Spring 2003 Issue

Dear NCA CASI Colleagues: This issue of the journal examines leadership-how important it is to improving quality and how the process of school improvement develops leadership capacity within a school. You will find several articles that describe scenarios where schools have developed leadership capacity within the building and/or within the community as part of the school improvement process.

This examination of leadership is particularly timely as federal mandates and state initiatives are demanding even more of leaders at all levels in the school system. District leaders, in particular, are finding themselves in situations where they have to focus their improvement activities to achieve quality and be effective. They are looking for ways to consolidate multiple improvement efforts, reduce duplication of effort, bring their schools together under one common school improvement process, and focus the entire system on improving student performance.

I am pleased to announce that NCA CASI has developed standards and criteria for districts that will assist leaders in their efforts to drive system-wide improvement. The district accreditation criteria address the following areas: leadership and governance, strategic planning, valuing students and community, the information system, valuing faculty and staff, helping students learn, and documenting performance results. Attention to each of these areas helps the district improve its capability to deliver quality educational opportunities for students and impact student performance.

As with NCA's building-level performance accreditation framework, the district framework focuses on growth. Engaging in district-wide school improvement causes the district to ask, "How can we, as a system, improve or build upon those capacities that have the most direct bearing on the quality of teaching and learning?"

Through the district accreditation framework, all buildings in the district focus their school improvement goals on key academic areas identified by the district, and all buildings in the district seek accreditation and implement school improvement activities. While all the buildings share the same focus, district accreditation is designed to promote flexibility at the local level. Each school has the flexibility to design interventions that are particularly appropriate for that school.

In April, the standards and criteria for district accreditation will be reviewed and approved by the Board of Trustees for a pilot that begins 2003-2004. I hope you will take time to peruse the criteria and consider how district accreditation might give momentum to your school improvement efforts. The district criteria can be found on the NCA website at http://www.ncacasi.org

We believe that all components of a system must work together to enhance the quality of the work in classrooms. An old axiom from the business world applies to school districts as well: "That which gets evaluated, improves; that which gets measured, improves exponentially."

Sincerely,

Kenneth F. Gose
Executive Director
NCA CASI