Leadership Development Initiative: An Innovative Approach

Experts, policymakers, school leaders, and scholars are struggling with how to develop principals who can be successful with all students in the new No Child Left Behind environment. In response, faculty in UT's Department of Educational Administration have developed a program within the Principalship Program that draws on best practices of the past, but integrates new, more radical ideas to offer participants new resources to develop their skills. This Program, the Leadership Development Initiative (LDI), is unique to UT at Austin and available only to those enrolled in the Principalship Prgram.

The LDI is a collaboration between the university and an urban school district. The goals of the LDI are to model schools that are successful with all students; to create a leadership preparation context in which principalship students, current school leaders, teachers, parents, and community members can learn what successful schools look like and how to create them; and to use the LDI schools for research to show others how to create successful schools and successful school leadership.

LDI is based on K-16 educational success for all students and includes work with an elementary school, a middle school, a high school (all of which are part of the same student feeder pattern), a community college system, and a university. The project starts with the elementary school, then moves on in order of grade to give Principalship Program students practical experience with every level.

The LDI is being developed jointly by the Department of Educational Administration and by the Austin and Round Rock Independent School Districts in conjunction with community partners.