The cornerstone of transformational leadership is vision. For our school leaders to act as more than middle managers, they have to foster a school community's vision--cultivate the school community's direction and purpose. This qualitative study uses semi-structured interviews with school leaders and following focus groups with their teachers to…

In 2010, Illinois passed legislation making significant changes to its principal preparation and licensure policies. With the goal of improving student outcomes and closing achievement gaps, the state updated standards for principal preparation programs with a focus on instructional leadership. Illinois's reforms were ambitious, requiring all…

This paper explores Illinois's shift from a general administrative license, called a "Type 75" license, to a "PK-12 Principal Endorsement." It includes both a history of the reform efforts and a look at how implementation has fared nearly a decade after the legislation was signed into law. It also offers lessons and…

Anecdotal evidence points to the importance of school principals, but the limited existing research has neither provided consistent results nor indicated any set of essential characteristics of effective principals. This paper exploits extensive student-level panel data across six states to investigate both variations in principal performance and…

The study employed the exploratory sequential mixed method design involving semi-structured interviews with 12 former and 18 current head teachers, and 4 directors of Education. Structured questionnaires were further administered to 390 former and current head teachers and 4 Directors of Education. The findings of the study revealed that in the…

It has been asserted that it may not be enough to just recruit qualified personnel into any system, it is also necessary to ensure that staff so recruited are given the necessary training. Training is widely accepted as fundamental to the improvement of not only the individual staff, but also to the improvement of organizational performance, and…

For decades, preservice training for principals looked something like this: While working as teachers, they took occasional courses at an education school on such topics as school finance, law, and educational theory. After a few years, they completed a culminating field assignment, which might have involved shadowing their own principals. Then…

Assuming the quality of the principal is directly linked to student learning and instruction, whose responsibility is it to develop building administrators to their fullest? This question is at the center of Principal Training on the Ground by Sandra Stein and colleagues from the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College of the City University of…

In this article, the author presents eight quick and easy steps to setting up a "grow your own" administrator program to help school districts fill open positions with qualified administrators. These are: (1) Invite cabinet members and directors to conduct two-hour workshops; (2) Write and send out a letter to all teaching and support staff…

An innovative principal preparation program was created at the University of Tennessee--Knoxville. The program was built around 19 parameters and based upon three theoretical domains in administration: organization (defines managerial role), human dimension (defines human relations role), and individual relationship with other two dimensions…

This study examines the existing and potential strategies for sustaining and building greater levels of management and leadership capability in training organisations. The research report is one of the products of a nationally based research consortium: Supporting vocational education and training (VET) providers in building capability for the…

Discusses a series of (British) management development initiatives currently being launched by the Teacher Training Agency. Priority has been given to developing a National Professional Qualification for Headship. This major policy innovation should be welcomed and placed within the context of past management training policy. Summarizes…

At the present juncture, South Africa is one of the few countries that do not require a compulsory and specific qualification for principalship. This particular need has been part of a discussion among educational leaders for the past thirty to forty years. Despite all the laudable efforts to redesign the landscape of Educational Leadership and…

The Louisiana Leadership in Educational Administration Development (LEAD) program is a technical assistance network designed to help newly appointed administrators improve their instructional leadership skills. LEAD began in 1987 as a 3-year federal grant and was adopted by the Louisiana State Board of Education in 1989 as a certification…

This annotated bibliography of commercially prepared training materials for management and leadership development programs offers 10 topical sections of references applicable to school principal training. Entries were selected by using the following criteria: (1) programs dealing too specifically with management in sales, manufacturing, finance,…