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, Oakland Unified School District, San Francisco Unified School District, and West Contra Costa Unified School District. In addition, we describe the strength of our preparation model from recruitment to design. In future reports, we plan to detail other types of impact including alumni feedback and student level indicators.