Principals need clear goals, a culture of support and enough leeway to make the decisions they deem best for their campuses, according to a new report released by the George W. Bush Institute.

A group of experts from across the country--including those from the Wallace Foundation and New Leaders--joined the institute to discover how principals can be more effective and to develop a toolkit to help school districts work better with principals.

“Show me a good school, and I’ll show you a good principal,” said Margaret Spellings, former U.S. education secretary and now president of the George W. Bush Presidential Center, the Dallas Morning News reported.

For the report, “Great Principals at Scale,” experts reviewed existing research regarding leadership conditions to find common themes and frameworks. They also met with researchers, district officials and principals to discuss how to identify and prioritize what conditions work best for school leaders.

Among the report's findings: Districts need to do a better job making sure that goals are aligned across their systems and that central administrators are working in conjunction with principals, not bogging them down.

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