School effectiveness and improvement research shows that leadership plays a key role in ensuring the vitality and growth of schools. Yet, there is growing appreciation (Elmore 2000, 2) that "public schools and school systems as presently constituted are simply not led in ways that enable them to respond to the increasing demands they face under standards-based reforms." For Elmore (2000, 2) and others, the way out of this problem is "through the large scale improvement of instruction, something public education has been unable to do to date, but which is possible with dramatic changes in the way public schools define and practice leadership." Though there has been large-scale improvement in instruction in England, there is still room for improvement. Through the introduction of national strategies and regional and district infrastructures, the focus on teaching reading, writing, and math to students aged 4 to 14 years has sharpened considerably. Targets for student outcomes in literacy and numeracy at school, district, and national levels were introduced simultaneously. All public schools are regularly inspected by external teams of inspectors, and their findings have been made public for over a decade. Standards have risen significantly.