By providing ongoing and consistent opportunities for education leaders to experience professional development with their peers focused on common challenges, the Education Program is helping participants to identify solutions that will support, nurture and develop a new cadre of school system, school and classroom leaders. Though roughly three-quarters of our total education dollars are used to support personnel, there has been little or no alignment of these resources with academic and leadership goals. And school systems are generally not well organized to support the continuous learning of the adults in their schools and central offices.

Knowing the central role CAOs play in orchestrating district instructional strategies and recognizing the importance of aligning secondary mathematics and literacy efforts with each other and with the district's overall strategic approach, we have launched a CAO network facilitated by Tom Payzant, senior advisor to the Aspen Program and senior faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.