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Redesigning leadership programs: 4 puzzles.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Despite increasing criticism, many educational leadership programs have been actively engaged in restructuring to meet school systems' needs for well-prepared leaders. This paper examines three such efforts focused in one university program. Four key "puzzles" involved in redesign are discussed. Findings show that a key to improving leadership preparation is to accommodate flexibly to the needs of prospective leaders and the districts they aspire to serve.

Introduction

In the past year, the ongoing attack on educational leadership preparation programs has reached a level of rhetoric reminiscent of A Nation at Risk. Levine's (2005) report, Educating School Leaders, while not the only specimen of its kind, is particularly memorable in this regard. Levine asserts that educational leadership programs are engaged in a "race to the bottom," suffer from curricular disarray, have low admissions and graduation standards, offer inadequate clinical experiences, and are staffed by weak faculties. He concludes that few strong programs exist, and that many should be closed. While criticisms of leadership programs have gotten considerable attention, the work of addressing many of the issues critics like Levine highlight has been going on for some time. Orr (2006) describes the considerable progress many programs have made in revamping themselves, which, she says, provides "compelling evidence that significant innovation exists in the field and positively influences graduates' leadership practice" (p. 493).

In this paper, we concentrate on the challenges of redesigning educational leadership programs to ensure their meaningful contribution to the development of well prepared leaders for today's schools. We focus on a select number of puzzles faced by each of the planning teams engaged in designing-three pilot partnership projects and how they are responding to the needs of their various constituencies.

Background

Renewed attention to the role of leaders in promoting school improvement (Leithwood & Riehl, 2003; Waters, Marzano & McNulty, 2003), and the role of school leaders in meeting the needs of "especially challenging schools" (Leithwood & Steinbach, 2004), predates the current round of criticism of educational leadership programs. The impetus to reform leadership education stems from increased pressure on schools from high-stakes accountability policies, and the realization that demands on the principalship have shifted from mostly managerial responsibilities to instructional leadership (Kochan, Jackson, & Duke, 1999). Requirements that principals promote student achievement, facilitate the use of research to inform decision-making, and enlist stakeholders in reform (Fullan, 2001; Leithwood & Riehl, 2003) cause school districts to have greater difficulty finding highly qualified candidates (Gates, Ringel, Santibanez, Ross & Chung, 2003).

Preparing leadership candidates for a dramatically changed context and roles is a substantial challenge. The primary criticisms of university-based programs leveled recently may be viewed as a failure to respond quickly...