Just as teachers around the country are striving to make their instruction more "authentic," a handful of university programs in educational administration are moving away from the textbook-and-lecture format to an emphasis on learning by doing. Prospective principals and superintendents are studying the problems they are likely to face on the job and practicing the skills they will need to cope with them, experts say. And students in these programs are no longer assessed through transcripts and paper-and-pencil tests alone: they are being asked to demonstrate that they can really perform on the job.
Traditional programs in educational administration have consisted of a series of courses on topics such as school law, finance, public relations, curriculum, supervision, and strategic planning, explains Scott Thomson of the National Policy Board for Educational Administration (NPBEA), an umbrella group of ten organizations, including ASCD, working to improve the preparation of principals and superintendents. These programs "have tended to be very theoretical," he says, "with no practical skill building."
University programs have made "no conscious attempt" to link theory and research with practice, says Ed Pajak, who heads the department of educational leadership at the University of Georgia. "The assumption was that professors would provide theory and research skills, and it was up to the students to apply them," he says.
Such preparation programs have been the object of "a fairly harsh critique" over the last five years, says Joseph Murphy, chair of educational leadership at Vanderbilt University and author of The Landscape of Leadership Preparation. Every aspect of them, from entrance standards to course content, has been examined and found wanting, he says. Perhaps most damning, administrators complain that their preparation courses were irrelevant to their present work, says Paula Short of Pennsylvania State University, who is president of the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration. "It's like the courses don't matter," she reports. "They'll tell you they learned it all on the job."
Another reason these preparation programs are being seen as outmoded is the changing conception of leadership, experts say. Instead of the reactive managers of the past, who concentrated on "putting out fires," schools and districts need leaders who are visionary and can act as change agents. Moreover, the movement toward site-based management calls for leaders who can empower others and involve all members of an organization. "The old bureaucratic, top-down model just does not work now," Short says.
Tying Theory to Practice
In response to the harsh criticisms and new needs, some programs in educational administration are attempting to redefine themselves. Of the roughly 500 programs in the country, many are very traditional, but two or three dozen are progressive, says Michael Milstein of the University of New Mexico, principal author of Changing the Way We Prepare Educational Leaders. These programs are working to tie theory to practical application.
Programs should be driven by the problems of practice and the realities of schools—not by the knowledge base of theory and research, Murphy argues. "The prime vehicle should be serious, practical issues that people in schools face," he asserts. The knowledge base, on the other hand, should be "built in" as appropriate to solve a problem. For example, students should learn topics such as "qualitative interviewing" or "the political dynamics of the community" as they arise in the context of real-life problems, not in separate units. If the focus is on the knowledge base, then topics become "entities in and of themselves, divorced from practice," Murphy believes.
Problem-based learning is a major component of the principal preparation program at Stanford University. About 40 percent of the curriculum is problem-based, says Ed Bridges, a professor of education at Stanford and co-author of Problem-Based Learning for Administrators.
Unlike a conventional program, where the curriculum is organized around topics, Stanford's program focuses on the real-life problems of principals, Bridges says. For example, students might be asked to imagine they are the principal of a high school in a community with both liberal and conservative parents. When the state mandates AIDS education (without issuing guidelines), they must decide how much emphasis to place on the subject, given that many members of the community don't want it taught at all. As students grapple with this problem, they must identify relevant theory and research, Bridges explains. For example, they would learn about the politics of the curriculum, as well as how to make oral presentations to a school board.
To allow students to practice new skills, the Stanford program replicates real-life situations as closely as possible, Bridges says. To help students with their school board presentations, for example, he borrows an actual board room, brings in school board members (who have read background materials), and then puts the students through their paces. The presentations are videotaped, and students get feedback from their peers and professors. They also get to watch themselves in action.
After so much active learning, is the first year on the job less of a shock? Surprisingly, Bridges thinks not. "You really can't simulate the responsibility or the pace" of being a principal, he concedes. And new principals must deal with policies, norms, and regulations that are unique to their situations. But his students never say, "Why are we doing this?" or "This isn't real," he notes with satisfaction.
Better Internships
In keeping with the new emphasis on authentic learning, progressive institutions are also trying to make internships more valuable, experts say. In the past, internships have tended to be "very perfunctory," Murphy says. Many interns have been poorly supervised, and they have often been delegated low-level activities.
Some programs, however, take care that interns are more than glorified gofers. During their six-month internships, students in the Urban Superintendents Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education act as executive assistants to superintendents, shadowing them and taking responsibility for important projects, says Robert Peterkin, who directs the program. "We want them to be in the crucible, building their skills," he says.
As an intern in Montgomery County, Md., E. Wayne Harris, an alumnus of the Harvard program, was able to participate in executive sessions, budget development, and achievement planning. His mentor, Supt. Paul Vance, "let me walk in his shoes," says Harris, who is now a superintendent in Roanoke, Va. Among other things, the internship taught him the limits of theory. Some ideas in education are "like a football play: it works every time on the chalkboard, but not in reality," Harris says. And while classroom studies are based on rationality, many issues that superintendents must confront "don't have much to do with logic and facts."
Assessing Performance
Progressive programs to prepare administrators are also using authentic means of assessment. The use of portfolios, in particular, is gaining popularity, experts agree.
Compiling a portfolio is part of the principal certification program at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, says Robert Millward, a professor of education there. The program requires students to design and implement projects in six areas—curriculum, supervision, organizational management, research and evaluation, innovation and technology, and human relations—and document what they have done in their portfolios. A student's portfolio might contain a weekly journal, a grant proposal, supervisory observations, scheduling procedures, budgets, and descriptions of curriculum projects. Ultimately, students use their portfolios in job interviews, Millward says, to demonstrate what they've achieved.
These new trends are even beginning to influence licensing procedures, experts note. In Texas, state licensure of principals and superintendents has followed strict rules based on seat time and competency tests, says Linda Avila of Southwest Texas State University. But this month, the Texas Board of Education will review six administrative proficiencies—including such qualities as "earner-centered leadership" and "excellence and equity for all learners"—that will probably form the basis of licensure in the future.
If the new proficiencies are adopted, the critical question will become how to assess whether prospective administrators have mastered them, Avila says. Assessment is "where you make it or break it" in an outcome-based system, she believes. At present, portfolios, videotapes, self-assessments, assessment from peers, and mentors' reviews are all under consideration.
Experts in the field hope that administrators accustomed, as students, to active learning and performance assessments will foster these approaches in the schools and districts they lead. Will this vision eventually be realized? One hopeful sign is the "extraordinary difference" in response to preparation programs from their graduates, Milstein says. In the past, comments from alumni have been "very cynical"; now, however, the reviews are glowing. Apparently, administrators-in-training appreciate the benefits of authentic learning and assessment; it remains to be seen whether, as administrators, they will share those benefits with others.
