Chapter 10: Leaders for Tomorrow: A Partnership Between Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and the Educational Leadership Program at Winthrop University

The role of the school principal is second only to that of the classroom teacher in impacting student learning (Wallace Foundation, 2016), which means preparing quality principals must be a central priority in urban education. Without question, the quality of principal preparation programs has great impact on the success or failure of beginning school leaders. Educational leadership programs that prepare principals have the responsibility of ensuring that candidates master skills for what all principals should know and be able to do. This is especially true for programs preparing principals who will be serving high-need schools. According to Christine DeVita, President of the Wallace Foundation, the “quality of training principals receive before they assume their positions has a lot to do with whether school leaders can meet the increasingly tough expectations of these jobs” (Orr, King, & LaPointe, 2010, p. 1). School districts are now using their influence to improve principal preparation by hiring candidates who have completed high-quality programs that meet the standards and needs of their local schools (Syed, 2015).