School Leadership Executive Institute (SLEI) | South Carolina Department of Education
Theory of Change
Positive, enduring change must be planned and nutured. This kind of change requires strong leaders that understand the need for systemic, positive change, while at the same time recognize the extreme difficultly of implementing change. We believe that if you are not consciously trying to get better, you are getting worse. We believe that good is the enemy of great. Change is inevitable in this era of high-stakes accountability. Those school leaders who don't see the need for constant improvement will inevitably fail our children. Building participant’s' knowledge base, leadership skills and capacity for and dealing with and leading change all focused on improving student and school performance is our task. We believe very strongly that the principal is the single most important change agent in the education system. Michael Fullan talks about "reculturing" schools and education systems. He says, "Reculturing is a contact sport that involves hard, labor-intensive work. It takes time and indeed never ends." (Leading in a Culture of Change, p.44). Our job is to help principals learn how to reculture their schools, to look for new ideas, to restructure old ideas, and to practice "strategic abandonment" when necessary. We give SLEI participants the strength, endurance, and knowledge to react to this "contact sport."
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e-Lead provides information on professional-development programs for school leaders that have submitted detailed information and that also meet certain standards-based criteria. Programs listed at the e-Lead website are not endorsed by either the Institute for Educational Leadership or Temple University's Laboratory for Student Success.