Philadelphia high schools in need of improvement will be getting the principals they need to make them successful thanks to a new project involving Temple University’s College of Education.

Through a $3.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the School District of Philadelphia has created the Philadelphia School Leadership Project, one of 22 similar projects nationwide to support the development, enhancement, or expansion of innovative programs to recruit, train, and mentor aspiring principals and assistant principals for schools in need.

The collaborators on the project include The Institute for Schools and Society (ISS) at the College of Education, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the School District of Philadelphia and Lehigh University’s Center for Developing Urban Educational Leaders.

The ultimate goal is to provide the School District of Philadelphia with highly qualified and committed principals for high schools that have been designated for School Improvement or Corrective Action under the federal No Child Left Behind law. The project will seek out exceptional teachers with leadership potential from such schools, said Girija Kaimal, co-principal investigator of the study and senior research associate at ISS.

Candidates will take courses in urban school leadership at Lehigh University and will participate in a year-long mentored internship at a host school. Upon successfully completing the program, newly minted principals and assistant principals will continue to receive support and coaching for two years.

Since effective urban school leaders are hard to find, especially for low-performing high schools, this grant could contribute to real progress for students in these schools according to Will Jordan, director of the ISS.

“Quality leadership has been found in many research studies to be one of the key factors to turning around low-performing schools,” he said.

Lehigh and the School District of Philadelphia will handle instruction and training, while the ISS will evaluate program implementation and impact. If successful, the project could yield a cost effective and most importantly, sustainable model for providing low-performing urban schools around the country with much needed educational leaders.

Administrators of the Philadelphia Leadership Project, which runs through September 2013, have began recruiting for the program and hope to recruit 15 people per year, or 75 new educational leaders by the time that the grant ends.