That is the question isn't it? We come to the end of another school year, exhausted, unhappy about unmet goals, and in some cases devastated by student achievement data that does not come close to matching our efforts and good intentions.

In an article in the May 14 edition of Education Week, "The Principalship? No Thanks", Philip Cusick presents a disturbing but now all too familiar picture of the challenges that lure current principals to retirement and cause even the most promising new administrator candidates to decline a promotion to long hours, endless paperwork, and increasing accountability for everything from high stakes test scores to solving each new societal problem delegated to schools. When schools fail, principals are the first to go. Teacher leaders are not so eager these days to fill the role that they have come to know as "next to go."

Cusick suggests that policymakers and members of the education community must change the way schools operate and rethink the role of the principal. I believe that. But I also believe that school leaders cannot wait for this to happen. Cornerstone schools are making these changes now, and as a result of our work, we have a model of school change that should inform the decisions of policymakers. We also have much to contribute to the conversation about the role of the principal. We know the answer to the question, "When does the work get easier?" It doesn't. We get better.

One of the ways we get better is by transforming each Cornerstone school into a learning organization, what Peter Senge calls "an organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future." Senge writes about the art and practice of dynamic learning organizations in his bestseller, The Fifth Discipline. Some of you may have already read it, and some, I know, have it on your bookshelf for future reading. Take a look at it if you are having another one of those days when you feel as if you are moving backward instead of forward. Leaders of learning organizations understand and help other adults address the problems they inherit without feeling like victims. They learn to make decisions that sustain growth long after individuals have moved on to other positions, and they inspire an ongoing, deep commitment to student learning by nurturing a partnership of teachers, parents, district level administrators, and the larger community.

We often think of learning as merely taking in and using information, but Senge writes about a deeper meaning of learning, a fundamental shift or movement of mind. We expect this of our colleagues—a major shift in their thinking about the way they teach, in their openness to using the literacy framework and the research that supports it, and in their commitment to whole school change. We expect fundamental shifts in the level and quality of parent involvement in schools, a shift from relative absence to engagement. We also expect a deeper learning from our students—fundamental shifts, for example, in the length of time they read and write independently, in the way they think and work, and in the way they perform on assessments.

Leaders must also be learners, and therefore we, too, should be experiencing fundamental shifts or movement of mind. During this school year, what are the fundamental shifts or movements of mind that describe your deeper learning as a principal or coach? I am not asking about the deep learning that makes you a better classroom teacher or a principal who is better at gaining staff compliance. What deeper learning makes you a better leader of school change? What can you describe? What can you share with other members of the leadership team, and what would be important to share with the entire faculty? Senge writes, "Real learning gets to the heart of what it means to be human. Through learning we re-create ourselves." In what ways are we re-creating ourselves as leaders, and are the changes in the way we lead as observable to the faculty as the changes we expect to see in them?

While we are re-creating ourselves, we must also be more deliberate about re-creating our schools. That is what learning organizations do. They don't just change parts, but they also change the system in which those parts live. Re-creating our schools is one of the ways we get better. The decisions made by the school leadership (decisions about implementing the literacy action plan and the larger school improvement plan, for example) should be part of the master plan for school change. When strategies, school visits by consultants, book studies, and other activities are not part of a well thought out school change process, they become those add ons, that teachers simply can not fit into an already full agenda of "stuff" to do with students.

Too often, the activities of schools are reactions to the crises of the day. We know that we should be proactive rather than reactive. Senge suggests that much of what we think is "proactive" is really reactive in disguise. It may be pre-planned reaction, but it is still nothing more than a quick fix for a problem that is sure to challenge us another day or in another place. Leadership for Cornerstone schools should concentrate on moving from reaction to redesign. Anticipating barriers to progress and addressing them in the ways we plan to address them when we are most successful is an indicator of redesign. These are the strategies that build our capacity to create our future. When new challenges arise, we have years of practice and experience to apply.

A leadership focus on redesign also addresses what Senge describes as our fixation on events. Schools are known for their events--the numerous, random acts of goodwill that have no significant impact on learning. They occur during school and after school, sapping the energy of the few teacher volunteers always tapped to chair the events and the principal who must attend every one of them so that the public knows he or she really cares about students. These events themselves are not the problem as much as the randomness of them. A leadership team that helps the faculty and community see the big picture of school change for learning can also increase the likelihood of high quality support directly connected to the real work. Elements of school improvement plans then begin to yield improvements. The "actions" of literacy action plans and parent grants replace events. The literacy frameworks become the school wide framework for learning.

All of this takes time, but it has to begin. The end of a school year is as good a time as any to start moving, or to move with more enthusiasm in the direction of our greatest aspirations for students. Leaders begin by deepening our own learning and being open to fundamental shifts of mind to signal that learning. Think alouds with the leadership team and the rest of the faculty about our shifts in thinking, coupled with the observable changes they see in the way we lead, make the daily challenges of school seem easier. Redesigning the way our schools work rather than repeatedly trying to fix the parts is what sustains the momentum for change and increases commitment.