Executive Summary

When individuals assume the role of educational administrator, they will be able to influence the direction of schooling so that each student leaves school having the capacity to engage, as an adult , in self-governance and to access the economic benefits of our society.

Americans express two broad functions of schooling--political and economic. Politically we espouse a desire that future citizens enjoy liberty and engage in their own governance. Economically students should have workplace skills and attitudes to access economic benefits.

The Honorable William Hungate, guest speaker at our 1995 annual fall conference, noted that "...we are charged with the maintenance and growth of the spirit of liberty on which our nation was founded. Let us meet and administer our responsibilities with reverence and pride."

As Jefferson noted, schooling is necessary for democracy to survive. The Supreme Court recognized educators "...as the priests of our democracy..."

The ambiguities and challenges principals face in schools are set in these aspirations. In a democracy the citizens express their values and desires for schooling. Debates are resolved for a time only to be debated again and again.

The role of the principal is crowded with expectations coming from several sources. These changes are like remodeling a house; the new furniture is brought in, but the old is not removed. Principals are educators rightfully expected to very active in the central functioning of the schools. At times they are counselors, social workers, coordinating other agencies involved with students and families. Order and safety are expected while the definition of individual responsibility for actions is shifting. All this in a day characterized by brevity, variety, fragmentation, difficult people, and complex tasks.

Principals are expected to be a catalyst in the process by which multiple voices, conflicting values and expectations are molded into a vision for the school. The vision must meet the tests of justice, fairness, and equity.

Schooling is a profoundly human enterprise, a social institution that nourishes liberty, democracy, and access to economic benefits. Building a team requires the principal to be mentor, coach, facilitator as well as supervisor and evaluator. During this building process, the principal will be challenged by teachers, parents, and others.

These contemporary expectations of schooling and for principals stimulated ideas for preparation programs. Such programs need to emphasize both knowledge and skills-knowledge based skill development. More emphasis, than currently, needs to be placed on skill development. These skills are interwoven with each other and knowledge in complex ways.

Communicating, facilitating, team building, coaching, managing conflict, involving others in decision making, and acting politically, are major skills to be developed in the context of knowledge, especially knowledge about instructional methods.

Acquiring knowledge and developing skills in life-like "settings requires cooperation among various agencies concerned with preparing, credentialing and helping principals grow. These include university settings, school districts, DESE and its related agencies, associations, and other support groups.

Which knowledge and skills are important in contemporary schooling? We offer the following:

Foundational

Engaging schools in developing and renewing a democratic society, requires knowledge and understanding related to:

• Enlightenment ideals upon which our nation was founded;
• Social, economic, and political conditions that constrain or encourage these ideals;
• Political implications of differing views that inform ethical beliefs and actions;
• Conflicting expectations for schools, as agents of the state, in the political and economic sectors of our society;
• Differing perspectives and value systems in a diverse society;
  Educational needs of citizenship;
• The history and premises of theories and research methods; and
• How our society determines what counts as knowledge, its transmission, intended outcomes, process of control, and justification.

Theoretical
For schools to function more or less smoothly and provide an environment conducive to learning, the principal should have a problem-solving, heuristic capacity informed by:

• Understanding emerging issues and trends, changing value systems and economic conditions.
• Social and political uses of language in cultural symbols and belief systems.
• Communication models in consensus building and managing conflicting values
• Systems theory in planning, implementing and managing.
• Models of home-school-community relations including relating to other agencies;
• Models of organizing and managing structures, processes, resources, and change;
• Constructs related to student growth and development and encouraging students to participate more fully in their own self- formation;
• Approaches to curriculum design, implementation, evaluation, and refinement;
• Computer-based technologies for instruction, management, and communications; and
• Models of staff development, professional growth, and recognizing contributions.

Operational

A variety of policies, laws, regulations, and procedures that effect schooling are related to the management and day-to-day operations of schools. In order to observe these and apply them creatively, principals need to have knowledge and understanding related to:

• Legal and technical aspects of evaluating staff, dealing with student behaviors, and assigning students to instructional settings;
• Safe and clean building, equipment, and grounds with attention to instruction;
• Federal, state, and local operating procedures;
• The fiscal operations of school management;
• Relating to staff organizations in the context of "negotiated" personnel policies; and
• Informing publics about the conditions and operations of the school.