This book is designed to inform the debate on administrator preparation and to provide information for shaping new designs for administrator education. Chapter 1 discusses the changing educational environment and the need for improving administrator training. Chapters 2 and 3 review phases in the evolution of training programs over the last century: the era of ideology, the prescriptive era, the era of professionalism/behavioral science, and the emerging dialectic era. A framework based on six components--faculty, students, program structure, program content, instruction, and philosophy--is used to evaluate the programs of each era. The fourth chapter provides a critical analysis of the current preparation scene in terms of recruitment and selection, program content, delivery systems, and certification and employment. A picture of future changes in the environmental context and educational leadership is provided in chapter 5. The sixth chapter sketches a design for new preparation programs, based on goals and principles for changing curricula, delivery systems, and structures. A recommendation is made to develop faculty with more broadly defined roles. Chapter endnotes and a 31-page bibliography are included. (LMI)