The Rhode Island Department of Education's mission is “to lead and support schools and communities in ensuring that all students achieve at the high levels needed to lead fulfilling and productive lives, to compete in academic and employment settings and to contribute to society.” Our mission is supported by the Comprehensive Education Strategy (CES) and reinforced by School Accountability for Teaching and Learning (SALT). Respectively, these tools provide education leaders and teachers with the major framework for the improvement of schools and teaching, focus on teaching and learning quality, and address the impact of school and district leadership on school culture.

The process of implementing state strategies designed to improve student learning highlights the continuing and daunting challenges facing the leaders who are primarily responsible for the realization of reform objectives. Successful reform requires leaders who have the knowledge, skills, and dispositions essential to do “the job”. Virtually every study on positive school change verifies that effective and sustainable school reform depends on exceptional school leadership. McREL’s 2003 report, Balanced Leadership: What 30 years of research tells us about the effect of leadership on student achievement, illuminates these responsibilities.

RIDE’s philosophy on educational leadership values this research as well as the day- to-day realities faced by education leaders. Leadership development is seen as an essential element in the design for improvement. We acknowledge that in order for Rhode Island to achieve its mission and improvement objectives, school and district leaders need leadership preparation and ongoing supports that enable them to focus on student learning. Creating and sustaining such leaders requires more than adding another component to an already burgeoning list. It requires aligning and integrating policy, programs, organizations, and individuals through a shared mission, vision and strategies.

We believe that essential to this alignment is a strong partnership and collaboration of the department of elementary and secondary education, the department of higher education and the school districts; working together to appropriately prepare leaders and seamlessly connect theory to practice. The recruitment and retention of exceptional leaders is dependant upon this sharing of responsibility as well as on a consistent set of supports for aspiring, new, and experienced leaders in Rhode Island.(See Coucil of Chief State School Officers).

A grant, funded by the Wallace Foundation’s Strategic Action for School Leaders Project (SAELP), has served to provide Rhode Island with the resources to focus on an alignment of leadership development with the state’s system of accountability. Sustaining this system in Rhode Island is the education preparation program approval process, professional development system (I-Plan), Progressive Support and Intervention (PSI), and this Highly Qualified Leaders Project website. Our attention to leadership needs is currently directing the development of a set of training modules that highlight the leader competencies that are connected to expectations of the Rhode Island Accountability System. Through it, we are continuing our commitment to our mission and its respective requirements.