Charles (Chip) Edelsberg, Ph.D. is the founding Executive Director of the Jim Joseph Foundation, a private foundation whose mission is to support education of Jewish youth in the United States. Previously, Dr. Edelsberg served as Director of Endowments and Vice President for the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland and Executive Director of The Temple-Tifereth, an historic congregation located in Cleveland, Ohio, as well as Interim Head of School of the Pardes School, a Cleveland area community high school.
You might fairly expect that as Executive Director of the Jim Joseph Foundation I would use this space to comment, as I was encouraged to do, on the pressing matter of day school financing. But I am going to desist, because any perspective I might share in such a short article will simply not do justice to the complexity of the issue.
Instead I want to offer a few thoughts on head of school leadership development. … I learned at a recent PEJE Board meeting that 110 professionals have assumed new positions as head of school in the last 18 months. Rabbi Josh Elkin reports that on average 10 to 12 percent of day school headships turn over annually. If the current trend persists, this means that up to 600 positions will need to be filled in the next decade. It is a staggering figure, don’t you think?
We have, as a field, a fairly reasonable hypothesis about what leadership and management skills a head of school needs to possess, as well as the qualities of good Board governance that together enhance the likelihood for a head of school succeeding. There is no lack of head of school training and professional development programs, among them The Lookstein Center’s Principals’ Program, JTS’ Day School Leadership Training Institute, UJA-Federation’s Institute for Day School Management (DSLTI), PEJE’s SULAM and Leadership and Fundraising Academy (LFA), and the new UJA-Federation/Lookstein Center’s Educational Leadership Advancement Initiative (ELAI). (Unfortunately, at least two of these programs currently do not operate due to lack of funding.) But to my knowledge, not a single effort exists to wed comprehensive head of school training and Board governance development built around a discrete, explicit set of ambitious school leadership outcomes.
Among the key competencies we are quite certain accomplished heads of schools possess are the following:
- Awareness of various theories of leadership and sensitivity to the need to apply leadership theory intentionally as a leader of a school
- Grounded knowledge in curriculum theory
- Skill in teacher supervision
- Facility in making practical use of data to inform decision making
- Know-how in institutional resource development and fundraising
- Savoir faire in board relations.
Heads of Jewish schools further need to ensure that they, or that someone in an appropriate position, has the requisite Jewish literacy and knowledge of Jewish education. For the beginning head of school, coaching assistance is critical, and connection to a cohort of peers in a community of practice is professionally and personally beneficial.
Remarkably, even the most dedicated, resilient individual who may possess all of the fore-mentioned competencies in abundance and who benefits from independent coaching and peer support can be undermined by dysfunctional school governance. Boards of Directors have critical responsibilities for the health of the schools they govern, including providing reliable, ongoing guidance to the head of school. In Jewish day schools, successful leadership requires a trusting partnership between the head of school and Board of Directors dedicated to ensuring a system of school-wide accountability for student learning, teacher professionalism, and competent performance in school management, leadership and governance.
Exactly what it will take to galvanize day school stakeholders to dig in on a comprehensive, long term, and generously resourced head of school initiative, I cannot say. But I will offer this opinion: day school students deserve exceptional curricula taught by outstanding teachers in schools governed by competent Boards. Great educators and dedicated Board members should be led by highly skilled heads of schools.
Jewish day schools appear to be hurtling into a decade which portends to be a turning point in day school education and in which turnover in school leadership will result in hundreds of openings for new heads. Now, more than ever, we have access to knowledge and resources to build a next generation of candidates for head of school positions whose training and professional development enhances the likelihood that they will succeed. It is time for us to begin our work.