Preparation Programs for School Leaders

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce G. Barnett ◽  
Nathern S.A. Okilwa
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Leadership Development ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Leadership Preparation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Preparation Programs ◽  
Norms And Values

For over 50 years, school leadership preparation and development has been a priority in the United States; however, since the turn of the century, school systems, universities, and professional associations around the world have become more interested in developing programs to prepare aspiring school leaders and support newly appointed and experienced principals. This increased global attention to leadership development has arisen because public or government school leaders are being held accountable for improving student learning outcomes for an increasingly diverse set of learners. Because school leadership studies have been dominated by American researchers, global program providers tend to rely on Western perspectives, concepts, and theories, which may not accurately reflect local and national cultural norms and values. As such, calls for expanding research studies in non-Western societies are increasing. Despite relying on Western-based leadership concepts, leadership preparation programs outside the United States differ substantially. Cultural norms and values, infrastructure support, and social and economic conditions influence the availability and types of programs afforded to aspiring and practicing school leaders. As a result, there is a continuum of leadership development systems that range from: (a) mandatory, highly regulated, and well-resourced comprehensive programs for preservice qualification, induction for newly appointed principals, and in-service for practicing school leaders to (b) non-mandatory, minimally regulated, and moderately resourced programs to determine eligibility for positions and induction to the role to (c) non-mandatory, poorly regulated, and under-resourced programs, which are offered infrequently, require long distance travel, and participants costs are not covered.

Experience-Based Leadership Training: Reflections of African-American School Leaders

1995 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 272-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maenette K. P. Benham ◽  
Edward Shepard
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Leadership Training ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Leadership Preparation ◽  
The United States ◽  
American School ◽  
Preparation Programs ◽  
Professional Experiences

A variety of innovative pedagogues focused on improving school leadership preparation programs are currently under way throughout the United States. Coupled with these fresh approaches to teaching and learning that center on exploring the professional knowledge of the practitioner, more institutions are actively recruiting school leaders who represent a range of ethnic backgrounds. The intent of the following paper is to examine the usefulness of one innovative instructional approach, an experientially-based leadership retreat, for five African-American school leaders. The stories presented in this paper attempt to link the participants’ lives and professional experiences to the leadership retreat to answer the question “What did they learn about themselves through this experience?” The emergent themes have universal value and positive implications for current and future leadership preparation programs.

Reflections on the evolution of educational leadership preparation programs in the United States and challenges ahead

2015 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 416-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martha McCarthy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Educational Leadership ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Leadership Preparation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Preparation Programs ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Us ◽  
Educational Leadership Preparation Programs

Purpose – The purpose of this legacy paper is to review leadership preparation over time in the United States and addresses challenges ahead. It is hoped that the US developments will be instructive to an international audience interested in strengthening the preparation of school leaders. Design/methodology/approach – The paper synthesizes research and commentary on leadership preparation programs in the US as a basis for identifying five challenges ahead. Findings – Meaningful change should be informed by the past but not bound by tradition. It is imperative to be open to different viewpoints, to take reasonable – and at times bold – risks, and to question deeply held values and assumptions. Broad recognition of the significant role school leaders play in facilitating student learning suggests that the political climate is right to effect meaningful reforms in leadership preparation in the US. Those involved in preparing school leaders are urged to address the challenges identified in this paper. Research limitations/implications – Encouraging work is underway, but many more people need to be involved in efforts to rigorously assess and improve leadership preparation. Practical implications – We do not have all the answers but cannot be paralyzed by what we do not know. We are ethically responsible to act on what we do know, such as incorporating the compelling research on learning theory into the leadership preparation curriculum. Originality/value – The traditional complacency in the educational leadership professoriate cannot continue if university preparation programs are to meet the needs of the next generation of school leaders. The time is short, and the stakes are high for all involved especially for PK-12 students.

Holistic School Leadership: Development of Systems Thinking in School Leaders

2018 ◽  
Vol 120 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-40
Author(s):  
Haim Shared ◽  
Chen Schechter
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Leadership Development ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Systems Thinking ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Maturity Stage ◽  
Preparation Programs ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Prospective Principals

Background Systems thinking is a holistic approach that puts the study of wholes before that of parts. It does not try to break systems down into parts in order to understand them; instead, it focuses attention on how the parts act together in networks of interactions. Purpose This study explored the development of holistic school leadership— an approach where principals lead schools through the systems thinking concept and procedures— over principals’ different career stages, a topic that has received little research attention. Research Design Qualitative data were collected via 82 semistructured interviews, six focus groups, and 27 observations of three groups of principals: (a) prospective principals— 24 students attending three principal preparation programs; (b) novice principals— follow-up on 11 prospective principals during their first year after appointment; and (c) experienced principals— eight principals holding that position for 5+ years. Data analysis was conducted by generating themes through an inductive process of condensing, coding, categorizing, and theorizing. Findings Data analysis indicated that the development of systems thinking in school leaders consists of five stages: (a) preservice stage, typified by an expansion of view; (b) survival stage, typified by a slowdown in the development of systems thinking; (c) consolidation stage, typified by a gradual development of systems thinking; (d) role maturity stage, typified by a systemic view; and (e) possible decline stage, typified by some degree of difficulty to think systemically. Conclusions Systems thinking is not equally applicable to aspiring, novice, midcareer, and veteran school principals. This study's findings may help identify ways to enhance and accelerate the development of systems thinking in prospective and currently performing principals in a way that is compatible with the unique features and context of their specific stage.

The criteria and training for the position of school leadership in the United States of America and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-38
Author(s):  
Kenan Ozberk ◽  
Gulsun Atanur Baskan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Document Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Turkish Republic ◽  
Data Collection Process ◽  
Northern Cyprus

The purpose of this study is to compare and contrast the procedure of choosing and appointment of school leaders in the United States of America and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and make suggestions regarding the procedures to be followed in TRNC. In the data collection process, the qualitative research method document analysis was used. Dissertations, scientific articles, laws, regulations and websites were searched to collect the data. The training, selection and appointment of school leaders in the United States of America, which has a deep-rooted past regarding the training of school leaders’ and the procedures followed by the TRNC regarding the appointment of school leaders were studied. The procedures followed by the two countries were compared and the dissimilarities were detected. Suggestions were made to the Ministry of Education and Culture of the TRNC for the changes to be made in the appointment of school leaders. Keywords: School, school leader, the United States of America, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, document analysis.  

Social Justice Leadership, Equity, and the Digital Divide

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony H. Normore ◽  
Antonia Issa Lahera
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Leadership Development ◽  
Knowledge Base ◽  
Digital Divide ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Social Justice Leadership ◽  
Preparation Programs ◽  
Democratic Principles

To commit to Brown v. Board of Education’s legacy of advancing social justice and democracy, it is necessary to look at practices (i.e., the types of discourse, experiences, processes, and structures) that promote the development and support of school leaders committed to social justice, equity, access, and diversity. Leadership preparation programs need to provide the knowledge base for aspiring school leaders to understand how they ought to respond to the changing political, moral, and social landscapes in which they live and work. Of equal importance is the curricular focus on interrelating social justice, democracy, equity, and diversity so that aspiring school leaders can identify practices that explicitly and implicitly deter social progress. Furthermore, these school leaders ought to be able to develop a knowledge base on how to respond to these injustices in their school leadership practices. As leadership development and preparation program personnel prepare new leaders, the discourse of social justice and marginalization is an important objective in the curriculum of preparation programs. Personnel in leadership programs have an opportunity to take part in discourse about how to shape the quality of leaders they produce for the good of society. To this end, researchers offer critical insights into the types of discourse, experiences, processes, and structures that promote the development and support of contemporary principals committed to social justice and democratic principles. Included in the research discussion are the tenets of social justice leadership, democracy, diversity and the digital divide, digital access, and digital equity.

Leadership Training with an Emphasis on the United States

Education ◽  
2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela D. Tucker ◽  
Frank Perrone
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Leadership Development ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
Leadership Training ◽  
Leadership Preparation ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Body ◽  
Leadership Position ◽  
Systematic Assessment ◽  
Formal Leadership

Due to a growing body of empirical research on the influence of quality leadership in schools, the role of school leaders continues to come under the policy spotlight as an important catalyst for school improvement and reform. While classroom teachers have the most direct impact on student learning, educational leaders are able to support and optimize learning through their indirect effect on school and classroom conditions. Critical theorists would challenge these instrumental functions of school administrators and posit a more humane, moral, and democratic view of leadership, which in turn would suggest different forms of training and program evaluation. Despite wide-ranging definitions of leadership, there is a growing awareness and appreciation of leadership effects, and a resulting surge in the scholarship and research focused on leadership training. For the purposes of this article, leadership training has been interpreted to mean the learning process by which individuals are prepared to demonstrate leadership skills and develop those skills over the course of their professional careers. Preparation refers to learning that takes place prior to selection for a formal leadership position, and development refers to learning that takes place while an individual is in a formal leadership position. Both preservice and in-service aspects of training are addressed in the references; however, most of the research addresses aspects of leadership preparation versus leadership development. The body of research on leadership training has been growing substantially since the early 1990s, but it was quite limited prior to this time period. When available, empirically based research studies were selected for inclusion in this article. An effort also was made to include international perspectives on leadership preparation, but the majority of the available literature comes from the United States. Qian, et al. 2017 (cited under General Overviews) notes this dearth of international research in the authors’ overview of the non-US leadership preparation field. As a result of the heavy emphasis on research from the United States, there is a disproportionate sampling of publications focused on university-based training, where most of the administrative preparation takes place due to licensing regulations. Although leadership training is taking place in a variety of venues outside of universities, there is little systematic assessment of its impact on the practices or beliefs of participants.

State of States: Landscape of University-Based Pathways to the Principalship

2020 ◽  
pp. 105268462098036
Author(s):  
Erin Anderson ◽  
Sajjid Budhwani ◽  
Frank Perrone
Keyword(s):  
School Leadership ◽  
Postsecondary Education ◽  
Leadership Preparation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Student Aid ◽  
Preparation Programs ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Delivery Modes ◽  
Education Data ◽  
The Impact

This study describes the landscape of school leadership preparation programs in the United States, including pathways to the principalship (master’s, certification, educational specialist) and the delivery modes for each pathway (face-to-face, fully online, hybrid). First, data was collected from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data on the number of degrees and certificates awarded by every postsecondary institution receiving U.S. federal student aid from 2013 to 2018. Then program websites were searched and coded by two independent coders. All discrepancies were resolved; the final dataset was analyzed using measures of central tendency. This study found that master’s programs were the most common route to the principalship, and there were more than double the number of master’s offerings than certification and more than double as many certification offerings than educational specialist. The most common delivery modes across each pathway were, from most prevalent to least: face-to-face, fully online, and hybrid. Ten states had an offering in every pathway and modality, but no individual university offered every pathway and modality. Twenty-one states had one or more universities that offered all pathways but not all modalities. Implications are that program faculty informed decisions about what pathways and modalities to offer, these data allow for sampling techniques that can help researchers conduct more inferential studies to measure the impact of leadership preparation on school outcomes, and these data allow for research that differs by pathway, providing a more nuanced understanding of preparation. Finally, this study serves as a call for a centralized database for tracking SLPP data.

Learning From the Experiences and Development of Latina School Leaders

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 472-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa A. Martinez ◽  
Marialena Rivera ◽  
Jocabed Marquez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
The United States ◽  
Student Population ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
District Administrators ◽  
Career Trajectories ◽  
Leadership Pipeline

Purpose: With the rise of the Latinx student population in the United States and the urgency to meet the needs of this diverse community, there has been an increased concern and interest in preparing more Latinx educators and school leaders. This study contributes to this knowledge base by centering the voices and experiences of four Latina school leaders in the United States. All of the school leaders were current or former school principals and/or assistant principals at the time of the study, with three being from Texas and one from California. Research Approach: Drawing on the methodological tenets of testimonio, this study asked: What are Latina school leaders’ professional experiences like, both positive and negative, given the intersectionality of their social identities? Utilizing intersectionality as a theoretical framework provided the means to analyze and understand Latina school leaders’ multiple social identities and the role that such identities played in their professional roles and career trajectories as school leaders within the larger context of educational politics and systemic inequities. Findings: Testimonios of participants centered on four themes related to how they confronted gender roles and expectations of motherhood, the criticality of mentorship, how they confronted and addressed racism and sexism, and harnessed bilingualism to empower self and others. Implications: Findings help inform those seeking to meet the needs of our growing Latinx student population, including school district administrators, current and upcoming school leaders, and those working to prepare a more diverse school leadership pipeline.

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