The National Network for Innovative Principal Preparation has announced plans to publish a quarterly, refereed journal on creative methods for preparing school principals.
The first edition of the untitled publication is expected out in late summer, according to Robert H. Beach, chairman of the program in administration and educational planning at the University of Alabama, the home of the network.
Mr. Beach, who will edit the journal, said the publication will be the first academic journal to concentrate solely on examining promising educational-leadership programs. It is being supported by the Danforth Foundation.
In addition, the network’s own bulletin, called “Exchange,” is being merged with “Agenda,” a publication of the National Policy Board for Educational Administration. The latter group is also funded by the Danforth Foundation.
The merged publication will be called “Design for Leadership” and will focus on preparation programs. It, too, will be produced at the University of Alabama, with the first issue expected out in mid-summer.
The review board for the new scholarly journal is still being formed, and applications from those interested in participating are welcome, Mr. Beach said. For more information on either publication, write the National Network for Innovative Principal Preparation, P.O. Box 870302, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Ala. 35487.
In a nationwide survey of 1,500 administrators, researchers at the University of Buffalo’s graduate school of education have found that school administration remains a “white-male bastion” that is unlikely to change in the near future.
The 1989 results of the survey, which has been conducted annually since 1984, show that 83.2 percent of school principals and superintendents are men, 75 percent of whom are white. The teaching force is 70 percent female, the study notes.
Of the 1,509 administrators who responded, 16.8 percent were women and 6.7 percent were members of minority groups.
When broken down by administrative position and school-district demographics, the survey findings showed that only 5 percent of school superintendents were women and 4 percent were members of minority groups. Only 0.9 percent were minority women.
And of the 254 female respondents to the survey, 51.6 percent were principals of elementary schools and 5.5 percent were secondary-school principals.
The study’s authors note that the findings “do not augur well for future change,” since secondary-school principalships are considered stepping stones to superintendencies.--ab
