What is National Policy Board for Educational Administration (NPBEA)

This chapter explores educational leadership graduate programs and the complex process of preparing the next generation of principals and building administrators. The authors emphasize the role of self-directed learning in educational leadership graduate programs, as pre-service principals will ultimately encounter problems of practice in school settings that challenge them to seek, analyze, and utilize information effectively and the skills necessary for making informed decisions and applying theory to practice. This chapter explores the ways in which some educational leadership graduate programs shaped their programs as settings that foster scholar-practitioners through the integration of new standards and frameworks that encourage the development of practice-related research skills. Also, the authors examine problems of practice and the ways educational leadership programs prepare pre-service principals to grapple with these complex issues. Lastly, a problem of practice project is outlined for use in the classroom.