3.3 Preparing, developing, and credentialing k-12 school leaders:  (Page 3/10)

Establishing a program of preparation through the university was a logical, and practically speaking, the only viable approach to training educational administrators as an extension of state certification. Educational administration followed the same path many other professions took to gain academic and professional credibility by becoming a university-based program. Howsam and Morphet (1958) indicated that by the late 1950’s, state certification regulations generally called “for a person to have a teaching certificate, experience in teaching or other educational work, and college courses in educational administration and supervision before he can qualify for an administrative certificate” (p. 81).

University preparation and increased credit requirements for state certification accelerated during the 1940’s and 1950’s spurred by the post war generation that emphasized education. By 1957, the bachelor’s degree had “become the minimum accepted level for an administrative certificate, and only a few states accept it as adequate. Most states are requiring the master’s degree for the superintendent and approximately half are requiring it for the high school and elementary school principal” (Howsam&Mophet, 1958, p. 88). The rise of the professional educational administrator can be linked to the intent of the state to create the conditions for quality in the leadership capacity of educators who became principals of schools and superintendents of K-12 school districts.

As more universities offered educational administration, the curriculum evolved and expanded to include in-depth study of organization, finance, instruction, personnel, school law, and content related to leading and managing schools. Courses in knowing how to perform the roles of principal and superintendent were filled with practical knowledge and necessary skills which were then sanctioned by state certification.

Michigan, as the last state to adopt administrator certification in the United States in 1991, was the high water mark for the singular pursuit of certificated administrators as an indicator of quality for educational leadership. It was about this time, however, that educational administration certification, within the context of educational reform across the U.S., was assailed as a state supported barrier keeping otherwise qualified and successful leaders from serving as reformers in the nation’s schools. Michigan became the last state to adopt administrator certification in 1991 and, within five years, it had repealed the requirement of state certification for principals and superintendents. The efficacy of a closed credentialing system that focused primarily upon the pre-service training of principals and superintendents was described by Levine (2005) as an unworkable training model in need of reform. Thus, the stage was set for rethinking school administrator preparation.

Preparation in educational administration: new expectations and pressures

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the issue of certification by university preparation programs in educational administration was being questioned in regard to its overall relevance to the job of leading complex educational organizations. Howsam and Morphet (1958) wrote that states had come “to rely completely upon evidence of satisfactory institutional preparation as the basis for granting administrative certificates” (p. 86). Although the university-based program of study was the foundation for educational leadership training in the United States for over one hundred years, the issue of a relevant knowledge base that could be transmitted to aspiring, as well as experienced administrators, challenged university programs of preparation to look at course content and curriculum delivery. As educational administration entered its second one hundred years as a professional field there was a decided shift in thinking about the long term career value of educational administration training with a pre-service focus.