Fresno State and area educators are launching a sustained effort to invigorate the San Joaquin Valley's hard-pressed schools and lagging economy while addressing the region's chronic poverty.

Their new campaign has no small goal. The Central Valley Educational Leadership Institute intends to develop the region's own school administrators and principals. They, in turn, will lead local schools to higher achievement.

At least, that is the plan.

With headquarters at California State University, Fresno, the institute will conduct its first class June 14-16 at the university's Smittcamp Alumni House. The inaugural class will unite 100 school superintendents, principals and aspiring administrators from Modesto to Bakersfield. The cost to participants is $100.

The effort to develop school leaders connects with broader goals to improve the area's economy and quality of life, institute organizers say. They describe what they hope will become an upward spiral of accomplishment, which would work like this: The institute develops highly qualified principals and administrators, who, in turn, improve schools from Bakersfield to Modesto.

Better schools make the Valley more attractive to business and professional people, their firms and offices, and they, in turn, hire more people.

The better economy attracts more families with advanced education, and they have higher educational expectations for their children.

The parents support and push the schools still higher.

Fresno State President John Welty says that from his 1991 arrival in Fresno from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, "it was clear to me that we needed to begin thinking and behaving like a region. That led to an initial effort with formation of the Central California Futures Institute and the Fresno Regional Jobs Initiative to gather data and get people thinking about regional cooperation.

"Now a number of things are under way, and they are all steps that need to be taken."

Institute director Walter Buster, former superintendent of Clovis Unified School District, says, "We have got to get school leaders together with community leaders." He speaks of the institute as soon offering "world-class training without the impact on educators' budgets."

Deborah Nankivell, chief executive officer of the Fresno Business Council, calls the institute one of a number of cooperative efforts aimed at improving the Valley.

"With learning, you have to deal with who's in charge on the ground," she says. "And in each school, that is the principal. What kids need to learn in every system needs to change."

This effort requires expertise in each school, Nankivell says, supporting the need for the institute to create more leadership at schools, school district administrations and school boards.

This type of regional effort has been successfully attempted before, and Valley institute people point to the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative as a model. They invoke it for inspiration, as an example and possibly for money.

Collaborative director Merrill Vargo says the Bay Area program began in 1995 and has won substantial support from private foundations.

The Bay Area effort is based on two premises, Vargo says: that the future of democracy depends on a strong public school system, and that the future of public schools will be decided in urban areas.

"Now as we look across California," Vargo says, "we see the highest concentration of low-performing schools are not in the larger urban areas but in the Central Valley.

"So we asked ourselves if it weren't time for us and foundations to redirect some of our efforts and resources to the Valley. That prompted us to initiate conversation with folks at Fresno State. They told us about their ideas for the institute. We are in the early stages of talk about a partnership."

By partnership, Vargo means financial assistance, and she expects a decision within months.

At Fresno State, Paul Beare, dean of the Kremen School of Education and Human Development, says one law firm has committed $25,000 in annual support for several years to the institute.