The importance of a diverse leadership workforce has been empirically demonstrated for at least three decades, yet the leadership workforce is still predominantly white and male. Why is this? Programs and participants represented in this issue demonstrate that educational leadership programs can produce candidate pools that are more diverse than…

Current percentages of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) principals largely mirror those of the teacher workforce. They, however, diverge from student demographics. We provide insight into these racial imbalances by charting principal preparation patterns and demonstrating the typical leadership pipeline in Texas. In doing so, we draw…

In this policy forum commentary, we call for improved national and state-level data collection and access relevant to the principal pipeline. We focus specifically on how access to quality data can inform, has informed, and is critical to policy and practice across three segments of the principal pipeline--principal preparation, licensure, and…

The term Powerful Learning Experience (PLE) is an outgrowth of a University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) project. Colleagues who were engaged in the Leaders Supporting Diverse Learners (LSDL) project, along with researchers examining exemplary educational leadership programs refined the original framework. The version described in…

Leadership preparation is essential in developing critical skills of effective school leaders. Educational leadership preparation programs vary greatly in terms of program features, it is important to identify which specific elements are likely associated with program quality. Using multiple years of Initiative for Systemic Program Improvement…

Eliminating the achievement gap and ensuring high-quality education for diverse student populations depend upon the capacity of local educational leaders to be highly effective at enabling schools in all contexts to teach all students. Realizing this goal also depends upon the capacity of local universities to prepare and support educational…

This special issue of the "Journal of Research on Leadership Education" presents the findings resulting from a set of studies focused on understanding how leadership preparation standards were used, by whom, and to what end. In addressing these questions, the authors reviewed how standards were used by program faculty, professional…

Few scholars have engaged in close examinations of state boards of education (SBOEs), their make-up, or the broader implications of their influence over time. SBOE membership, authority, and impact differ significantly across the 50 states. This article reports findings from an exploratory study of three SBOEs and their role as policy actors.…

Digital technologies provide new opportunities for increased participation by the general public in state and federal governance. In this article, we examine opportunities for public engagement in one type of state-level governmental body: the State Board of Education (SBOE). Limited research has focused on SBOEs, particularly the extent to which…

New research has identified teacher working conditions as having a greater effect on teacher turnover than most other factors, including student achievement and student characteristics. Importantly, research has debunked the conventional wisdom that teachers often leave schools because of student characteristics. This brief discusses how teacher…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of critical policy analysis (CPA) in the fields of educational leadership and policy. In addition to exploring how CPA compares to traditional research approaches in educational leadership and policy, the authors consider the influence of long-established ways of knowing, why scholars choose…

For the last few decades, leadership standards have served as a de facto "recommended curriculum" for preparation programs in the United States. In this article, we: (1) share the new National Educational Leadership Preparation (NELP) standards, (2) present the literature supporting the standards, and (3) critically assess the influence…

There is a pervasive and ongoing perception that leadership preparation is a problem. Important questions remain about the intentions, capacity, and impact of state departments of education engaged in leadership preparation program redesign. In this essay, I take up several issues concerning this state policy work, including whether a one size…

Characteristics that contribute to successful redesign and launch of principal preparation programs may be understood collectively as the capacity of those programs. A model of capacity for redesign of principal preparation programs should strike a balance between the technical and professional aspects of teaching and leadership and the cultural…

Purpose: This article offers (a) an overview of the attention federal policy has invested in educational leadership with a primary focus on the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), (b) a summary of the critical role school leaders play in achieving the goals set forth within federal educational policy, and (c) examples of how states are using the…