to have several PLI graduates, with the same preparation, on a leadership team. What specific kinds of commonalities are important to leaders functioning in teams? And what might that mean for the preparation of leaders, for the formation of leadership teams, and for district hiring and leadership... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/37j4k8g3 Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Cheung, Rebecca Grubb, W. Norton https://escholarship.org/uc/item/32r5b2rr In the last two years, UC Berkeley’s Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) has published two impact reports: one focused on the breadth of regional impact and strength of program model, the second focused on alumni and district partner feedback. This third report* focuses on the impact of a preparation program on leadership practice by examining concentrations of PLI alumni in administrative teams. In its fourteenth year, the PLI now has 491 graduates, 88% of whom work in the Bay Area; 50% work in PLI’s four partner districts. This staffing impact (described in the first impact report) has led to the phenomenon of administrative teams composed entirely of PLI alumni. Using data from interviews of 26 alumni on 10 all-PLI administrative teams, this report indicates that PLI teams enact strong equity-centered distributed leadership models that originate from their PLI preparation. Specifically, the alumni on these teams highlight the ways in which trust, common language and practices,... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/32r5b2rr Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Cheung, Rebecca Grubb, W. Norton https://escholarship.org/uc/item/32m0d1c8 In the last two years, UC Berkeley’s Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) has published three impact reports: one focused on the breadth of regional impact and strength of program model, another focused on alumni and district partner feedback, and the third on collective leadership of all PLI alumni teams. This final report focuses on our experiments with evaluating impact using student outcomes. In its fifteenth year, the PLI now has 491 graduates, 88% of whom work in the Bay Area; 50% work in PLI’s four partner districts. In response to growing calls from districts, government agencies, and foundations to increase accountability for preparation programs to “prove” their impact, PLI conducted an experimental evaluation related to school level outcomes focused on alumni who served as principals for a minimum of three years. We learned that our alumni as a group are more diverse than California’s school leadership. PLI alumni principals were also more likely to work in schools... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/32m0d1c8 Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Grubb, W. Norton Liao, Patrick Cheung, Rebecca https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1ts8f3kr School leaders play a critical role in setting the conditions, providing ongoing support, and modeling a learner stance in order to optimize teacher professional development and peer coaching and mentoring initiative in Santiago, Chile offers a unique opportunity to deepen our understanding about the role leaders playin supporting, sustaining, and scalingprofessional learning for teachers. In 2017, the Principal Leadership Institute, one of the Leadership Programs of the Graduate School of Education, entered a two-year partnership with Centro de Desarrollo de Liderazgo Educativo (CEDLE) at Universidad Diego Portales in Chile to design one of the first peer mentoring and coaching initiatives in the country. During the pilot year, the Pedagogical Mentoring program was implemented in five schools with 15 mentorteachers and leaders. Because Pedagogical Mentoring was a new method of professional development for the Chilean schools that participated in the project, we can learn a great... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1ts8f3kr Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Sablo Sutton, Soraya Rojas Concha, María https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1gc0t5c2 The Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) at the University of California has focused on preparing and supporting a diverse group of equity focused educational leaders in the Bay Area since 1999. In 2004, PLI took on the work of leader induction and launched the Leadership Support Program (LSP), a voluntary three year program that was geared toward supporting early career leaders through an innovative model of professional learning activities, guided mastery and coaching. In 2015, LSP was expanded into Southern California through a partnership between UC Berkeley and UCLA. This move coincided with a shift in California State policy to mandate induction for educational leaders to obtain licensure. Now a state mandated two year program, this next iteration of LSP as a dual pathway program has continued to be on the forefront of leader induction practice, both in terms of results and innovations in the field. The impacts of the Leadership Support Program are illustrated by the hundreds... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1gc0t5c2 Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Cheung, Rebecca Gong, Nathan https://escholarship.org/uc/item/180798fq This research report describes a study examining the role of principal leadership in making a successful school-wide transformation from a traditional to an arts centered integrated approach to classroom teaching and learning. Although research has long touted the benefits of fusing arts with core academics, the integral role of the school principal has been overlooked. This research project, carried out by the Principal Leadership Institute at the University of California at Berkeley and funded by the Heller Foundation, examines the role of the principal in leading a successful transformation from traditional teaching practice to arts-centered practice. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/180798fq Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Green, Thomas R. Teja, Zuhra https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0p74c32w Research supports the urgent need to describe, document, and research innovative praxis in the field in order to assess and improve educational leadership preparation at the state and national levels, particularly given existing shortages of highly qualified principals and superintendents and the complex demands of leading school reform efforts. Moreover, leadership preparation that specifically supports the development of social justice- and equity-minded leaders are in need. Without frameworks, investigation and documentation are difficult to accomplish, as the conditions, resources, and pedagogical strategies necessary cannot be articulated in a holistic way that can help more leadership preparation programs explore new ways to look in the mirror in order to improve their programs. For over 20 years, the Berkeley Principal Leadership Institute (PLI) has been innovating new strategies and methodologies in its approach to leadership preparation by engaging with practicing artists,... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0p74c32w Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Tchetgen, Pierre Cheung, Rebecca