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Like many school administrators, Testa-Cross found a lot to criticize in her preservice training. She describes the university coursework that led to her principal's credential as fragmented and often unchallenging. "There were some very excellent courses, and some that were not," she says. "What was missing was cohesion — there were gaps, not enough connections. I would have liked more rigor in certain areas — instructional leadership, effective conferencing with teachers, working with high-performing teachers, building morale, teamwork, culture." Researchers and practitioners alike are blunt to brutal in their criticism of principal training. In School Leadership: Handbook for Excellence, Larry Lashway and Mark Anderson capture the reigning opinion this way: "If administrator-training programs were movies, the reviews would be unanimous: 'two thumbs down.' Over the years, critics have strained for adjectives to express their low opinion: 'dismal,' 'dysfunctional,' and 'zombie' are typical epithets." Joseph Murphy of Vanderbilt University's Peabody College has summarized the long list of complaints:
The principal's pivotal role in school reform makes solid training an imperative. At the same time that schools face enormous pressure to improve, huge numbers of experienced principals stand on the brink of retirement. The shortage of talent — already being felt nationwide — threatens to become a crisis over the next decade. In response, "a broad and influential group of policy contingents" have leapt to action, Education Week reported in January. "Among the players are the U.S. Department of Education, the Broad Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, state governors and education officials, and the leaders of several national corporations." Together, they are ponying up millions of dollars to fund research and programs. Much of that money is targeted at rethinking the way we prepare and train principals. Nothing less than the fate of school reform is at stake, Education Week reporter Lynn Olson asserts. "The sheer abundance" of grants and research projects aimed at overhauling principal training, she writes, "reflects a widespread — and growing — recognition that without strong leaders at the helm, larger efforts to improve student achievement will likely falter, if not fail entirely." The problem is longstanding. The National Association for Elementary School Principals declared in its 1990 report Principals for the 21st Century that if principal preparation programs are to keep up with the accelerating pace of reform, they need "major surgery." By most accounts, the patient is still on the operating table. In a work whose conclusions still hold true, Principals: How to Train, Recruit, Select, Induct, and Evaluate Leaders for America's Schools, published by the ERIC Clearinghouse for Educational Management in 1991, Anderson speaks in lofty terms of the task facing principal preparation programs. "Preparing enlightened administrators who are committed to the continuous development of their intellect and character and who can 'lead with their hearts,'" he writes, "requires moving beyond training on isolated skills to the cultivation of courage, faith, deep commitment to collaborative action and shared decisionmaking, and reflection and judgment." Lashway and Anderson have pulled together the criticisms of current programs to come up with a laundry list for a new approach. Effective principal preparation programs, they say, should: Bridge the gap between theory and practice — Good programs will use instructional strategies that simultaneously provide students with a solid theoretical framework and a practical understanding of real-world problems. Use new kinds of delivery systems — Innovative programs are replacing the traditional evening lecture format with such practices as indepth weekend seminars and mentorships with practicing principals. Incorporate field-based experience — Candidates are being given such real-world assignments as interviewing administrators, designing a staff inservice plan, conducting a teacher evaluation, or shadowing a principal. Provide internships — The capstone of a good preparation program is a carefully designed and supervised internship in which aspiring principals are placed in a school and asked to function as a principal. Three of the four points above stress the need to link learning to real schools and practicing principals. Too often, critics charge, principal training does little to prepare administrators for the furious pace, the unwieldy task list, and the bubbling stew of human interactions they typically encounter when they report for work. "School administrators face complex problems that aren't solved by mastering a handful of principles taught in a college classroom," Arnold Danzig of Colorado State University told Education World in a 1998 interview. "Universities need to bridge the gap between theory and practice by drawing from the experiences of practicing professionals in the field." One way to do that, Danzig says, is through a teaching strategy he calls "narrative research." Graduate students in Danzig's Leadership Development class choose a school leader who's willing to share his or her background, philosophy, and experiences in two or more indepth interviews over the semester. The first interview focuses on the leader's career history and strengths. The second zeroes in on a real issue or problem the leader has run into on the job. Danzig's students have studied problems ranging from school vandalism to student fights, suicide threats, contract negotiations, weapons on campus, hostile parents, drunken students — even a hostage situation. As they delve into the details of these authentic challenges, students begin to unravel the many threads of meaning that are woven into each situation. "Leadership stories are a powerful tool for connecting the privileged discourse of universities with the smart hands of experience," Danzig told Education World. "Stories add a fullness to understanding what it is people do in their daily professional lives. Professionals need to understand not only the technical aspects of the job but the moral basis of their work. Stories provide a more complete view of the meaning of professional practice." The Mayerson training that Testa-Cross got in Seattle draws heavily on stories from the field. "They have amazing stories to go along with their concepts," she says. Leaders need stories to tell, experts say. In fact, Howard Gardner of Harvard University argues that strong storytelling skills are essential to leadership. "The ability to tell a story that resonates with the deepest ideals and aspirations of followers" is what Gardner means by storytelling in the context of leadership, according to Lashway. The stories leaders tell are about themselves and their groups, about where they're coming from and where they're headed, about what is to be feared, struggled against, and dreamed about, to borrow Gardner's poetic words. "Leaders fashion stories — principally stories of identity," he writes in his 1995 book, Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership. "It is important that a leader be a good storyteller, but equally crucial that the leader embody that story in his or her life."
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The New Principal Special Report:
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Date of Last Update: 9/28/01 
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