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In an interview with James Bellanca, education scholar Linda Darling-Hammond clearly delineates 3 practices  administrators must engage in to bring our schools into the 21st century. (The interview can be found in the book 21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn.)

"School leaders in the next decades need to engage in three practices that we haven't always seen as part of school administration. First is constructing time for teachers to work together on the development of curriculum and assessments. Second is designing and implementing comprehensive professional development programs. This includes formation of professional learning communities, providing coaching and mentoring for teachers who have been identified as needing additional assistance, and encouraging peer support teams that address the special needs of struggling students. Third is helping teachers find another profession if they are unable to improve after having received purposeful support."

These 21st century educational leadership practices are clear. If we as school leaders are going to recreate our schools to "meet the intellectual demands of the 21st century" then we must be willing to engage in these 3 practices.

• As 21st century school leaders, we must advocate and work hard to reconstruct our time and school day so that our teachers can collaborate on curriculum development and assessments. The kinds of learning our students need today require the development of learning activities that are authentic. The kinds of teaching that needs to occur needs to move away from teacher-centered to student-centered learning. We must look at our allocation of time and quit making excuses for keeping the same old school schedules that prevent this collaboration. We need to be willing to advocate for school-day restructuring that gives teachers the time they need to work collaboratively on curriculum development, assessment development, and planning. As 21st century school leaders we need to stop holding the 8-3:30 school day as sacred and unchangeable and make teacher collaboration time happen.
• As 21st century school leaders we need work to design and implement professional development programs that address the needs of our schools. In times of budget cuts, we, as school leaders have sat idly by while our lawmakers have destroyed our professional development budgets. Some of us have been guilty of seeing professional development as expendable. It isn't. We need to move into a full-blown advocacy role that says professional development is necessary. It isn't some add-on. Being a  professional development leader  means taking the lead in forming authentic professional learning communities. It means providing coaching and assistance for those teachers who have identified needs. It means leading authentic discussions about those students who aren't making it. Twenty-first century school leaders are committed to professionally developing the teachers in their schools.
• Finally, we, as 21st century school leaders need to accept the responsibility and the courage to do as Hammond suggests, which is helping teachers find another profession if after all of the support we've provided fails. Even good teachers want us to take care of those who just don't have it, but they want us to do it with dignity and fairness. School leaders need to be skilled in knowing when this needs to happen, and have the courage to do so.

As 21st century school leaders, the New Year gives us the opportunity to declare the direction we are going to move as 21st century educational leaders in our schools and districts. While there are certainly other areas to consider as we make New Year Resolutions as school leaders, here's three I consider imperative.

Social Media
In the coming year, it’s time to begin a genuine examination of the place social media has in your professional life and practice. Maybe it’s time to quit thinking narrowly of all the negatives that can happen when educators engage in social media use, and begin to look at potentials. Social media is here to stay in one form or another. It is time to move beyond trying to find ways to keep social media out, and engage in its use and encourage others to do the same. It’s time to quit wasting energy trying to keep social media out of our schools and embrace it as just another way to engage our students, parents, and community.

WiFi Access for Students
As bandwidth has become more available, it is time for us to look for ways to provide WiFi access for our students. As 21st century leaders, we need to provide an environment where our students and staff can remain plugged-in and powered-up rather than unplugged and powered-down. We need to make it a priority to find ways to give our students WiFi access within our school buildings and connectivity with their own devices. It takes a special, creative, 21st century leader to provide this access, keep our students safe, and teach students how to connect responsibly.

Explore and Move to the Cloud
One of our goals as 21st century leaders is take the limited resources we have, and provide the most with those resources. The cloud provides us the biggest opportunity to do that. The 21st century leader fearlessly explores cloud-based services and opportunities. Allowing Google to maintain email services or Microsoft maintain Office apps online is the future. We have a responsibility as 21st century leaders to deploy our resources in a manner that makes the most sense, and that gives us the biggest return for our investment. This school year, all 21st century school leaders need to commit to exploring the possibilities of cloud-based solutions and engage in their use whenever possible.

Being a school leader in 21st century schools is exciting. There are so many opportunities to for our own growth and exploration. As you make your New Year's resolutions, what areas would you add to this list for 21st leadership resolutions?