Cultivating a New Vision for School Leaders: An Innovative, Standards-based
Master’s Degree Program in Educational Leadership
Section I: Content
A. Statement of the issue.
School leaders need to build frameworks and formats that serve diverse
constituent groups. But, how does one build such frameworks and formats? Through an
innovative set of opportunities, candidates in a standards-based master’s degree program
focusing on “School Improvement Leadership” complete course work and concurrent
site-based practicums, including virtual classroom discussions, in which they complete
projects that give them valuable exposure to and experience in school leader tasks and
functions, including various frameworks and formats, thereby preparing the candidates
for service as “servant leaders” who are able to work with the diverse constituent groups
that they will encounter.
B. Literature Review:
A review of the literature regarding school leadership indicates that the literature
continues to be inundated with a wealth of perspectives from all corners of the
educational community. The focus recently has been on the impact of “No Child Left
Behind” and the shrinking pool of new school leader candidates. Research reports,
commissioned studies, and headlines in every community have flooded our world of
today with the messages of accountability and standards-based education.
Gardner (1984) stated that leadership is the process of persuasion or example by
which an individual (or leadership team) induces a group to pursue objectives held by the
leader or shared by the leader and his or her followers. This perspective of school
leadership on policy development can be traced back to 1987, when the National
Commission on Excellence in Educational Administration published a report called
Leadership for America’s Schools. This report was the springboard for other
organizations to establish standards and levels of performance for school leadership.
Educational institutions adopted and applied these standards to delivery models for their
curriculum criteria and degree programs.
One educational movement/school of thought that this program addresses is the
concept of servant leadership as an essential ingredient in school improvement. Greenleaf
(1998) maintained that conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. For Greenleaf, the
important questions one must ask about leadership are: Do those served grow as people?
Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more
likely themselves to become servants?
Goodlad’s writings have been helpful in giving shape to the idea of schooling as
moral endeavor. Goodlad (1984) stated that schools were created primarily out of
concern for the welfare of our culture, particularly in regards to the preservation of our
religious and political values.
Sergiovanni (2001) stated that such ideas of servant leadership bring with them a
different kind of strength --- one based on moral authority. He believed and advocated
that we need to develop our own theories and practices of leadership that emerge from
and are central to what schools are like, what schools are trying to do, and what kinds of
people schools serve.
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Convention