JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY OF EDUCATION, VOL. 49

A PROACTIVE RESPONSE TO THE NATIONAL REFORM

MOVEMENT'S CALL FOR CHANGING SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR

TRAINING PROGRAMS TO MEET THE DEMAND OF THE NEXT

MILLENNIUM

Jack Klotz

University of Southern Mississippi

Since the issuance of the national report, A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983), which cited a number of criticisms regarding the overall conditions of public education in the United States, other reports have surfaced to fuel the fires of educational reform. Among these national reports have been: (1) Tomorrows Teachers (Holmes Group, 1986), (2) A Nation Prepared (Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, 1986), and (3) Leaders for America's Schools (National Commission on Excellence in Educational Administration, 1987). The first two focused their findings on the arena of upgrading teacher education programs and the restructuring of the roles and responsibilities of teachers, while the third report focused its findings specifically on the issue of educational administrators and their role and responsibility in managing the school reform efforts. Indeed, this last report raised a number of questions regarding whether administrator preparatory efforts needed to be redesigned, to what extent should policy makers at the federal, state, and local level be involved, and more specifically, to what extent should institutions of higher education be involved in these reform efforts.

Since the issuance of the preceding reports, the literature within the domain of educational leadership has not been without additional commentary regarding the needs and specifics for the reforming of preparatory programs for educational administrators. Ashbaugh & Kasten (1992); Daresh & Playko (1992) and Murphy (1992) have pushed for reforming the focus, scope, and content of such preparatory programs. While other organizations such as the Council of Chief School Officers (1996) and the National Policy Board for Educational Administration (1993) have identified specific competencies in which educational leaders should be required to demonstrate proficiency before being allowed to apply their skills and knowledge in field settings.

Murphy (1992) stated, "It is difficult to analyze the state of affairs in administration programs without becoming despondent ... [W}e must be about the business of changing things dramatically" (p.137). This contention that change in how future administrators were trained is necessary seemed well support by the National Association of Secondary School Principals (1985) when they called for, "the need for: more direct and immediate linkages of preparation programs with the field; coordination of developmental activities through some broader agency; and attention to the social-political environments that tend to inhibit change" (p.1). Review of the following pieces of literature: School leadership preparation: A preface for action (American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, 1988); The licensure of school administrators: Policy and practice (Ashbaugh & Kasten, 1992); Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium standards for school leaders (Council of Chief State School Officers, 1996); The professional development of school administrators: Preservice, induction, and inservice application (Daresh & Playko, 1992); Elementary and middle schools: Proficiencies for principals (National Association of Elementary School Principals, 1991); Principals for our changing schools: Knowledge and skill base (National Policy Board for Educational Administration, 1993), and Educational Leadership in an age of reform (Jacobson & Conway, 1990) all addressed the preparation and training of educational leaders for the new millennium either through the establishment of policy and/or the implementation of instructional delivery models.

Daniel, Gupton, and Southerland (1998) noted that among the previously identified documents a number of commonalities existed. As an example, most recommended a shift away from managerial to human-centered oriented training experiences, that additionally reflected movement from the macro-level of a smooth-running organization to the micro-level of the learning needs of the individual student. Furthermore, it was noted that these various approaches also shared other common factors, namely: ...." (a) a continued focus on the importance of a "knowledge base" that is best learned via traditional academic preparation (i.e., college or university courses), (b) a strengthening focus on learning by doing (via problem-centered and problem-based learning, simulations, and enhanced field experiences), and (c) a renewed focus on the importance of personal and professional characteristics of the administrator (e.g., emphasis on the affective qualities of leaders, calls for a return to "moral" or "ethical" leadership)" (p.8). Concomitantly, Merseth noted:

Educational administrators intending to practice in the twenty-first century need professional preparation that helps them work effectively in a world characterized by accelerating change, exploding knowledge, growing diversity, galloping technology, and increasing uncertainty. Such demands require preparation that not only equips administrators with cutting edge knowledge but also with the capacity and appetite to continually improve their practice. It was within that context that the Department of Educational Leadership of The University of Southern Mississippi began its efforts during the 1996-1997 school year to develop, evolve, and implement a new and innovative preparatory program for training school site educational leaders for the next millennium. In order to effect such an outcome, the Department chose to involve not only its faculty but also practicing field and central office administrators from within its service delivery area, K-12 classroom teachers, on-site graduate students, and three nationally recognized consultants within the field of educational administration. A program specific "Leadership Advisory Board" (LAB) was created to represent district organizational patterns and configurations, with the intent of providing insight and corroboration in developed various instructional programmatic areas. Early on, the Department committed itself to evolving an instructional delivery program that embodied the concepts of: (a) instructional blocks, (b) student cohort groups, (c) faculty cohort instructional delivery, (d) integrated thematic instruction, and (e) problem-centered and problem-based learning, simulations, and enhanced field experiences. Merseth (1997, p.1)

In order to ensure that students would not be placed in an awkward situation of having to choose which masters program in Educational Leadership they wished to be a part of, the Department in September of 1997 established a self-imposed cessation of master's level admissions. This complimented the establishment by the Mississippi Department of Education of an expectation that licensure as a school administrator would not be honored under previous program requirements after September 1, 1998.

Vision of School Leadership

Effective school leaders are strong educators, anchoring their work on central issues of learning and teaching and school improvement. They are moral agents and social advocates for the children and communities they serve. Finally, they make strong connections with other people, valuing and caring for others as individuals and as members of the educational community. (Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium [ISLLC], 1996, p. 5)

This vision of what constituted an excellent administrative preparatory program as stated by ISLLC was fully shared by the Department of Educational Leadership and Research of The University of Southern Mississippi and indeed, became the underpinning of its vision.for its administrator preparation program with its targeted mission of student success. What follows in the remaining portions of this descriptive paper is drawn from the Department's Program Proposal: Principal Preparation for Value-Centered Leadership. Given this commitment to K-12 student success, the USM program for training administrators for the next millennium could be viewed as resting on a bedrock of what Thomas Sergiovanni calls a "covenant of shared values" about teaching and learning. Thus, foremost among faculty and practitioner partners was the belief that the success of all students was the primary purpose of all K-12 leadership. With this overarching belief, a set of core beliefs related to educational leadership were established for the new master's program and these consisted of the following six programmatic core beliefs, namely:

Core Belief #1 Schools are the primary focus of educational change and therefore building principals are the key facilitators of educational change for growth and school improvement. They must be able to initiate, implement, and maintain positive changes for insuring student success.

Core Belief #2 The governance of schools will increasingly be a shared endeavor among all stakeholders--principal, teachers, students, and parents-- with more accountability for student success required of all players, particularly at the school level. Principals must be especially well-skilled in mobilizing teams of varied people and players to accomplish collaboratively the school's goals. Core Belief #3 The pluralism of students, staff and community requires school leadership appreciative of and capable of working with diverse cultures, ethnicities, and perspectives with particular understanding, sensitivity, and commitment to a concept of inclusivity for meeting the cognitive, social, emotional, and physical needs of an increasingly diverse student population.

Core Belief #4 Today's school leader must be committed to moral, ethical leadership that sets the tone for establishing school as a "community of learners" wherein mutual respect, trust, and concern for each other characterize the climate and culture.

Core Belief #5 Today's school leader must be skilled in reflective practice earmarked by decision-making and problem-solving based on a well-examined belief system--an acquired, readily referenced core of values, which Steven Covey calls a state of "centeredness" that can guide one through difficult decision-making and crises.

Core Belief #6 Today's school leader must be knowledgeable about child growth and development including cognitive and affective dimensions, guiding principles, and best practices of teaching and learning. Furthermore, he or she must embrace a much broader concept of what constitutes human intelligence than schools have traditionally acknowledged.

Philosophy of Leadership Preparation

As stated earlier in this paper, there have been during the past decade numerous calls for reform of preparatory programs for educational leaders. These calls for reform have tended to focus on basically four factors, namely: (a) a move away from a managerial to a human-centered perspective and from the macro-level of a smooth-running organization to the micro-level of the learning needs of the individual student, (b) a continued orientation on the importance of a "knowledge base" that is best learned via traditional academic preparation, (c) a strengthening orientation on learning by doing, and finally, (d) a renewed orientation on the importance of personal professional characteristics of the administrator.

These foci served as a general philosophical framework upon which the Department of Educational Leadership and Research's new master's program evolved its "academic preparation program." Secondly, learning by doing has become a hallmark of this new master's program. These "reality-based," constructivist learning opportunities have been planned to take many forms, such as group problem-solving assignments, case studies, simulated principal in-basket activities, development of authentic products and documents, interviewing and "shadowing" of administrators, and personalized, performance-based practica--to name but a few. Finally, this new leadership program has emphasized the affective domain of learning, with activities designed to explore and develop the attitudes, beliefs, dispositions, and values of students.

USM's EDA Program Goals and Objectives

The Department of Educational Leadership and Research's ultimate goal in preparing educational leaders has emerged from the belief that student learning and the learning environment are central to its work.

The University of Southern Mississippi's Principal Preparation Program exists to provide Mississippi with principals capable of proactive, positive leadership for schools in the 21st century. Graduates of our program will be equipped with the knowledge, dispositions, and skills to enable all students and staff to be successful. (The University of Mississippi Principal Preparation Model for Values-Centered Leadership) In order to operationalize this goal, the department developed the following program objectives for its new Masters of Educational Administration degree for principals, namely:

Program Objective 1. To work collaboratively with school districts and the State Department of Education to recruit, attract, and admit students with excellent leadership potential, strong instructional backgrounds, and high moral character.

Program Objective 2.To assist each student in developing and completing an individual program plan that will best meet his or her needs in becoming a skilled, visionary, moral leader as defined in the standards set forth by the state and prominent national groups including, ISLLC, NCATE, and NPBEA.

Program Objective 3.To provide a program that demonstrates and instills the values of reflective practitioner, transformational leadership, student-centeredness, and ethics.

Program Objective 4.To provide a well-rounded curriculum with content that includes experiences and opportunities for students to acquire the knowledge, dispositions, and skills essential for outstanding school leadership.

Program Objective 5.To employ constructivist program delivery processes based on the following: (a)collaboration between and among students and student cohorts, faculty, universities, and school districts, as well as state and local agencies; (b)extensive use of problem-solving, constructivist activities (including both problem-based and problem-centered approaches); (c)developmentally appropriate, field-based experiences strategically planned and placed throughout the program beginning in Block 1 and ending with a year-long internship experience to meet the needs of individual students and cohorts in synthesizing the knowledge base and honing leadership skills through application; d.more reliance on authentic, performance-based means of assessing students in which their knowledge, skills, and dispositions are demonstrated rather than merely written and articulated.

Program Objective 6.To work as partners with school districts to provide schools in USM's service area with a pool of proactive principal candidates capable of providing moral leadership for student-centered schools essential for maximizing student potential and success.

Program Features

USM's Principal Preparation Program was conceptualized to reflect essential, significant shifts in the basic premises on which schools and leaders have operated. The following assumptions have formed the undergirding of the USM program design and development, namely:

a. Schools should be open, caring, collaborative communities of learners involving all stakeholders in their operation.

b. Schools should cultivate healthy risk taking and positive change for growth of children and adults.

c. Principals must be transformation leaders.

d. Principals must be PROACTIVE.

e. Student success should be performance-based and central to the school's operation.

Conceptual Model of USM's Program of Principal Preparation

The University of Southern Mississippi's Principal Preparation Model for Values-Centered Leadership (see next page) has illustrated the interrelationship among the program's key components and grounding principles beginning with (1) an admissions process to screen for qualified candidates, (2) an integrated approach to organizing program content, (3) reliance on selected processes for effective program delivery, (4) an emphasis on selected values in leadership, and (5) the use of four major domains of principal proficiencies recommended by the National Policy Board for Educational Administrators, which have guided the program's development.

The program's visual model has illustrated the interaction of program content and process with the content based on the knowledge, dispositions, and skills identified by the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC), the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and by the state in its Mississippi Administrators' Standards and Indicators document as being essential for today's principal. The Department's program's processes have broken with traditional programs of principal preparation by having relied on many forms of internal and external collaboration including University-school district partnerships, team-teaching among faculty cohorts involving adjunct faculty as "clinical professors" in organizational blocks rather than in courses, organization of a program around cohort groups of students, more reliance on constructivist approaches to curriculum and pedagogy, field-based experiences strategically and developmentally placed throughout the program from the first semester through the year-long internship, and greater regard for performance-based assessment of students. While these characteristics have broken with traditional programs preparing administrators, they have remained consistent with and supportive of the recommendations contained in Mississippi's Administrator Preparation and Certification Program Development Principles.

This new program was designed to consist of 36 semester hours of course credit with an additional requirement of an internship of 6 to 12 semester hours. The first full-time cohort student group will begin with the fall 1999 semester in which a group of students not currently employed full time (maximum of 25) enrolls in the first of three blocks of integrated program content (Block 1), followed in the spring semester 2000 by Block 2, in the summer 2000 by Block 3, followed by the internship occurring in the second year (2000-2001) over both fall and spring semesters. The part-time program options have been scheduled to begin with a cohort group of students enrolling in Block 1 in the summer 1999 semester, Block 2 in the fall (1999) and spring (2000) semesters, Block 3 in the summer 2000 semester, followed by the internship occurring over a full school year (2000-2001) through fall and spring semesters. The two programs were designed to be identical in content, sequencing, structure and delivery with the only difference being that Block 2 for the part-time student cohort is to be spread over two semesters rather than one semester as in the case of the full-time cohort program. The part-time cohort program has been scheduled to allow students who have continued to be employed full time to take heavy loads in the summer and lighter loads in the fall and spring semesters. The integrity of the program has been designed to be maintained in both cohort student group experiences.

Core Curriculum

Consistent with the department's vision and mission, USM's Principal Preparation Model for Values-Centered Leadership has targeted the development of proactive principals who will have evolved into student-centered, reflective, ethical/trustworthy, and transformational leaders. Again this has been illustrated in the model, these themes have provided basic grounding and design principles recommended by the state which have been tread throughout the program, facilitated its integration, and were embedded in the four major domains of principal proficiencies described by the National Policy Board for Educational Administration as the interpersonal, the contextual, the programmatic, and the functional domains. These domains were defined in "Principals for Our Changing Schools: The Knowledge and Skill Base" (1993), a document intended as a "flexible design ... or template for preparation, inservice, or certification programs. Although the domains were not intended as separate courses, the authors contended that "they can be tapped as strands of a cross-disciplinary program, or for a problems-of-practice approach" (p.xv).

In the USM program of principal preparation, the domains were integrated throughout the program with individual domains of Contextual, Programmatic, and Functional providing a curriculum focus for each of the three blocks of the Department's integrated program content with NPBEA's fourth domain, the Interpersonal, being unilaterally emphasized throughout the program.

Organization and Sequencing of Integrated Curriculum Blocks

Block 1 - The Landscape of Leadership (12 semester hours of credit) This block's focus was on students more fully understanding themselves as potential leaders, becoming a cohort team, and further development of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes which an educational leader has been expected to possess in order to deal with changing school and community environments. Students have been expected to gain insight into the school and community environments and into various contextual factors that have influenced the educational setting. Concepts that were explored within this instructional block included leadership theory, organizational oversight, self-understanding, educational philosophy, and research consumerism.

Block 2 - The Principal as Instructional Leader - (12 semester hours of credit) The second block built on Block 1's emphasis on the landscape of leadership by focusing on the heart of principals' work, i.e., increasing students' skills and ability to plan and implement school improvement and a program of instruction centered on student learning, achievement, and success. Concepts included in this block of integrated instruction to facilitate students' understanding were: improving teaching and learning; curriculum products, processes, and issues; professional development; targeting student success through measurement and evaluation; and action research.

Block 3 - The Principal as Manager - (12 semester hours of credit) The third block of instruction targeted students' understanding and skill in managing key organizational processes for facilitating the instructional program and nurturing teaching and learning in the school community. Developmentally, this block served as a synthesizer of the preceding two blocks by focusing on management functions as tools for principals, as instructional leaders, to operationalizing the goals and central mission of the organization of the school, i.e., student success. Central concepts that have been dealt with in this instructional block included leadership accountability; human, fiscal, and material resource management; school improvement; school law; and educational equity.

The Internship - Year Two - (6 to 12 semester hours of credit) The second year of this preparatory program was designed for students to develop their skills and further apply and synthesize theory and the knowledge base through more intensive, individually constructed field-based experiences facilitated by a team comprising a practitioner-mentor, a University advisor, and a designated field-based supervisor. The internship has been viewed as prescriptive and thus, has been designed to be somewhat flexible depending on the needs of the individual student.

The ordering of the instructional blocks was sequenced developmentally to accommodate increasingly complex program objectives. In addition, each block contained developmentally appropriate field-based experiences to further facilitate students' full understanding of each block's knowledge content (i.e., making observations in a district and shadowing a principal in order to complete a written contextual analysis of a district in Block 1; actually assisting a district with personnel functions in the summer in Block 3). Because of the importance of the field-based experiences from the outset of the program, in the first semester students have been expected to be paired with a practitioner-mentor who will be expected to work with the student and university advisor throughout the program in developing the student's individual program plan and further facilitating the field-based experiences of the student.

The various block's conceptual themes have flowed from content topics that facilitate each block's learner objectives. Thus, the curriculum has maintained a strong student-centered focus. The block's instructional teams were strategically assigned to match the expected student competencies and skills related to each block.

Instructional Procedures and Methodology

The processes for USM's content delivery has significantly differed from more traditional programs of administrator preparation as reflected in the program's model, the constructivist, student-centered delivery of the program has relied heavily upon collaboration, problem-solving, site-based experiences, and performance-based assessment. Individual program plans are to be developed by each student and his or her support team, i.e., practitioner-mentor, university advisor, and on-site supervisor during the first semester, updated regularly and kept as part of each student's portfolio, and used as a monitoring tool throughout the program.

Collaboration

Because adult learners in particular can learn much from each other's varied experiences and perspectives, students in this program will have many opportunities to work as members of a team, to share ideas and work loads, and to experience participative leadership as members of a group. Students are expected to enroll as members of a cohort team for the entire program and are further expected to work as members of the cohort team as well as members of smaller ad hoc groups to enhance their skill, understanding, and appreciation of the benefits and power of group input and decision-making. Additionally, students will also have had the opportunity to experience collaborating with school districts on varied field-based projects as individuals and as teams throughout the program.

The department's commitment to collaboration for program delivery also has been manifested in its overall team-based approach to instruction organized around semester blocks rather than in traditional courses. Professors on campus along with clinical professors (part-time faculty who have continued to function as practicing administrators) and field-based mentors will have continued to work together to deliver each instructional block of the program and to further provide team-based input and support for each cohort student.

Site-based experiences

Traditional instructional strategies such as lecture, class discussion, and examinations have not been eliminated from the program but will be significantly diminished in light of the reformed program's emphasis on constructivist teaching and learning. Both in-class and field-based assignments and projects will be utilized in nurturing more active, hands-on, real-world experiences in the principalship.

Beginning in the first semester and continuing throughout the two-year program, students will have experienced developmentally appropriate, field-based assignments designed to extend and enhance their knowledge and skill base. The field-based component of each block was not conceived separately from the course content but rather as a part of the total 12 semester hours of integrated content curricula. Each block's field-based assignments were sequenced to incorporate increasingly more complex skills and concepts. An increasingly greater portion of each block's time has been designated to involve field-based experiences, leading up to the full-year personalized internship. Site-based experiences are to be planned to and facilitated by the student and the student's support team and the instructional team of each program block.

Technology.

An essential part of any program designed to prepare today's educational leaders must incorporate sufficient attention to and appropriate use of technology (1) in delivery of the program through instructional applications of technology; (2) through technologically enhanced program management; (3) through up-to-date curricular information and training in the use of technology to support cutting-edge school leadership. The block descriptions have reflected the incorporation of technology in the curriculum and program content; but in order to deliver this program as conceived, the department has requested a technologically-enhanced laboratory for various media interactive activities, enhanced instruction, as well as for facilitating faculty, student, and cohort use of the Internet, E-mail and listservs, computer-based programs, and simulations.

Distance learning via satellite transmission was already in place to facilitate coordination of the Hattiesburg and Gulf Coast campuses. Satellite transmission should further enhance the work of the department in collaborating with other universities and school districts as this technology becomes more widespread across the state.

Assessment of Students

Student assessment in USM's principal preparation program has reflected a focus on higher-order thinking by emphasizing performance-based assessments in addition to more traditional modes for assessing mastery of content material relative to a professional knowledge base. Instructors within each block are expected to determine a given set of assessments for each set of block experiences. Although traditional measures such as tests of the knowledge base, research papers, and a summative comprehensive examination are planned to be utilized, team-based, collaborative portfolio development and analysis procedures and performance-based assessment rubrics to assess students' knowledge, attitudes, and skills have been planned to become more of the focus in monitoring students' development. These processes are expected to capitalize on student self-reflection, peer assessment, personal responses and interactions during clinical experiences, and performance-oriented activities during clinical activities in the first three blocks as well as the internship experiences in accordance with the program goals and the student's individual learning plan.

The Individual Diagnostic Profile of Principal Proficiencies, developed by the department and based on NCATE's standards, has been identified to assess individually each student's skills beginning in Block 1 and will be one means of monitoring students' growth and development. The instrument will be kept in the students' portfolio along with documented evidences of skill attainment related to each proficiency. Additionally, this diagnostic profile has been designated as a major component to be used to construct a customized internship at the end of the program's first three blocks of instruction. Summative assessment of students at the end of their entire program will be based on the final student portfolio and the results of the master's comprehensive examination.

Assessment of the Program

Accountability of the total program has been viewed as an ongoing process based on input from students, faculty, and the Leadership Advisory Board. Pre- and post-graduation surveys of students, student evaluations of faculty, annual state/NCATE reviews of the program, and student success rate on the new Principal Licensure Assessment have been designated to serve as sources of data for determining the program's success. Moreover, each block instructional team has been charged with annual review of content and activities so as to assure maximum effectiveness in the instructional product offered to students in each block. The students' portfolios, although intended in this program initially to benefit students tracking their own growth and development, should also be of help in the department's overall program assessment. To this end, the portfolios will be reviewed by a team of faculty and L.A.B. members on an annual basis to look for strengths and weaknesses of the program based on its goals and objectives.

In accordance with the Mississippi State Department of Education Process and Performance Standards for Educational Leadership Programs, individual student records will include (a) standard application/portfolio packets, (b) record of preselection interview results, and (c) an individualized program of studies consistent with NCATE standards as delineated by the Educational Leadership Licensure Consortium. In addition, the department will monitor the results of the performance of program graduates on the Principal's Licensure Assessment to assure that the state-required minimum of 90% of students score at or above the required proficiency level. Other State Department of Education Process and Performance Standards as may be implemented by the state will be incorporated into the department's annual review process.

Conclusion

This new reform program for the preparation of school administrators has brought together a number of ideas, models, and delivery formats to create a totally different approach from that which has been in operation at the University of Southern Mississippi. It is recognized by the department that this program is an evolving one, which over time is expected to continue to modify itself as a result of both ongoing internal and external assessments. What level of success will the program achieve is not yet known; however, the anticipation and expectation within the department is that this program will be responsible for creating school administrators fully ready and capable of affecting quality instructional opportunities and settings well into the new millennium.

REFERENCES

American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (1988). School leadership preparation: A preface for action. Washington, DC: Author.

Ashbaugh, C.R. & Kasten, K.L. (1992). The licensure of school administrators: Policy and practice. Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education.

Council of Chief State School Officers. (1996). Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium standards for school leaders. Washington, DC: Author.

Daniel, L.G., Gupton, S.L., and Southerland, A.R. (1998). Approaches for reforming the preparation of school leaders: A literature review and USM's experience with program reform. Hattiesburg, MS.

Daresh, J. C. & Playko, M.A. (1992). The professional development of school administrators: Preservice, induction, and inservice applications. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Department of Educational Leadership and Research. (1998). The University of Southern Mississippi principal preparation model for values-centered leadership. Hattiesburg, MS: Author.

Jacobson, S.L. (1990). Reflections on the third wave of reform: Rethinking administrator preparation. In S.L. Jacobson & J.A. Conway (Eds.), Educational leadership in an age of reform(pp. 30-44). New York: Longman.

Mississippi Department of Education. (1997). Mississippi standards for school leaders. Jackson, MS: Author.

Merseth, K.K. (1997). Case studies in educational administration. New York: Longman.

Murphy, J.F. (1992). The landscape of leadership preparation: Reframing the education of school administrators. Newbury Park, CA: Corwin.

National Association of Elementary School Principals. (1991). Elementary and middle schools: proficiencies for principals (Revised). Alexandria, VA: Author.

National Association of Secondary School Principals. (1985). Performance-based preparation of principals: A framework for improvement. Reston, VA: Author.

National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). A national at risk: The imperative for educational reform. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

National Policy Board for Educational Administration. (1993). Principals for our changing schools: Knowledge and skill base. Lancaster, PA: Technomic.