Harvard Leadership Program
Since 2008, the Raise Your Hand Texas Foundation has sponsored over 1,500 principals across the state to attend training at the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Principals’ Center. The center offers a variety of professional development programs designed to empower and inspire school leaders. The Charles Butt Foundation will continue this sponsorship with two institutes at Harvard this summer.
Selected campus leadership teams serving Texas public schools will be attending the School Turnaround Leaders institute. Selected principals serving Texas public schools are eligible to attend the Achieving Excellence: Leadership Development for Principals institute. Each institute is a week-long professional development summer course taught in Cambridge, Massachusetts by faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Applications for the 2023 cohorts closed on March 15. Please subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on social media to be notified when applications for the 2024 cohorts will open.
We recognize the critical role of human capital in building student achievement. Absent a higher salary structure for educators, the most powerful incentive to retain effective teachers is supportive leadership. Once principals return from their transformative summer at Cambridge, we work to continuously support and develop them professionally as part of our statewide network of school leaders.
Principal alumni join the Charles Butt Foundation Regional Leadership Collaborative which connects alumni in regional groups who visit each other’s campuses, conduct instructional rounds, share best practices, and problem-solve on current issues in education. Through these groups, principals are empowered to work together to create change at the campus and district levels.
The Charles Butt Foundation covers all airfare, lodging, and tuition expenses, as well as a stipend for each cohort member. While at Cambridge, the Charles Butt Foundation supports principals in networking, setting goals, and developing action plans for when they return to their campuses. The Raising School Leaders program director attends the program with the school leaders. Upon returning, the program director conducts campus visits throughout the year to share resources and give feedback on the implementation of ideas and action plans from the Harvard institutes. The Charles Butt Foundation’s marketing team sends out periodic digital newsletters and also visits alumni on campus to capture personal stories about their week at Harvard. These leadership stories are told through the use of photos, videos, and other multimedia, and are published on our Stories page.
If you are a current Charles Butt Scholar or Scholar Alum, please check your email for instructions on how to join our new CBF Connect Platform.
Director of Leadership Development
Check out our other statewide programs