0.16 Surface, j. (october 2011). assessing edad candidates' leadership

Ncpea education leadership review: portland conference special edition, volume 12, number 3 (october 2011)

Introduction

Moral and ethical leadership has evolved over the years, and while early standards were often religious in nature, many standards remain. Every year principals are terminated for immoral activities, failure to assume leadership obligations, or breaches of ethics. Because of the critical role that principals play in school and community leadership, preparation programs should teach and assess principal candidates’ dispositions such as fairness and integrity. This paper is an analysis of educational administration student growth using an electronic portfolio system to measure self-perceptions of readiness to implement the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) Standards and self-perceptions of dispositions of effective leadership identified by the Standards for Advanced Programs in Educational Leadership (Schulte&Kowal, 2005). The Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) standard five states, “An education leader promotes the success of every student by acting with integrity, fairness, and in an ethical manner” (ISSLC, p. 15). Data is collected at the beginning and end of the program that measures growth of the student in two areas. 1. The growth in their self-perceived readiness to implement the ISLLC standards and; 2. A measurement of student self-perceptions of growth using the Advanced Programs in Educational Leadership disposition index. In the pages that follow there will be an examination of self-perceived growth of the ISLLC standards and self-perceived growth of their dispositions, and secondly an examination of the difference in the growth rate of standards compared to dispositions.

Standards and dispositions

Dispositions create the foundation of what a future principal can bring to the critical work of the educational leader. Dispositions, “the values, commitments, and professional ethics that influence behavior” (NCATE 2002, P. 53), can be more difficult to teach and assess than knowledge or skills (Edick, Danielson,&Edwards, 2005; Edwards&Edick, 2006). The development of positive dispositions must be a critical component of an educational leadership preparation program. School leaders who have not developed positive dispositions have trouble being leaders of effective schools. (Davis, 1998; Hallinger&Heck, 1996; Heifetz, 2006).