Question: What is the purpose of Distributed Leadership through UPenn's Annenberg Grant?

You can read the full text of the purpose of Distributed Leadership from the Penn Center for Educational Leadership by clicking on the title of this post. Highlights from the PCEL site include:

The project... addresses the following goals:

• To develop model distributed leadership teams and school communities in 16 Philadelphia Schools.
• To develop a targeted professional development strategy and a regional teacher leadership development center.
• To develop over 80 effective teacher leaders who can support 16 new principals and central office leaders in achieving and sustaining building-level instructional leadership.
• To utilize other leadership-building strategies including professional learning communities and coaching to support distributive leadership teams and achieve improved instructional focus and student outcomes in participating schools.
• To create model distributed leadership agreements with the Philadelphia School District and its unions, and training and develop partnerships with Temple University and Lehigh University in support of sustained leadership development and instructional improvement.

It is our intent to work with new principals and their identified teacher leaders and assist them in creating a distributed leadership school setting. This will be accomplished by key Action Plan elements of our project which follow.

• Develop principals and teacher leaders (teams) in distributed leadership including key organizational elements such as decision making, change, conflict, collaboration, etc.)
• Develop distributed leadership agreements and understandings.
• Develop a shared vision of informed practice and supplemental training in best practices in instruction and curricular areas (if needed).
• Develop professional learning communities in each building.
• Increase capacity for analysis and understanding of student work and data.
• Provide coaching and mentoring in creating a distributed leadership school setting.
• Develop a regional teacher leadership development center and a cadre of trainers for sustainability and dissemination.

More explicit details for each bullet point listed here can be found by visiting:
http://www.gse.upenn.edu/pcel/annenberg/grant.html

Feedback, please: What questions remain in your mind about the purpose of Distributed Leadership? Please post them in the COMMENTS section below. Thanks!