Chapter 1: Translational Leadership: New Principals and the Theory and Practice of School Leadership in the Twenty-First Century

Educational leaders in the twenty-first century are expected to produce higher levels of learning for all students. To help future principals meet this challenge and successfully lead contemporary schools, many university-based preparation programs have redesigned their delivery formats, aligned their curricula to new professional standards, and updated their performance assessments for graduate students to more accurately reflect the new nature of leadership (Browne-Ferrigno, 2007; Jackson & Kelley,2002; Murphy & Forsyth, 1999).

Over the last 2 decades, the role of the school leader has become more complex as the nature of the work has shifted. One reason for this shift is that schools have been in reform mode for several decades. Since the publication of A Nation at Risk(1983), the prevailing rhetoric has been that our schools are failing, and we must do something to fix them. Hence, apprentice models of school leadership preparation are no longer appropriate because they simply replicate the status quo. New school leaders must be prepared to be change agents, and therefore the nature of leadership preparation must change as well.