The EduLeader Lens: November 2025
In this month’s issue of The EduLeader Lens, we’re sharing:
- Insights from researchers on effective instructional leadership
- A roundup up of blog posts on essential practices in early literacy
- A learning opportunity to help your team get the most out of your curriculum
Don’t miss out on next month’s issue—subscribe to stay in the know!
Learning from researchers
Below, we’re sharing past conversations with researchers whose work continues to inform our services and deepen our understanding of effective instructional leadership.
How to Strengthen Teacher Learning
Insights from an interview with experts from the Research Partnership for Professional Learning (RPPL) on the research-based strategies shared in their report, Building Better PL: How to Strengthen Teacher Learning
Q: What actions do you recommend for a leader with limited capacity looking to make the most impact with their professional learning (PL)?
A: Our analysis of the literature suggests two leadership moves have the greatest potential to create an outsized effect: 1) making sure that PL supports teachers’ day-to-day practice and 2) following up PL with some form of social accountability.… Any district, regardless of the resources available, can focus PL on curriculum materials, specific new instructional practices, and other classroom routines. Grade-level teams can budget a few minutes to talk about how implementation of a practice learned in PL is going or designate a peer or principal to stop by classrooms and say, “Hey, how is the XYZ you learned about in PL last week going?
How Principals Affect Students and Schools
Insights from a live Q&A session with Jason Grissom, co-author of How Principals Affect Students and Schools and professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University
Q: Your paper describes “facilitating collaboration and professional learning communities” as a separate leadership behavior from “engaging in instructionally-focused interactions with teachers.” Can you say more about the reasoning there?
A: You can certainly think about the professional learning community as being another strategy for improving teacher instruction. We separated the two because there is a growing literature specifically on the importance of collaboration that really highlights how much kids benefit when adults in schools work together. The problems of teaching can be complex, but there’s a lot of expertise in the building that can be harnessed. For example, one way to think about “instructionally-focused interactions with teachers” is harnessing the expertise of the leadership team. Whereas, we think of professional learning communities more horizontally—that’s about harnessing the expertise and the insights of other teachers. Of course, there is a role for leadership in facilitating collaboration for teachers and creating the structures and space for teachers to be able to do that work.
Essential practices in early literacy
Through our research and partnership work with schools and districts, we identified five practices that are essential to effective early literacy systems:
- An early literacy vision grounded in the science of reading
- High-quality materials that attend to foundational skills, knowledge building, and vocabulary instruction
- A well-informed and skilled team that has the resources it needs to support educators and students
- Routine data practices that enable educators to keep a real-time pulse on student progress and make informed instructional decisions
- Sufficient time for literacy instruction and for educators to engage in ongoing professional learning and early literacy responsibilities
Our early literacy team published a series of blog posts taking a deep dive into each practice, detailing examples, and highlighting resources that can help school and district leaders implement them.
Webinar: Avoid the common pitfalls of curriculum implementation
Happening TOMORROW (11/13) at 1:00 p.m. ET:
In our work with thousands of schools across the country, we’ve seen how leadership decisions can make or break the success of a curriculum.
During this webinar, we’ll unpack leadership actions that help build clarity, strengthen teacher buy-in, and support high-quality instruction—including:
- Establishing a shared vision for instruction
- Setting clear expectations for curriculum use
- Preparing leaders to support effective implementation
- Building strong coaching and collaborative planning practices
Plus, we’ll wrap up with a live Q&A to address your specific questions.
Not able to join us live? No worries—just complete the registration form, and we’ll send you a recording.