ABSTRACT
The role of district leaders in developing leaders for future schools has arisen many times throughout the book; sometimes as an impediment and sometimes as a significant part of the solution. Research reported in Chapters 2 and 4, for example, suggested quite forcefully that current school-leaders most often see district administrators and the policies and procedures which they manage as hurdles in their efforts to be more effective. The list of hurdles is quite long. On the other hand, some district initiatives are especially helpful for some schoolleaders. Non-experts find the planning and support of the district especially useful when implementing externally-initiated policies about which they know little. In Chapter 10, we also noted a dramatic ‘district effect’ in the pattern of socialization experiences reported by school-leaders. This research suggested that while many districts may not contribute helpfully to the socialization of their school-leaders, targeted and sustained efforts by a district can be of considerable consequence.
