3.3 Preparing, developing, and credentialing k-12 school leaders:  (Page 2/10)

The evolution of administrator certification

By 1701, the General Court of Massachusetts decreed that “every grammar-school master to be approved by the minister of the town, and the ministers of the two next adjacent towns or any town of them, by certificate under their hand” (Cole, 1957, p. 72). Woellner (1949) stated there were two main areas of competence that were implied by certification: academic preparation and professional preparation (p. 251). A framework was established early on by government in relation to standards of quality for teachers. In so doing, it reinforced a responsibility that the state had in governing American education. A system of licensing qualified educators to teach, and later administer, schools can be traced to the simple need to ensure competent teachers and administrators.

The certificated educational administrator was a slowly evolving state expectation for those who would lead and manage K-12 schools and school districts. The issue of administrator certification was closely linked to the rise of university preparation programs. Columbia University became the first program of study in educational administration at the beginning of the twentieth century. States, in establishing a credentialing system for principals and superintendents in the early 1900’s, turned to the newly emerging discipline of educational administration to deliver the training component required of the certification system. By the close of the 20th century, over 500 colleges and universities offered a course of study in the field of educational administration (Levine, 2005).

Requiring professional training in educational administration

Over the course of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, states gradually assumed responsibility for standards of quality for teachers and administrators. It was during the 20th century, however, that administrator certification became a requirement in all fifty states. For a brief amount of time in the 1990s principals and superintendents had to present state approved certificates in all 50 states that showed evidence of pre-service university training before they could be hired in local public schools.

The certification of school administrators became a state monitored standard of quality that emanated from the people through its state departments of education. What was once a local need to ensure mastery of academic knowledge and professional ability in teaching became a comprehensive system of review that grew with each state’s widening responsibility to educate its citizens and insure educational quality. Local communities were not equipped to handle the bureaucratic oversight of a credentialing system. Departments of education centralized certification under the state umbrella at about the same time programs in educational administration began to proliferate in order to support the state credentialing system.

Administrator certification had a very slow trajectory of growth and acceptance during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In 1854, only Pennsylvania required superintendents to have a certificate of qualification. By 1900, it was still the only state with such a requirement. From 1900 to 1957, however, “45 states issued certificates for superintendents, 46 for high school principals, and 45 for elementary principals” (Howsam&Morphet, 1958, p. 79). As states embraced their responsibility to establish standards of quality through certification of school administrators, programs of preparation were established within universities. Universities were the logical source of training to ensure that the quality standards established by the states were met through the educational administration curriculum. Columbia University began offering courses within its teacher training program in 1899 (Teachers College Record, 1919, p. 276). Prior to that time, educational administration was considered part of teaching and incorporated into a general responsibility for managing the affairs of schooling. Thus, at the beginning of the 20th century, the field of educational administration existed as an idea that took shape as a specialized program of study. From this beginning educational administration evolved and grew into a professional field of study that shaped how principals and superintendents approached the task of leading America’s schools.