Moving Leadership Standards Into Everyday Work: Descriptions of Practice

Edited by: Karen Kearney

The fact that highly skilled school administrators are crucial to successful teaching and learning has long been recognized. But as the challenges administrators face have become more complex in this era of standards-based reform and high-stakes accountability, increasing attention has been focused on trying to identify the specific knowledge, skills, and dispositions that are essential to successful school leadership.

The descriptions of practice (DOPs) introduced in this publication were developed to enhance the usefulness of research-based leadership standards, including the widely used California Professional Standards for Education Leaders (CPSELs) and the nationally developed Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) standards. For each of six broad standards, the DOPs identify the underlying goals and provide a detailed narrative describing specific administrator actions, attitudes, and understanding needed to attain each goal. The DOPs also depict what key aspects of each standard look like in action across a continuum of developing practice, as an administrator moves from being a tactical manager to a strategic instructional leader whose efforts result in improved student learning.

Coupled with the standards, the DOPs provide readers with common concepts, language, and examples that, together, can serve several, sometimes overlapping, purposes:

• as a starting point for developing credentialing criteria,
• as a guide for planning leadership preparation or professional development,
• as a basis for clarifying performance expectations, and
• as a mirror for an administrator's self-reflection and professional goal-setting.