Ready Remedies for the School Leadership 'Crisis'

By W. Norton Grubb & Lynda Tredway

California’s brewing “crisis” in school leadership has recently gained the attention of the press, with a detailed report appearing in this publication two months ago. ( "Crisis in School Leadership Seen Brewing in California," Nov. 4, 2009.) Presumably, the situation offers a warning to other states. But while observers are right to point to the basic economic and fiscal problems underlying shortages of high-quality principals, there are exemplary approaches to principal preparation—in California and elsewhere—that preclude the need for privately funded programs, such as New Leaders for New Schools, with high and unsustainable price tags. And despite the budgetary issues, there are concrete steps that universities, school districts, and states can take to improve school leaders.

We offer as one example our program’s approach. The work of the Principal Leadership Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, now in its 10th year, rests on several core beliefs. These may provide a useful outline for others attempting to launch or revamp efforts in school leadership development.

First, principals should be instructional leaders, capable of working with teachers to improve learning outcomes. We select strong teachers for the program based on teaching videos, since weak teachers cannot be models of instruction. We prepare them to use classroom observations as ways of identifying strong practices as well as diagnosing instructional problems, and then addressing them by improving from...