3.3 Preparing, developing, and credentialing k-12 school leaders:  (Page 6/10)

Redefining leadership roles

As these responses take shape and translate into statutory changes in state credentialing systems, common themes begin to emerge. States are beginning to expand the professional development requirements for school leaders, at all levels, so that training is ongoing and continues throughout a career; thus supporting change and adaptation as the American education system evolves. Additionally, the field of educational administration in the twenty-first century is beginning to recognize the critical role of the teacher as leader giving rise to teacher leadership as part of the continuum of recognized school leadership roles. Educational administration—and especially the core of instructional leadership—consists of training and skill development around a knowledge base that has relevance for all educational professionals involved in decision-making for the improvement of educational outcomes. Therefore, a dynamic knowledge base must be learned and mastered by those wishing to enter the profession as leaders and by the teacher leaders who will play a critical role in any reform and improvement effort. The notion that a leader from another profession could assume the role of an educational leader without a thorough grounding in the educational administration knowledge base was, and continues to be, a faulty assumption.

The information age has re-connected teacher leadership to the teacher’s historical professional role as a leader by providing teachers with access to better technologies, better strategies, better understanding of the teaching and learning process, and better understanding of the educational organization. The reform movement of the past forty years has broadened the role of the teacher to encompass instructional improvement at both the classroom and school levels. Building and district administrators are no longer viewed as the sole authority and source of leadership and direction in schools; rather, they are considered the shapers of focus and the developers of capacity. They are expected to function as learning-leaders (Reeves, 2005) who build a culture that supports inquiry discovery, professionalism, and collegiality all in the service of student learning and unprecedented expectations for universal proficiency in core learning competencies. The concept of distributed leadership (Spillane, Halverson, and Diamond, 2004) has gained acceptance as a practice that is “stretched over the social and situational contexts of the school” (p. 5). As such, a model of school leadership training must encompass teachers, aspiring principals and superintendents, as well as those transitioning into education from business, the military and other professions.

Emerging continuous models of leadership development and credentialing

On the heels of the charter movement, state policy makers became more ambivalent about school administrator preparation, licensure, and career paths. Pressures to open school leader positions to non-educators and alternatively degreed and experienced candidates led to changes in state credentialing statutes to open up the system. Shortly after 1990, a number of states altered or even eliminated their administrator licensing and certification requirements. By 2001, five states had dropped the licensure requirement altogether for superintendents and two had repealed the requirement for building administrators to be state certified as well (National Task Force on School Leadership, 2002). During the same time period, another seventeen states amended their certification requirements to open the door for alternative preparation and experience in lieu of degrees in education and education administration.