New administrators need more than good grades - Column

School Administrator, June, 2002 by Anthony J. Lease

John, a graduate student, had prepared for his oral exam before a committee of university professors for days. His performance held great importance. Passing the exam would result in a masters degree and what he hoped would soon be a position as an elementary school administrator.

John (not his real name) envisioned impressing the committee with his wealth of knowledge. Then, he figured, he would move on for a brief period as an assistant principal followed by an appointment to his very own principalship.

As a former superintendent who until recently directed the graduate school of education at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, I sat as a member of John's three-member examining committee prepared to judge John's readiness to assume responsibility as a school leader. John's performance was impressive. He responded with an air of authority to a wide range of questions surrounding the many and varied responsibilities he soon would face. The expectations fell neatly into line like the colors on an artist's palette--instruction, budget, personnel, discipline, scheduling, buses, facilities management, school law and so forth.

John had mastered his coursework. The committee, impressed with John's performance, pronounced him ready and awarded the sought-after master s degree. However, I felt uneasy as I considered John. I believed he was knowledgeable but unprepared to lead in the complex social environment of an elementary school during a stress-filled time of accountability for student learning. This was painfully obvious when I asked him to describe himself as a leader, and he struggled to find a satisfactory response.

John, and perhaps others like him, had arranged learning like the colors on the artist's palette but had not learned to blend the colors into a meaningful whole. John had knowledge of pieces of school administration stemming from a series of courses he had taken, but he lacked the depth to blend these together to form his philosophy as an educational leader.

Applied Know-how

The uneasiness of this experience prompted me to begin changing our program to prepare principals as educational leaders rather than building managers. As an initial step, I visited with 22 school superintendents in Tennessee and Georgia to determine the qualities they expect as they fill principalships in their school districts. My findings, while not wholly scientific, are indeed instructive.

The superintendents ranked knowledge of learning theory and curriculum development along with understanding of leadership among the qualities selected "most important." Regarding the latter, they stressed ability in team building, group dynamics, understanding the change process and the need for skills as communicator.

Among the skills considered of "high importance" were human relations/public relations, planning, understanding technology, diversity, multicultural and gender issues and school law. Of particular interest was their view that research skills were of high importance. These were not viewed, however, as traditional skills required to conduct research but skills in finding, interpreting and using data and the ability to present data clearly to various audiences.

The superintendents ranked as "lesser importance" those skills that have been stressed in traditional principal preparation programs, such as business management, budget, finance and facilities management.

Above all else, the superintendents seek individuals who understand teaching and learning and have the ability to lead their faculties in school improvement. They reason that if an individual is to lead the school toward improved learning, that individual must understand every facet of instruction at a high level. They further assert that a strong understanding of instruction, in and of itself, is not sufficient unless the individual has the ability to create the vision of a school where student learning is at high levels and that all stakeholders, especially faculty and parents, are motivated to bring the vision to reality.

In recognition of the substantial change in the role of the principal as educational leader, the master's degree in administration and supervision at our university has been recast and renamed as a master's degree in school leadership. Relevant coursework and heavy workplace-embedded experiences are linked to today's environment of high expectations for excellent teaching and high levels of student academic performance. Students spend significant amounts of time invested in hands-on experiences in the schoolhouse to achieve the fullest possible understanding of the teaching/learning process.

Principal preparation must focus on the belief that an educational leader must be most knowledgeable about instruction to lead efforts to improve instruction. Along the way, those aspiring to the principalship must develop a mindset about the way schools function and how they will change the overall school culture. They must be provided with varied opportunities for rigorous learning and reflection leading to thoughtful leadership.