Chapter 4: Problems Reported by Novicehigh School Principals

At the time the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (PL 107-110 and commonly known as the No Child Left Behind Act) was reauthorized in 2001, principals were being asked to restructure schools so that all students achieve adequate yearly progress (Bottoms, O’Neill, Fry, & Hill, 2003). Concurrently, however, policymakers in some states were eliminating or attenuating licensing requirements for this pivotal position (Anthes, 2004; Feistritzer, 2003). For at least the last few decades, educational administration scholars, such as Hallinger and Heck (1996) and Murphy (2003), warned that permitting underqualified persons to be principals was myopic policy.

Though multiple factors underlie efforts to deprofessionalize school administration, the absence of social authority is arguably the one that has made the education profession most vulnerable (Elmore, 2007). Critics, such as Hess (2003), claim that traditional state licensing requirements, such as teaching experience and graduate degrees in educational administration, have had little or no effect on school improvement. Moreover, they believe that employing noneducators with management training would make schools more efficient and possibly more effective. The only evidence they have provided to support this contention, however, has been anecdotal accounts of business executives, politicians, or retired military officers serving as superintendents in large urban districts (Kowalski, 2004).