Nearly
20 years of efforts to reform administrator preparation programs have produced
little progress. The reforms prompted by such well-known national initiatives
as the U.S. Department of Education’s Leadership in Educational Administration
Development (LEAD) Program (1987–1993) and the Danforth Foundation’s Principals
Preparation Program achieved rather limited success. Ample research on school leadership preparation programs makes it
clear that many existing programs are in dire need of improvement.
Principals
across the nation agree that administrator training programs deserve an
“F.” In a survey of educational leaders
conducted by Public Agenda, 69% of the principals responding indicated that
traditional leadership preparation programs were “out of touch with the
realities of what it takes to run today’s schools.”[12]
Other
major voices in education who have reached the same conclusion include Joseph
Murphy, co-author of the ISLLC standards, who characterizes the programs as
“bankrupt,”[13] and
Michelle Young, Executive Director of the University Council for Educational
Administration (UCEA), who concedes that university programs have been slow to
change and that faculties are not connected to the field and often have a laissez-faire
attitude about the need to adopt standards.[14]
So
broad is the consensus for change that scores of individuals and organizations
representing K-12 and higher education established the National Commission for
the Advancement of Educational Leadership Preparation (NCAELP) in 2001. Comprised of 40 individuals, including major
scholars and leaders in the field of educational leadership and of national
organizations, NCAELP’s charge is to examine and improve the quality of
educational leadership in the United States. Six papers and two commentaries
solicited by the Commission to guide discussions are available at the NCAELP
Website, http://www.ncaelp.org/
The
general consensus in most quarters is that principal preparation programs (with
a few notable exceptions) are too theoretical and totally unrelated to the
daily demands on contemporary principals.
The course work is poorly sequenced and organized, making it impossible
to scaffold the learning. Because
clinical experiences are inadequate or non-existent, students do not have
mentored opportunities to develop practical understanding or real-world job
competence.
Admission
standards to most accredited programs are too low and few, if any, efforts are
made to identify high potential applicants, to target women and minorities for
inclusion or to identify individuals interested in working in high needs rural
or urban environments. School district
pay policies may be part of the problem, too.
Typically, a school district pay scale rewards those who accrue credits beyond
the undergraduate level. Such credits
can be easily obtained by taking courses through administrator preparation
programs. This encourages
self-selection by many applicants who may be of dubious quality and have little
or no intention of ever seeking an administrative post.[15] Since self-selection is a standard practice,
administrator programs generally end up serving clusters of individuals
operating on their own rather than serving cohorts of individuals who are
developed into a learning community — an integral feature of an effective
preparation program.
The
lack of partnerships between colleges and universities and school districts
affects the selection and admission of candidates and the design and conduct of
the preparation program. Absent
partnerships with school districts, there are no easily accessible mechanisms
for identifying the best candidates – individuals who have shown the greatest
promise of future success as a principal and who will be likely to return to
the school district and make valuable contributions. 21st
century partnerships between school districts and universities are not
“your father’s Oldsmobile.” Today’s partnerships must focus on the areas
of greatest need. Schools and universities
must work together to recruit and prepare diverse cohorts of highly qualified
candidates – men and women who can serve in urban or rural settings, lead
low-performing schools and prepare their communities to meet changing
demographic, social, economic and political change.
The lack of strong working relationships
with school districts also makes it impossible to develop learning laboratories
in which “student-principals” can make protected or mentored mistakes from
which they can learn and develop. As
Cambron-McCabe and Cunningham have observed, “ . . . the need for change in
leadership preparation is not an issue.
Rather, the possible approaches that can be taken to strengthen our
field are the subject of debate.”[16]
Question 3: Why Is Change Needed?
“. . . the ‘leadership ability’ and ‘leadership values’ of
the principal determine in large measure
what transpires in a school; what transpires in a school
either promotes,
nourishes,
or impedes and diminishes student academic success.” [17]
Our nation is now confronted
by a profound disconnect between pre- and in-service training, the current
realities and demands of the job and the capacity of school leaders to be
instructional leaders. Strong
leadership is the heart of all effective organizations, be they private, public
or non-profit. An increasing body of
evidence confirms that such leadership is also important for public schools –
but it is leadership of a very special sort.
The clarion call today is for adept instructional leaders, not mere
building managers.
There is a growing consensus that “command
and control” leadership models do not and
will
not work in today’s high accountability school systems. Good leadership for schools is shared
leadership. It has many forms and many
names: distributive leadership, change facilitation and constructivist
leadership.
The old model of leadership with its
strict separation of management and production is no longer effective. “Principals must serve as leaders for
student learning. They must know
academic content and pedagogical techniques.
They must work with teachers to strengthen skills. They must collect, analyze and use data in
ways that fuel excellence.”[18] Principals also must be able to permit and
encourage teachers to exercise leadership outside the classroom. Roland Barth, the founder of the Harvard
Principals’ Center, notes that . . .
“there are at least ten areas . . . where teacher involvement is actually
essential to the health of a school, ranging from selecting textbooks and
instructional materials to designing staff development programs to evaluating
teacher performance.”[19]
Schools of the 21st century require a new kind of principal,
one who fulfills a variety of roles:[20]
· Instructional leader — is focused on strengthening
teaching and learning, professional development, data-driven decisionmaking and
accountability.
· Community leader — is imbued with a big picture
awareness of the school’s role in society; shared leadership among educators,
community partners and residents; close relations with parents and others; and
advocacy for school capacity building and resources.
·
Visionary
Leader —
has a demonstrated commitment to the conviction that all children will learn at
high levels and is able to inspire others inside and outside the school
building with this vision.
To be sure, all
three types of leadership are important, but the priority must be instructional
leadership – leadership for learning.
Principals of today’s schools must be able to (1) lead instruction, (2)
shape an organization that demands and supports excellent instruction and dedicated
learning by students and staff and (3) connect the outside world and its
resources to the school and its work.
As a corollary proposition, preparation programs must fulfill the vision embodied in the ISLLC
standards and develop principals who have the knowledge, skills and attributes
of an instructional leader and the capacity to galvanize the internal and
external school communities in support of increased student achievement and
learning.
Traditionally,
college- and university-based educational leadership programs have emphasized
management and administrative issues rather than curricular and instructional
issues. The paramount nature of
teaching and learning — the business of schools — has never been stressed. Recent findings from the Southern
Regional Education Board (SREB) reaffirm the assertions the National Commission
on Excellence in Educational Administration made more than 15 years ago: There is a need for better systems to
support the recruitment and development of principals. SREB’s report, Good Principals Are
the Key to Successful Schools, exhorts the states to take “luck” out of the
process and to establish a leadership development system that produces
principals who:
· Understand which school and
classroom practices improve student achievement;
· Know how to work with teachers
to bring about positive change;
· Support teachers in carrying out
instructional practices that help all students succeed; and,
· Can
prepare accomplished teachers to become principals.[21]
Question 4: What Are
the Options for Action?
Changing Policy
During the early
1990s, several states mandated policies to make fundamental changes in the
structure and content of their state’s leadership preparation programs. Through targeted policy reform processes,
these states changed how and where they prepared educational leaders and began
to develop more coherent educational leadership development systems.
In North
Carolina, the reform process was initiated in the state legislature. Changes were made in licensure, stringent
criteria for the approval of principal preparation programs were adopted and a
rigorous review of all such programs was undertaken. This process ensured that some preparation programs would be
dropped and the state would be left with high-quality programs serving
appropriate geographic regions throughout the state.
In Mississippi,
the State Superintendent of Education initiated the reform process. His office controlled teacher and
administrator program approval, but the university programs were under the
general authority of another state agency, Institutions of Higher Learning, or
of the boards of trustees of private colleges and universities. The Chief created a special entity — the
Commission on Teacher and Administrator Education, Certification, Licensure and
Development — that developed rigorous, research-based criteria for the State
Board of Education.
These reform
efforts incorporated redesigns into formal state policies that reflected a
reconceptualization of the administrator role as one focused on leadership for
learning. Each state required
interested higher education institutions to apply for program approval, absent
which program accreditation and professional licensure would be denied. The linchpin of these reforms was an
objective external program review by a panel that made approval recommendations
to the state’s most influential policymakers.
Such strategies gave external credibility to the reform process and,
equally important, gave state officials a heat shield. The external panels’ findings and
recommendations led to state decisions to approve, delay or deny program
approval. The overall result was a
reduction in the number of accredited preparation programs and an improvement
in the ones that continued.
More recent
efforts to take a policy-focused
approach to changing how a state prepares its educational leaders and to create
more coherent educational leadership development systems are being promoted by
the work of the Wallace Foundation through its Leaders Count
initiative. The Foundation created the
State Action for Educational Leadership Project (SAELP), a consortium of
national organizations serving state policymakers; the Council of Chief State
School Officers manages and supports
the consortium.[22] SAELP awarded three-year grants of $250,000
to 15 states to support the analysis of existing state-level policies and
practices that enhanced or impeded the development of educational leadership.
The states are charged with implementing policies that address education and
professional learning; licensure, certification and program accreditation;
professional practice conditions; governance structures; business priorities
and practices; and diversification of the superintendent and principal
candidate pool.
In Iowa, SAELP
support is enabling the Director of the Department of Education to lead an
effort focused on reforming administrator preparation programs. As in North Carolina and Mississippi,
preparation programs in Iowa are now required to apply for re-approval. These programs, as well as new applications,
are assessed against rigorous new criteria that reflect the roles and
responsibilities of today’s administrators.
University and college faculty members in Iowa are restructuring
programs with the full knowledge that approval (and personal survival) will be
predicated on changing traditional offerings to the satisfaction of the state’s
most authoritative policymakers.
Several important
lessons emerge from such statewide reform actions:
§ State policy levers that are part of a well-conceived and
supported plan of reform can prompt change more effectively than can a reliance
on market or professional incentives.
§ The adoption of formal policy alone does not guarantee
change. Implementation must be
accompanied by complementary elements such as formal program review, technical
assistance and monitoring.
§ While
the unit of change is the individual institution, the state can play an effective
role by encouraging collaboration instead of competition among institutions.
Changing Programs
University-based
programs that get the highest marks for preparing principals who can meet the
demands of the job in the 21st century are often viewed as deviations from the
norm. Typically, such programs are
cohort-based and serve between 20 and 25 students who enter the program at the
same time and are bonded into a community of learners. Extensive clinical activities and
field-based, mentored internships integrate the practical lessons of academic
coursework and ground them in the day-to-day realities of schools. Students are given opportunities to solve
real problems in real schools.
Faculty and other
program staff work together, often with school district administrators, to
develop and integrate the program in ways that enable students to master
identified critical competencies.
“[Such programs] . . . tend to be more demanding of participants and to
have more careful selection and screening processes. . . . [They] are more coherent and focused and pay attention to
the sequencing and scheduling of courses, and have strong collaboration with
area districts.”[23]
There are some
excellent principal preparation programs in existence. They are anchored by what the research tells
us about teaching and learning and about the role of the principal as an
instructional leader. These programs
strive to prepare individuals who can meet the challenges of school leadership
in the 21st
century. Illustrative principal
preparation programs are reported here in four categories that denote the
change strategy being used: Reform
Programs in Universities – Inside Colleges of Education; Reform Programs in
Universities – Outside Colleges of Education; Partnerships between School
Districts and/or Other Organizations; and Nontraditional Providers. A fifth category, Principal Professional
Development, provides a snapshot of selected programs using similar change
strategies to improve principal professional development activities.
Reform
Programs in Universities — Inside Colleges of Education
When a diverse
group of individuals was asked to identify innovative university-based
principal preparation programs, three programs were mentioned more frequently
than were others: Delta State
University, East Tennessee State University and Wichita State
University. The Delta State
University program, inaugurated in 1998, was developed with assistance from
a panel of national experts. The focus
is on preparing future principals to lead schools in the rural regions of the
Mississippi Delta. Fifteen prospective
principals are selected to participate each year. While some teachers apply on their own, most applicants are
nominated by their employing school districts as individuals of “high
promise.” Participants serve as interns
under mentor principals for one year while simultaneously attending classes.
Students who are on “paid sabbaticals” from school districts are required to
work in the sponsoring school district after completing the program.
All students in
the master’s degree program in educational leadership at East Tennessee
State University move through the degree program as part of a cohort
group. Students are selected on the
basis of academic credentials, experience and leadership potential. They are required to complete an extensive,
focused field experience as part of the program. Students also develop a professional
portfolio, the presentation and committee review of which serves as a
culminating experience. Development of the portfolio provides each student with
opportunities for reflection and self-evaluation. The portfolio also serves to
spotlight skills and accomplishments that will be of interest to future
employers. Students are assessed through such strategies as written
examinations, videotaped performances, materials development, research
projects, and oral presentations.
The state of
Kansas is moving toward competency-based courses in educational
administration. Wichita State
University’s innovative program leads to building-level licensure and a
master’s degree in educational administration.
Students begin the program with a cohort that becomes their “learning
family” during the two-year program.
They begin to work “in the real world” of school leadership from the
start. With the guidance of a mentor
(usually the student’s building principal), they assess their own strengths and
weaknesses and identify strengths and weaknesses in their school. Students capitalize on strengths and work to
correct weaknesses — individually and organizationally — throughout the
two-year program. The program requires
33 credit hours of coursework plus a comprehensive examination during the last
semester of enrollment. The required curriculum, delivered through seminars and
complementary practica, is focused on educational leadership and school
finance; interpersonal relations and supervision; school law and personnel
management; curriculum and learning theory; school closing and school opening;
and diversity and social justice.
Three additional
university-based programs conducting business in different ways were brought to
our attention: the Principal Licensure
Program (PLP), Antioch McGregor University; the Principal Leadership Institute
(PLI), University of California, Berkeley; and the First Ring Leadership
Academy, Cleveland State University.
The PLP at Antioch McGregor University is designed for educators
who (1) want to be school principals in the state of Ohio, (2) have a master’s
degree from an accredited regional college or university and (3) meet the
state’s requirements for licensure. It is a reality-based program focused on
four themes: establishing trust,
empowering stakeholders, reframing school structures, and creating new
opportunities. The collaborative
approach combines Antioch’s tradition of addressing intellectual, emotional and
ethical development with organizational management skills. Students learn through real challenges,
interaction with successful school and district leaders, and guided inquiry
into real school problems.
The Kenneth E.
Behring Center for Educational Improvement at the University of
California, Berkeley houses the PLI, an initiative to prepare a new
generation of leaders for urban schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. The PLI assumes that administrators should
be educational leaders first and foremost, knowledgeable about instructional
alternatives and able to work collegially with teachers to improve the quality
of teaching and learning. Students become familiar with the broadest possible
range of reforms and are able to understand the processes of change in order to
implement reforms. Strong relationships
with area school districts facilitate field experiences, provide feedback on
the program, and ensure a strong link between university coursework and urban
school reality.
In a
one-of-a-kind collaboration, the 13 school districts surrounding the city of
Cleveland joined forces with Cleveland State University to create The
First Ring Leadership Academy for aspiring school principals. Participants hold various positions in first
ring school districts and have identified their desire to become school
leaders. The non-traditional curriculum
is performance-based and wrapped around the ISLLC standards. The field-based application of best
practices occurs under the critical guidance of an exemplary principal. The Academy has special authorization from
the Ohio Department of Education to serve as an alternative route to principal
licensure. A Masters degree + the
Academy + the successful completion of the Praxis = grounds for licensure. Twelve graduate credits of traditional
educational administration courses are waived!
Reform
Programs in Universities — Outside Colleges of Education
The principal
preparation program at the University of Central Arkansas is now housed
in the Graduate School of Management, Leadership and Administration. It is a performance-based program that is
aligned with ISLLC standards and focused on providing prospective
administrators with the skills necessary to effectively lead schools in the 21st century.
In a bold innovation
designed to meet new demands, Rutgers, The State University of New
Jersey, Camden, has created a new strand in its public administration
program, Educational Policy and Leadership.
Fifteen Camden school district teachers, selected by the school district,
will participate in a three-year program emphasizing policy analysis,
leadership strategies, communications skills and systemic school reform. The program includes an internship mentored
by a Rutgers faculty member. Graduates
will receive the MPA degree and fulfill the requirements for a
certificate of eligibility as a school principal in New Jersey.
Partnerships
Between School Districts and/or Other Organizations
The partnership
between the University of North Texas and the Dallas Independent
School District is setting a high bar for principal preparation programs
and for partnerships. As a starting
point, the partners agreed on seven qualities that the leaders produced by the
preparation program would possess (see Box 1). The district
taps individuals of high promise, selecting teams of teachers who can meet the
university’s admission requirements and who have the potential to become
outstanding school leaders. The two- to
four- member teams use their schools as learning laboratories, conducting
site-based projects and activities designed to lead to school improvement.
The Holyoke
Public School System is partnering with the University of Massachusetts
to develop a leadership development program whose ultimate goals are to enhance
student outcomes and the satisfaction of various community stakeholders. Key interventions include a two-year,
onsite, NCATE-approved research- and problem-based program leading to a Massachusetts
certificate for 18 aspiring principals (and a three-year professional
development program in which every principal and assistant principal will
participate on a monthly basis during the school year). Holyoke principals will serve as mentors for
certification candidates. The U.S.
Department of Education’s School Leadership Program provides funds to support
this initiative.
Nontraditional
Providers
Currently,
universities and colleges prepare the bulk of principals, but the times are
changing. Reflecting a trend in all of
graduate education, not just in the field of educational leadership,
non-traditional providers have emerged to meet new demands. These new providers are offering principal
preparation and professional development programs through new models and using
delivery mechanisms that many think are more appropriate to the needs of
principals in the 21st century. Two such
providers have achieved national recognition.
New Leaders
for New Schools (NLNS) (see Box 2), is a principal preparation program
currently operating in New York City, Chicago and in the San Francisco Bay Area
(two additional program sites, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., will be
operational in the fall of 2004). It is
focused on recruiting talented individuals who (1) have a diverse but proven
set of skills, strengths and successes and (2) can become successful urban
school principals. NLNS wants to create
a pathway for principal recruitment, preparation and ongoing support that will
serve as a model for school districts, universities and other providers. Partnerships with National Louis University
(Chicago and San Francisco) and Baruch College (New York) ensure that the NLNS
participants are certified.
The Principal
Residency Network (PRN), (see Box 3 on next page) is based on the belief
that school leadership can best be taught and learned in the schoolhouse. The program is individualized to meet the
needs of aspiring principals and is dedicated to changing the conditions of work
by designing and then partnering with small, personalized schools. The PRN relies on a careful selection
process of both aspiring principals and the mentor principals with whom they
work closely. Careful attention also is
paid to attract potential leaders of color. The program consists of individual
work, group work and the demonstration of one’s work in different ways. Aspiring principals document their efforts
and create extensive portfolios.
Performance is assessed through portfolios, public exhibitions, mentor
narratives and a cycle of feedback.
Certification is provided through arrangements with a growing number of
colleges and universities.
Both of these
highly visible, nationally known, non-traditional principal preparation
programs have arrangements with various universities and colleges to certify
their graduates. Resolving the
certification issue puts them in a strong position to challenge
university-based programs on several fronts:
entrance requirements; curriculum; and duration, focus and location of
training.
Professional
associations at the state and national levels, as well as other established
organizations, have taken on new roles:
they are new providers of principal preparation programs. For example, the state of Massachusetts
leads the way in creating a statewide system of principal preparation programs
that includes established traditional programs run by graduate level
institutions of higher education and programs run by non-degree granting
organizations such as administrator professional associations, educational
collaboratives and school districts.
The nontraditional programs are not required to partner with
colleges or universities. The Massachusetts
Elementary School Principals Association (MESPA), the longest standing of
the nontraditional programs, runs the MESPA Certification Program. Participants are involved in study and
practice experiences that include four curriculum blocks and an
internship/practicum. The program can
be completed in 11 to 18 months, depending on the participant’s schedule and
initiative. Affiliated with Northeastern
University, this program is one of 11 preparation programs run by
non-degree granting organizations that have been approved by the Massachusetts
Department of Education.
The Massachusetts
Secondary School Administrators’ Association, the Massachusetts
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and Teachers
21 sponsor an innovative program that is a rigorous, comprehensive course
built on the knowledge base on effective teaching and learning and the best
practices of effective instructional and organizational leadership. Designed
with the practicing educator in mind, the program includes summer and weekend
coursework, a practicum, a performance assessment, and beginning administrator
induction. Highly skilled educational
leaders teach the curriculum modules, while school mentors and program
supervisors support participants’ work in the practicum. The program begins in
June and concludes the following May.
(Box 4 lists all Administrator Licensure Programs sponsored by
non-degree granting organizations in Massachusetts as of July 2003.)
In February 2003,
the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) announced a
partnership with a successful online-training corporation, Canter &
Associates, a division of Sylvan Learning, and with a nationally ranked
university, Vanderbilt University, to prepare an online principal
preparation program that incorporates new standards. The two-year program will organize participants into small
cohorts of 15-20 participants and take them through a curriculum based largely
on the ISLLC standards. For example,
the first course of the program deals with effective learning for all students
and modules on recent research on learning, effective teaching and the barriers
to learner-center teaching. This
program is not intended to serve those who are simply looking for a way to
increase their salaries. Joseph Murphy,
Professor of Education at Vanderbilt University, and Willis Hawley, former
Dean, College of Education, University of Maryland, are leading a team of
prominent administrators and scholars in developing a “world class”
curriculum. The program will award
graduates a master’s degree in educational administration and the program
organizers hope the degree will be accepted for licensure through reciprocity
agreements. The curriculum will be
tested this fall and hopefully launched in the spring of 2004.
To education
leaders and policymakers alike, web-based principal preparation programs
probably sound far fetched or a little like a Harry Potter novel. However, a preliminary search identified no
fewer than eight online educational administration degree programs designed to
meet state licensing and content standards and to prepare individuals for the
principalship. Universities providing
programs that rely primarily on 21st century tools and resources are a diverse mix of institutions and
include: University of Phoenix Online,
Walden University, Jones International University, University of Cincinnati,
Capella University (the first online university to receive state approval for
K-12 educational administrator preparation), Emporia State University, Nova
Southeastern University, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Electronic
University Consortium (EUC) of South Dakota.
As stakeholders
look closely at their state’s educational leadership system, they will note
obvious distinctions between traditional programs and those offered by the new
providers. The demand for change in all of advanced or graduate education is
being driven by the need to respond quickly to new workplace needs. Nontraditional programs do not have the
traditions of academic institutions and are freer to develop innovative courses
and curricula. Personnel can be brought
on board irrespective of academic rank or degree. Income can be returned to program operation instead of siphoned
off for other institutional needs. It
remains to be seen whether universities will embrace needed changes in order to
create new ways of doing business.[24]
Patrick Forsyth,
the Williams Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Oklahoma,
observes that, “If university leadership programs expect to prosper in
education’s high-stakes environment, they have to convince skeptical school
systems that they can produce graduates who can lead schools to greater levels
of achievement.”[25] The University of Oklahoma is one of 11
universities participating in a Wallace Foundation-funded initiative based at
SREB and focused on the redesign of school leadership preparation programs by
working with diverse partners including faculty, business leaders, exemplary
principals, state education departments and school districts.
Principal
Professional Development
Many of the same
strategies being used to improve traditional university-based principal
preparation programs are also being used to improve principal professional
development programs. New providers
such as The National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) are working on
site with practicing principals. NCEE
works through its National Institute for School Leadership (NISL) to help
school districts prepare practicing principals to be outstanding instructional
leaders in high-performance, standards-based schools. The program helps principals meet challenges such as thinking
strategically, sharing responsibility for leading the school, getting staff and
parents on board, implementing fully aligned standards and instructional
systems and managing for results. Every
NISL partner–whether a school system, a university or an education
association–selects a team of local educators (from 4 to 12 individuals) to
learn the NISL curriculum and then teach it to local principals. The core of the leadership curriculum is
taught during summer institutes. The first is a three-week session taught by
NISL staff. Leadership teams work
through units on strategic thinking, standards-based instructional systems, the
principal as school designer, and other topics. The teams then return home to
plan their training of local principals, which combines face-to-face
instruction with state-of-the-art interactive Web-based learning.
Partnerships
between school districts, colleges and universities and other entities are
helping ensure that practicing principals are, in fact, instructional
leaders. Three programs funded in part
by the U.S. Department of Education’s School Leadership Program illustrate how
more focused and targeted partnership arrangements are helping to change the
nature of principal professional development.
The University
of Kentucky is working collaboratively with Morehead State University
and the Pike County (KY) Schools to develop and refine a model for
improved leadership to ensure learning for at-risk students in rural school
districts. The project, serving a
cohort of 15 principals and/or individuals certified for the principalship, is
focused on three themes: visionary practices, collaboration and school-based
action research. Key objectives include
establishing professional networks and career pipelines for the identification,
preparation and ongoing development of school leaders; assuring ongoing
learning for aspiring and practicing school leaders; offering situated learning
and job-embedded development through mentoring by practicing principals; and
assessing and exposing practicing principals’ needs and challenges in assuring
improved learning. The three-year
program has the potential to provide a model for preparing, developing and
re-culturing school leadership to assure learning for at-risk students in rural
school districts.
The Austin
(TX) Independent School District is working with the University of
Texas, Austin and the Texas Education Agency’s Region XIII Service
Center to assess all district assistant principals and principals on the
ISLLC standards. If a school leader
shows a need for improvement on one or more standards, he/she receives
intensive professional development assistance.
Other assistance provided includes a focus on developing school leaders
who can speak Spanish and understand the Hispanic culture, and intensive
mentoring for first-year principals and/or for those new to the state of
Texas.
The Leadership
for Learning Project is a partnership between three urban New Jersey School
Districts (Newark, Paterson and Trenton) and the Center for Evidence-Based
Education, New American Schools.
The goal is to build the capacity of both existing principals and vice
principals to lead their colleagues in their work toward improved student
performance. The program addresses
participants’ learning needs through a combination of targeted workshops,
onsite leadership reviews, job-embedded practice assignments, mentoring and a
dedicated Web-based program of participative inquiry.
Gathering a
state’s programs and resources under one umbrella is a strategy some states are
using to strengthen principal professional development. In 2002, the state of Georgia created the Georgia
Leadership Institute for School Improvement, a broad-based partnership
devoted to the success of Georgia’s educational leaders in meeting elevated
expectations for student achievement and school performance. The partnership is comprised of the Board of
Regents of the University System of Georgia, business leaders, the Georgia
Partnership for Excellence in Education, the Georgia Professional Standards
Commission, state government officials and K–12 educators. The Institute’s funding base is broad and
includes the Wallace and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations, state
government and business partners.
The Institute
provides education and development for educational leaders and is working to
research, define and institutionalize a “charter” leadership preparation program for aspiring principals that is
job embedded and that operates outside existing higher education structures as
an impetus to changing leadership preparation programs. The laboratories for this work are in the
Atlanta Public Schools and at Georgia State University. The instructional design will ensure that
leaders both “get it” and can “do it.” The Institute has put Georgia on the road to creating a
statewide system through which school leaders can be developed and
supported.
The Arkansas
Leadership Academy, established in 1991, is a nationally recognized
statewide partnership of 44 organizations:
universities; professional associations; educational cooperatives; state
agencies; corporations and foundations.
It is an innovative academy preparing educational leaders who can
develop high performing learning communities throughout Arkansas. Using research and best practices, the
Academy designs creative and innovative approaches to establish learning
communities in public schools by developing human resources and by modeling and
advocating collaboration, support, shared decision making, team learning, risk
taking, and problem solving. Partners
commit to changing their organizations to support system improvement. The Academy’s Principal Institute,
offered through four residential sessions over a one-year timeframe, is focused
on increasing the capacity of principals to build professional learning
communities in Arkansas schools.
Traditionally, other countries rely less
on institutions of higher education for the preparation of leaders. In England, for example, the National
College for School Leadership (see Box 5) was created as a new partner on
the nation’s education stage. The
College, funded by the Department of Education and Employment, is designed to
provide a single national focus for school leadership development and research,
to be a driving force for world class leadership in the schools and to provide
and promote excellence. Today, the
College has three core areas of activity: national leadership development
programs; research and development; and online learning, networks and
information. The College’s main responsibility is to develop and oversee a
coherent national training and development framework. This get-it-together,
one-stop stopping center for school leaders is an idea from which the United
States might take a few cues.
A NEW GENERATION OF SCHOOL LEADERS
“When
. . . expectations meet a system where the incentives for change are few and
far between,
the times demand bold
solutions infused with large doses of imagination, creativity and
inventiveness.” [26]
The
bad news is that a radically new generation of school leadership is needed and
the preparation programs of today are not yet up to the task of equipping these
leaders for the challenges of the 21st century. However, the good news is that we know much
of what we need to know in order to address the situation with optimism.
New
conceptualizations of the school administrator as the “leader of student
learning” have opened the doors to changes in practice and preparation. Years of critique and experimentation have
produced blueprints for change in preparation programs. There are good models of effective programs
operating across the country that can serve as guides to others committed to
change. And, many states have come to
appreciate the critical role they can and must play in providing policy
leverage as well as implementation frameworks in support of reform.
To
recruit and prepare the principals a state wants and needs, policy and program
leaders must know how their state answers the four core questions raised in
this Report: How do state policies
shape the talent pool? What is the current
condition of leadership preparation?
Why is change needed? What are
the options for action? Armed with the
answers, states can continue to work to create educational leadership
development systems that will ensure success.
While there are no simple
solutions to the challenges facing states as they attempt to create better
systems to support school leadership, policy and institutional leaders are
pursuing new pathways to resolve the problems they and their constituents and
customers identify. Equally important, they are strengthening existing
practices and innovations that show promise of future success.
We
know that little consequential or enduring change occurs in the absence of a
well-crafted and well-disseminated bipartisan vision of education — one that
anchors, supports and guides reforms.
If our nation’s efforts to implement the No Child Left Behind Act have
taught us anything, it is that the principal’s role in determining school
quality and student achievement is decisive and that most incumbent and newly
minted administrators are poorly prepared to fill that role.
To
amend this troubling state of affairs, policy and institutional leaders must
demand that colleges and universities be innovative in their principal
preparation programs. They must welcome and support new providers and they must
regulate their entrance into the marketplace in ways that encourage a maximum
of healthy innovation and competitiveness while concurrently encouraging novel
collaborations that combine the best of what the different organizations have
to offer. Policy and institutional leaders
also must encourage all parts of the educational leadership development system
to work together to make the system more coherent and, more important, to
ensure that the system produces exemplary instructional leaders.
First and foremost, however, policy and
institutional leaders must remember that the business of schools is teaching
and learning, that all education policies must support student achievement[27]
and that all preparation programs must develop school leaders who can provide
instructional leadership.
About the Institute for Educational Leadership
Since 1964, IEL
has been at the heart of an impartial, dynamic, nationwide network of people
and organizations from many walks of life who share a passionate conviction
that excellent education is critical to nurturing healthy individuals,
families, and communities. IEL's
mission is to help build the capacity of people and organizations in education
and related fields to work together across policies, programs, and sectors to
achieve better futures for all children and youth. To that end, IEL works to: build the capacity to lead; share
promising practices; translate our own and others' research into suggestions
for improvement; and share results in print and in person.
IEL believes that
all children and youth have a birthright: the opportunity and the support to
grow, learn, and become contributing members of our democratic society. Through our work, we enable stakeholders to
learn from one another and to collaborate closely—across boundaries of race and
culture, discipline, economic interest, political stance, unit of government,
or any other area of difference—to achieve better results for every youngster
from pre-K through high school and on into postsecondary education. IEL sparks, then helps to build and nurture,
networks that pursue dialogue and take action on educational problems. We provide services in three program
areas: Developing and Supporting Leaders;
Strengthening School-Family-Community Connections; and Connecting and Improving
Policies and Systems that Serve Children and Youth.
1001 Connecticut Avenue, NW,
Suite 310, Washington, D.C. 20036
Telephone: 202-822-8405 •
Fax: 202-872-4050
E-mail:
iel@iel.org • Web site: http://www.iel.org
About the Illinois Education Research Council
The Illinois Education Research Council (IERC) was
established in 2000 to provide Illinois with objective and reliable evidence
for P-16 education policy making and program development. It is housed at Southern Illinois University
Edwardsville. With the guidance of its
Advisory Board, the Council initiates research and policy analyses that address
issues of critical importance to Illinois as it strives to build a seamless
education enterprise.
The Illinois Education Research Council
publishes research reports and issues analyses that are written by IERC staff
or commissioned by the IERC. It also
hosts an annual Focus on Illinois Education Research Symposium.
This document was
commissioned as part of IERC’s Issues in Education series
(IERC-2003-I-3). It provides a national
perspective on school leadership issues and principal preparation programs. We
hope that Illinois policy makers and practitioners will find the information
useful as they continue their own work to influence the quality of school
leadership.
Box 1064, Southern Illinois
University Edwardsville, Illinois 62026
Telephone: 618 650 2840 •
Fax: 618 650 2425
E-mail: ierc
@siue.edu • Web site: http://ierc.siue.edu
Box
1: UNT–Dallas ISD Partnership
7
Qualities of Leaders
www.sreb.org/main/Leadership/pubs/Leadership_newsletter_F2002.pdf
·
Support rigorous academic standards and instructional
methods that motivate and engage students.
·
Make meaningful connections between abstract parts of the
curriculum and the real world.
·
Create and manage a system of support that enables all
students to meet high standards and motivates faculty to have high expectations
for all students.
·
Set priorities for change that can be measured and managed
realistically.
·
Create a personal, caring school environment that helps
students meet higher standards.
·
Apply research knowledge to improve school practices.
·
Use technology for management and instructional
purposes.
Box 2: New Leaders for New Schools
http://www.nlns.org
NLNS is focused on improving
education for every child by recruiting and developing talented, individuals
who will become successful principals in urban public schools. NLNS wants to create a pathway for principal
recruitment, preparation and ongoing support that will serve as a model for
school districts, universities and others.
The program operates in three
locations (New York, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area) (sites in
Baltimore and Washington, D.C. will be operational in the fall of 2004) and
recruits talented individuals with a diverse but proven set of skills,
strengths and successes. Participants
receive a full fellowship and living stipend.
Aspiring principals are trained in an intensive summer institute
developed and taught by leading practitioners and academics. This provides an
essential foundation and toolkit of skills needed to lead instructional
improvements, manage effective organizational change and school operations and
engage parents and the outside community. Participants use these skills in a
full-time yearlong internship guided by an exceptional mentor principal.
The program
helps place graduates in urban public schools and provides them with ongoing
support, networking and a community of peers.
Working with National Louis University and Baruch College, graduates of
the program are awarded formal, standard certification in their state. Applicants without a master’s degree are not
guaranteed administrative certification until they take nine credits of
pre-determined coursework at their own expense.
Box 3: The Big Picture Company – The Principal
Residency
Network (PRN)
http://www.bigpicture.org
Dennis Littky and Elliott Washor
worked with Roland Barth, founder of Harvard Principals’ Center, and exemplary
principals from across the county to design the PRN to train principals in the
schoolhouse. The program is
individualized to meet the needs of aspiring principals and is dedicated to
changing the conditions of work by designing and partnering with small,
personalized schools where the rewards of leadership can be realized.
The program carefully selects
both aspiring principals and mentor principals, with attention to people of
color. The selection process involves
the aspiring principal and requires an understanding and commitment on the part
of a mentor principal, superintendent and the district that the applicant is
heading for a principalship.
Consequential school-based
projects are at the core of the program and contribute to the school while
fostering the individual’s leadership learning. The six focus areas are:
moral courage; moving the vision; instructional leadership;
relationships and communications; management through flexibility; and efficiency
and public support. These areas
correspond to the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC)
standards and to various state competencies.
The program is comprised of individual work, group work and the showing
of one’s work in different ways.
Aspiring principals document their efforts and create extensive portfolios. Performance is assessed through portfolios,
public exhibitions, mentor narratives and a cycle of feedback.
Initially, Lewis
and Clark College granted certification to aspiring principals who completed
the program. Currently, Northeastern
University, Johnson & Wales University, Rhode Island College, Providence
College and Keene State College also put their college seals on the program.
Box
4: Massachusetts Department of
Education (MDE)
Administrator
Licensure Programs - July 2003
(non-degree
granting organizations operating with formal approval and/or informal approval
(one-year agreement) to recommend candidates for licensure)
Principal
Massachusetts
Elementary School Principals’ Association (MESPA):
Springfield
Public Schools
Merrimack
Education Center
Boston
Public Schools, School Leadership
The
Education Collaborative (TEC)
EDCO
Collaborative
Principal,
Supervisor/Director
Leadership
Licensure Program, Massachusetts Secondary School Administrators’ Association
(MSSAA), Teachers 21, and Massachusetts Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development (MASCD)
Principal/Special
Education Administrator
South
Coast Educational Collaborative
School
Business Administrator
Lower
Pioneer Valley Educational Collaborative
Other
MDE-sponsored
Administrative Apprenticeship Pilot Program
(presented by
Framingham Public Schools and the Lower Pioneer Valley Educational
Collaborative)
Department
of Education and Employment, England
Serving
School Leaders – From Start to Finish
http://www.ncsl.org.uk/
At about the same time the
United States developed the ISLLC standards (1997), England announced plans to
create a National College for School Leadership (NCSL), an entity responsible
for developing school leaders (headteachers aka principals) and supporting
them throughout their careers. The
College has three core areas of activity: national and partnership leadership
development programs (National Professional Qualification for Headship – NPQH,
Headteacher Induction Program – HIP,
Leadership Program for Serving Headteachers - LPSH); research and
development; and online learning, networks and information.
The NPQH is the qualification
for aspiring Headteachers (principals) and is the benchmark for entry into the
profession. The program prepares
candidates for the challenging but rewarding role of headship. It offers stimulating, professional training
that is focused on candidates’ development needs and underpinned by the National
Standards for Headteachers.
The HIP program is available to
newly appointed headteachers in their first substantive headship. It provides a grant for training and
development that can be used over a 3-year period. Key elements of the program include needs assessment, coaching,
mentoring, and visioning. Individuals
also can choose to take modules focused on issues such as raising pupils’
achievement, leading schools facing challenging circumstances, inclusion and
working with the governing body.
Experienced and practicing
headteachers are served through the LPSH, a program that provides them with a
chance to focus on how their leadership influences standards in schools. Another leadership development program, The
Ithaka Leadership Program, enables headteachers to understand and make more
effective use of their skills. This program is available only to heads with at
least seven years of experience.