School Leadership in Chicago: A Baseline Report

Research and our experience tell us that world-class public schools require great leadership. The next phase of our work – at The Fund and as a city – is to make Chicago the best place in the country to lead a public school. Eighteen months ago, we launched Fund 4 to do just that. Leadership matters. And it matters a lot in Chicago’s schools. At The Fund’s 15th Anniversary, for the first time, we publicly released the data that is guiding our strategy. Data from surveys and focus groups of district, charter and turnaround principals citywide. This data reflects our best understanding of why principals succeed, why they stay or leave, and how we can all do a better job enabling their success and retention in the schools that need them most. If our Baseline Report tells us one thing, it is this: Great principals want to stay. But they need our support, our trust and our investment every day to make the impossible doable and to continue doing right by the nearly 400,000 students they serve citywide.