Many principal supervisors in the United States work in relative isolation and experience no professional development designed to support them. Over the past four years, the role of principal supervisor in Long Beach Unified School District in California has shifted from compliance and at-a-distance supervision practices to a deeply rooted…

Leading a school can be a lonely, challenging job, Elena Aguilar has found in her years coaching principals. Aguilar describes how coaching approach she's developed--transformational coaching--helps principals get three things most of them need: a neutral person they can talk with confidentially, job-embedded professional development, and a safe…

The role of the public school principal has expanded dramatically in recent decades. The expanded role means they are now significant multipliers of effective teaching and have a real opportunity to affect student achievement. Most states have spent recent years working to improve teacher effectiveness, recognizing its importance in improving…

In this commentary, the Dean of the Kansas State University College of Education states that the job of a school leader is more complex and more demanding than ever before. As institutions of higher education contemplate the question "Who is the Building Leader?," defining the roles and responsibilities of the school building leader is…

This paper highlights the importance of school principals in English Learners' academic achievement in the age of the Common Core State Standards. Revising the curriculum of administrator preparation programs to include a greater emphasis on curriculum and instruction is one approach to enhancing principal leadership for English Leaners. Another…

This article describes a novel effort in New York City, the Learning Partners Program, which matches veteran principals with two or more newer ones. In 2014-15, the first full year of the effort, the city's Department of Education put 73 of the city's more than 1,800 schools into 23 groups of threes and one group of four. Every group comprised one…

Every district wants its schools to shine, and more are recognizing that, in order to raise performance, they need well-trained principals who can shake up the status quo and create an environment where all students flourish. Indeed, in a six-year study analyzing data from 180 schools in nine states, researchers from the Universities of Minnesota…

The significance of effective leadership and management for successful school and student outcomes is increasingly being recognised. This has led to consideration of the nature of preparation and development required to promote good leadership. There is now widespread acknowledgement of the need for specialised training for school principals. This…

Prompted by the need for leaders able to turn around chronically low-performing schools, states, universities, education groups, and school districts in the US have initiated a variety of principal development programs. Some programs focus on enhancing the skills of experienced administrators, while others target talented teachers and even…

The Educational Leadership Master's Cohort Program at Delta State University was redesigned in 2011 to reflect current industry standards and streamline the program. Since its inception in the mid-1990s, the program has provided a nationally acclaimed model for principal preparation. The recent redesign focused on preparing school principals to…

The intent of this article is to examine how the best type of internship, i.e., the full-time, job-embedded model can be enhanced using coaching. Before illustrating an exemplary internship program with coaching, this paper describes what an exemplary full-time, job-embedded internship experiences looks like and expounds on the importance of…

Instead of focusing on how principals should be trained, an contrarian view is offered, grounded upon theoretical perspectives of experiential learning, and in particular, upon the theory of andragogy. A brief parable of the DoNoHarm School of Medicine is used as a descriptive analog for many principal preparation programs in America. The…

Formative coaching, an approach that uses student work as the foundation for mentoring and professional development, can help principals become more effective instructional leaders. In formative coaching, teaches and coaches analyze student work to determine next steps for instruction. This article shows how a principal can use the steps of the…

Educators and policy makers have placed leadership development at the top of the school reform agenda, believing that aspiring and new school leaders can learn the necessary skills to improve the most challenging schools. Leadership development builds the capacity of educators (teachers and administrators) to be effective in leadership roles or…

"In-basket" training is ineffective. The Annenburg Institute for School Reform suggests that principals learn most effectively in groups, foster more powerful faculty and student learning by focusing on their own learning, must move beyond their assumptions, and need more focused reflection. Strong leadership, rigorous planning, and…