Effects of the “High Impact Leadership for School Renewal” Project on Principal Leadership, School Leadership, and Student Achievement

In this study, we designed an educational experiment to evaluate the High Impact Leadership for School Renewal project’s impact on principal leadership, school leadership, and student achievement. Principals in the experimental group reported statistically significantly greater improvement in principal leadership than their counterparts in the control group (Hedge’s g of 0.73), but teachers in the experimental and control groups showed no difference in their ratings of principal leadership. Teachers in the experimental group reported statistically significantly more improvement in school leadership than their counterparts in the control group (Hedge’s g of 0.53 on the scale of Orientation to School Renewal and 0.58 on the scale of Learning-Centered School Leadership), but principals in the two groups reported no difference in the growth in school leadership. Schools in the experimental group showed statistically significantly larger annual growth in English language arts proficiency rate (2.05 percentage points more annually). The implications of the findings were discussed in the context of leadership development programs for school improvement.