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Twenty-three aspiring
principals from the St. Louis Public Schools visited Columbia
in July for the first part of MU's intensive 15-month professional
development program.
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Today’s
Teachers, Tomorrow’s Principals
By Jeff Neu
In a recent article in the Chronicle
of Higher Education, Arthur Levine, president of Columbia
University’s Teachers College, challenged state officials
to motivate education schools and colleges to better prepare principals
and superintendents across the country. The University of Missouri-Columbia’s
College of Education,
the St. Louis Public School District
and the Boeing Co.
are answering that call with a new program called The New Leaders
Project. The goal is to train 23 St. Louis Public School teachers
to become competitive principal candidates for the city of St.
Louis.
Through the help of a $200,000 LEAD grant
from the Wallace Reader's Digest Foundation, each of the 23 aspiring
principals will participate in an intensive 15-month professional
development program designed to enable them to become effective
instructional leaders in urban settings. Each participant will
receive a $3,000 stipend and will earn 30 hours of tuition-free,
graduate level credit from MU, leading to a master's degree and
eligibility for principal certification from the Missouri
Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Margaret Grogan, professor
and chair of the MU Department of Educational Leadership
and Policy Analysis, is one of the program leaders.
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“This is a completely unique and alternative
approach to becoming a principal,” said Margaret Grogan,
professor and chair of the MU
Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis and
one of the leaders of the program. “We release them from
their classrooms and place them in schools throughout the city
as administrative interns and get them heavily involved with St.
Louis school issues.”
The participants will be involved in ongoing
training sessions, which will include workshops, group sessions
and data gathering, participating in a virtual school experiment
and mentoring with veteran principals. The program, which was
modeled after New
York City's Leadership Academy, consists of four key phases:
- Summer Intensive: a rigorous
five-week program that uses problem solving-based teaching and
learning, which serves as the program's foundation. The students
currently are in their last week of this phase.
- Residency Year: a year-long
residency that matches experienced principals with the students
in areas of educational theory and practice.
- Planning Summer: a development
period that prepares the students to move into their new positions.
- First Year Support: A
tailor-made plan that meets the individual needs of the student.
The participants, 20 of whom are female and
13 who are African-American, have signed contracts to stay within
the school district for at least three years after completing
the program.
The Boeing Co. is supplying laptops to the
participants, is providing one-to-one mentoring for them, and
is financially sponsoring several of them.
Project leaders hope to start the process
again with new participants next year, which is contingent on
additional funding.
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Copyright © 2007 — Curators of the University of Missouri
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Published by the Mizzou Alumni Association
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Last Update:
November 15, 2007
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