0.16 Surface, j. (october 2011). assessing edad candidates' leadership  (Page 2/7)

Together, the Administrator Disposition Index and the ISSLC standards form the foundation of the principal preparation program at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Students are introduced to administrator dispositions and standards in their first administrative course and assess themselves on the dispositions index and on their knowledge and skills on individual standards. A follow-up assessment is taken by all administrative candidates in their capstone course.

Principal preparation programs are changing to meet the demands of accountability. Using the ISLLC standards to assess coursework provides the performance criteria necessary to assure that the candidate is adequately prepared. Standards provide a framework for consistency in preparation and a foundation for conversations about performance.

Teaching ethics and ethical decision making

Ethical education is certainly not a simple training exercise. In fact, educating pre-service administrators in ethics offers no guarantee that the administrator will be an ethical leader. Ethical education is lifelong education and takes place simultaneously without efforts to be human (Starratt, 1994, p. 135). Students come to our program with their own moral and ethical grounding that they were given by the caregivers that raised them into adulthood. As professors of Educational Administration, our role is to teach the theory and allow students to apply their own meaning.

When the topic of ethics is introduced to our students, a question is posed that asks, “How do you make a decision when there are two right answers?” Next they are asked, “What will guide your decision?” Finally, they are asked, “What if you have to make a decision that doesn’t really have a right answer? Students are often stunned by these questions, and the conversation becomes very in depth and focused upon the moral responsibility of creating an ethical environment for the conduct of education. Educational leaders confront moral dilemmas each day. Each administrative decision carries with it a restructuring of human life: that is why administration at its heart is the resolution of moral dilemmas (Foster, 1986). Educational leaders face problems because of value conflicts. Some of these conflicts involve articulated values while others deal with core values that have not been made known and may be incompatible with organizational or community values. Most importantly, leaders need to be deeply reflective, actively thoughtful and dramatically explicit about their core values and beliefs (Bolman&Deal, 1991).

Ethical education is certainly not a simple training exercise. In fact, educating pre-service administrators in ethics offers no guarantee that the administrator will be an ethical leader. Ethical education is lifelong education and takes place simultaneously without efforts to be human (Starratt, 1994, p. 135). Students come to our program with their own moral and ethical grounding that they were given by the caregivers that raised them into adulthood. As professors of Educational Administration, our role is to teach the theory and allow students to apply their own meaning.