 Have you ever wondered what Modern Red consultants do in their “other” lives? Gloria Talley practices what she preaches. As the director of Project LEAD, part of a fifteen state initiative of the Southern Regional Education Board in Atlanta, Georgia, Ms. Talley is in a unique position to impact school reform from more than one perspective. Through MRSH, she works to improve student performance by training classroom teachers in effective instructional and curricular practices. Through Project LEAD, she works to strengthen and develop the pool of potential educational leaders by improving training and creating conditions that will allow them to work effectively. Specifically, Ms. Talley works with school districts and their university partners to redesign training models for school leaders.
This is essentially a new frontier in leadership training. One of her biggest challenges, aside from the usual budget cuts and the impact of No Child Left Behind legislation, lies in altering the historical perception that leadership training is primarily comprised of a series of activities or courses of study within the university setting. Candidates for leadership degrees and positions definitely need a field-based experience; they need to work in schools as interns. In order for schools to be successful, they must have strong leaders at the helm. According to Talley, “Schools need people who can take ordinary teachers and make them extraordinary.”
Where do districts find such people? Ms. Talley encourages them to look deliberately at teachers who are leaders in their schools and encourage them to apply for leadership positions. She calls this “tapping” and says that often it is all an individual needs to be inspired to move into leadership programs. She also finds that such teachers are often surprised when approached by their principals, as in the case of a candidate from Connecticut who stated, “What made me decide to move from the classroom into leadership? My principal saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself.”
In fact, Ms. Talley shared that their strongest candidates are those with backgrounds in curriculum and instruction who are placed in schools with exemplary principals. When they complete such preparatory work and are placed in leadership positions, they can hit the ground running, and this propensity for immediate effectiveness is invaluable. She maintains that changing the model for leadership training is critical in order to provide schools with the personnel they deserve. In the realm of school leadership, Talley says, “There is no shortage of certified candidates. There is a great shortage of qualified candidates.” Gloria Talley is working to remedy that.
October 2003 |
