Principal Preparation (Pre Service)

The goal of this paper is to provide policymakers with recommendations for the design and implementation of strong principal development and evaluation systems. States and local school systems that pursue these ideas can use principal evaluation to drive a powerful vision of principal effectiveness and, by consequence, improve outcomes for all students.

Overview New Leaders has recently published a new principal evaluation model. It includes seven modules: (1) Overview of the New Leaders Principal Evaluation Model, (2) The Principal Evaluation Rubric, (3) Setting a Principal Practice Goal + Strategic Planning, (4) Identifying Evidence, (5) Direct Observation of Principal Practice, (6) Collecting and Mapping Evidence to the Principal Practice Rubric, and (7) Providing Actionable Feedback.

Overview New Leaders has recently published a new principal evaluation model. It includes seven modules: (1) Overview of the New Leaders Principal Evaluation Model, (2) The Principal Evaluation Rubric, (3) Setting a Principal Practice Goal + Strategic Planning, (4) Identifying Evidence, (5) Direct Observation of Principal Practice, (6) Collecting and Mapping Evidence to the Principal Practice Rubric, and (7) Providing Actionable Feedback.

The Bush Institute’s new studies look at effective ways to evaluate principal preparation and describe policies to get, support, and keep great principals.

This paper examines a number of promising principal preparation programs to identify lessons for improving the impact of principals on student perrmance.

This report highlights the very important role that states play in cultivating principal leadership talent. This paper speaks concern about improving human resources management at the state and district levels, doing quality control at the entry requirements, and give states tools and strategies to re-frame policies to bolster the principal talent pipeline. 

This paper offer a number of research findings and action steps drawn from policies and practices that have been shown to be critical to the success of educational reforms at the local, district and state levels.

This literature review aims to provide district leaders with an understanding of the research and best evidence regarding the components of effective principal talent management systems.

Intended as a formative assessment tool, this guide provides detailed, individual state profiles and state-to-state comparisons of 8 policy areas and 21 policy criteria that support the development of effective leaders.

This study used within-program comparison of follow-up survey responses from two sets of program graduates from a university-based leadership preparation program to determine differences in program features and outcome measures.

Over the past 10 years, the Southern Regional Education Board has helped states and public universities across the region evaluate their state policies for preparing school principals who are leaders of instruction. This benchmark report reviews the past decade and looks at 10 learning-centered leadership indicators to gauge how far states have come and how far they need to go in selecting, preparing and supporting leaders of change.

CEELO reviewed data on 21 states’ principal licensure requirements, conducted structured interviews with experts on principal preparation and professional development in 7 states, and spoke with staff at the National Association of Elementary School Principals and the National Institute for School Leadership.

This study examined principal preparation programs within the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education to ascertain whether their programs were structured in a way that would equip principal candidates with the leadership roles deemed essential for 21st century school leadership.

This report tells policymakers what metrics they must track in order to make the best decisions regarding the supply and training of school leaders.

The concept of strategic leadership has been in the discourse of corporate governance and
management but in recent days, strategic leadership has become a concept in education
literature. Strategic leadership is also relevant in education more especially in a PK-12
educational setting.

This manuscript reports on two district’s efforts to improve the instructional leadership of principals, and lead teacher coaches in collaboration with an external support provider.

This report consists of two parts: a survey of 67 public school systems district staff serving as principal supervisors and on-site analysis of six districts pre-service training and support systems for new principals.

This book provides insight into the streams that are driving leadership theory and practice today. The Nature of Leadership, Second Edition provides students with an updated and complete yet concise handbook that solidifies and integrates the vast and disparate leadership literature.

The focus of this project is to create research in teacher education that positively impacts teacher recruitment, preparation and retention in urban environments. The novel approach we are using to attack this problem is that of capturing, analyzing, synthesizing and simulating human interactions in Mixed Reality (part real, part synthetic) environments, thereby creating training/screening settings that are realistic and yet do not put actual children at risk.

The purpose of this study was to determine principals' perceptions of how effective mentoring programs and university-based principal preparation programs are in developing the skills necessary to carry out the 13 critical success factors identified by the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB). A review of the literature addressed what it means to be an effective principal and what an effective mentoring program should look like.

This paper explores the implementation of a professional development program (PDP) for school principals. Two methods for measuring fidelity of implementation of the PDP are examined

In this report, the Southern Regional Education Board evaluates some 60 internship programs within its states and finds them lacking in a number of ways, including failing to provide real experiences in leadership. It urges policymakers, universities and school districts to create apprenticeships that better prepare aspiring principals for the demands they will face.

This report of 22 universities principal preparation programs identifies weaknesses in the training and offers recommendations for states to address the problems.

This study examined elementary school principal preparation programs to identify which program characteristics produced principals who were able to build well-qualified teams of teachers and improve student performance.

This study examines the influence of administrator credential programs, on-the-job experiences, and the standards in the development of urban public school principals.

Effective school leaders, particularly principals, are associated with better outcomes for students and schools. Principals help set school vision and culture, which support teacher effectiveness and ultimately can help improve student achievement.

The authors have been evaluating the impact of five principal preparation programs in the United States on student outcomes. This information should be considered as one aspect of preparation program improvement and accountability. The study team lays out its recommendations in this policy paper. 

This paper highlights the limitations of district-level data on principals encountered during data collection for a study on principal preparation programs. 

With this current study, the Bush Institute sought to go beyond sharing information about best practices in principal preparation and connect information about program graduates to student outcomes. Specifically, this study evaluated the impact of five Alliance to Reform Education Leadership Network programs on student achievement. 

The role of today's principal is changing, as is the principal workforce. The new generation of principals is younger with less teaching experience, and is more mobile, working more hours, and experiencing more job stress. Understanding how to better prepare new leaders for the role of principal is an urgent policy concern.

This Story From the Field examines how Denver and five other school districts have constructed and are using these systems as they seek to better train, hire and support school principals.

This report describes how Denver Public Schools hired personnel to coach and evaluate its principals.

Recognizing the power of high quality practice in teacher preparation, a web-based simulation called Cook School District was designed to allow teacher candidates to practice the skills necessary to connect their teaching to the learning of all children employing the framework of teacher work samples (TWS). Pilot study data comparing simulation users' abilities to analyze hypothetical teaching scenarios, interviews, and reflective writing in real work samples suggest that the simulation plays a role in helping candidates become more aware of, and able to perform, several critical skills necessary to effectively connect teacher actions to the learning of each student.

This study present results of a comprehensive review of principal leadership assessment practices in the United States. Using the learning-centered leadership framework, it focused on identifying the congruence (or lack thereof) between documented assessment practices and the research-based criteria for effective leadership that are associated with improved school performance.

With support from The Wallace Foundation, a Vanderbilt University team is developing a tool to monitor and assess the performance of school leaders. The Vanderbilt assessment will differ from existing tools by focusing 100 percent on instructional leadership and examining both principals and leadership teams. The paper, with two companion reports, presents the research behind and conceptual framework for the tool.

An analysis by The New York Times of the city’s signature report-card system shows that schools run by graduates of the celebrated New York City Leadership Academy — which the mayor created and helped raise more than $80 million for — have not done as well as those led by experienced principals or new principals who came through traditional routes.

This study draws on data combining survey responses from principals, assistant principals, teachers and parents with administrative data to identify which principal skills matter most for school outcomes.

This article reviews U.S. administrative licensure regulations, focusing on type of school leader licensure, provider types, and leadership quality. Licensure obtained through university-based and alternative routes is examined.

This study draws on a range of existing quantitative data resources, including Chicago Public Schools' personnel and test score data, and a biannual survey of teachers and principals to

This report is a comprehensive and research-based framework outlining the conditions necessary for transformational school leaders to succeed. It offers a framework of conditions that can help districts enable great school leadership.

This report examines the issue of school principal candidate standards as evidenced by below-average verbal, quantitative, and analytic scores, as measured by standardized tests.

This report is designed to help principal preparation programs assess the quality of the training they offer.

New Leaders has recently published a new principal evaluation model. It includes seven modules: (1) Overview of the New Leaders Principal Evaluation Model, (2) The Principal Evaluation Rubric, (3) Setting a Principal Practice Goal + Strategic Planning, (4) Identifying Evidence, (5) Direct Observation of Principal Practice, (6) Collecting and Mapping Evidence to the Principal Practice Rubric, and (7) Providing Actionable Feedback.

For purposes of the Ontario Leadership Framework (OLF), leadership is defined as the exercise of influence on organizational members and diverse stakeholders toward the identification and achievement of the organization’s vision and goals. For aspiring leaders, this framework provides important insights about what they will need to learn to be successful. Those already exercising leadership will find the framework a useful tool for self-reflection and self-assessment.

This article presents results from a study of leadership coaches who worked with novice principals in a university-based induction program for a 3-year period.

This publication seeks to help answer those questions by bringing together findings from four reports commissioned by The Wallace Foundation to inform its development of a potential new initiative regarding university-based principal training.

There are a number of vehicles federal policymakers can use to create or encourage effective leadership policies. Throughout this series we will describe an ideal policy and then suggest potential vehicles policymakers could use to pursue that policy.

This report provides an overview of NYCLA’s flagship principal preparation program. Intended to help others involved in principal preparation think through important elements of principal preparation, including candidate selection, developing experiential learning opportunities, and funding, staffing and sustaining the program, the guide shares NYCLA’s successes and lessons learned during the 11 years we have delivered the Aspiring Principals Program in New York City, as well as through our work with various state and district partners nationally to adapt the program.

Ready to Lead presents the collective expertise of educators engaged in building or conducting research on principal residency designs across the United States, and answers the call for greater clarity on principal residency design.

The purpose of this paper is to identify common roles played by principals, how these roles differ across types of schools, and finally, how effectively are preparation programs training principals in these roles.

This paper describes Auburn University's story of developing an innovative field-based master's level principal preparation program. The program’s goal was to align the program's curriculum and internship experiences with state and other accrediting agency standards, current leadership preparation research, and local educational agency (LEA) partner input and support. 0

This book presents information and tools necessary to successfully evaluate all types of educational leaders and improve both individual and organizational performance.

This report outlines steps States can take to strengthen the approval and renewal processes of their principal preparation programs.

This brief describes: (1) The need for more and better principal professional development to improve principal effectiveness, decrease principal turnover, and more equitably distribute successful principals across all schools; (2) The research on the importance of principals and how professional development can improve principals' effectiveness; and (3) Options and examples for leveraging current policies to revisit and refocus efforts concerning principal professional development.

In this report, the Southern Regional Education Board outlines critical actions that states, districts, universities and principals themselves should take as part of a systematic plan to address principal succession. The report makes the case for principal succession planning and describes six steps for succession planning that states and districts can implement to ensure they have the right principals for the job.

This study focuses on the experiences of ten novice principals involved in a principal mentoring program in a large urban school district to examine the connections of theory and practice from training received in their administrative preparation program. It sought to understand the impact of receiving support and mentoring in retaining principals. Three themes emerged from the data: (1) the importance of networking with other principals, (2) individualized support with mentors, and (3) continuous development and professional growth. The research presented will contribute to the agenda of retaining quality administrators in the field.

Effective preparation and professional development programs build the capacity of principals to lead across their full range of responsibilities, fostering school environments where adults and students thrive. Research points to several key building blocks of strong preparation and development programs. 

Intended for state officials involved in the assessment and approval of university and other programs to train future school principals, this report describes five design principles for effective program evaluation.

This report represents the first systematic comparison of student outcomes in schools led by the Aspiring Principals Program (APP) graduates after three years to those in comparable schools led by other new principals.

This study compares the effect size and return on investment for rapid assessment, between, increased spending, voucher programs, charter schools, and increased accountability.