AACTE Presents: The University Principal Preparation Initiative

We’ve talked a lot about the district's role in preparing principles, but what is the state’s role? In this episode we speak with authors of Wallace commissioned reports covering state policy What levers can the states pull to support quality principal training, and why doing so is essential.

As the role of the principal evolves, so too does the extent to which they play the role of instructional leader. As a vital part of student outcomes and teacher retention in schools, it’s alarming that new principals often have skill gaps when providing instructional coaching. In the sixth episode of AACTE’s podcast covering the University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI), we discuss what the research says about instructional leadership, and how one UPPI program, Albany State, addressed the gaps in preparing their principal candidates to be effective at it.

Dr. David Lorden and Dr. Alejandro Gonzalez Ojeda from San Diego State University share how principal preparation programs can restructure to meet the array of needs required by various districts. They share insights from their own experiences as faculty during UPPI when it comes to diversifying the clinical experiences of candidates through collaborative redesign with the districts.

Dr. David Lorden began his career in education as a high school English teacher. He made the decision fairly soon to pursue school leadership earning his Masters of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University. After teaching for seven years, David took on the role of a high school vice principal. Five years later, he took on his first principalship at San Ramon Valley High School in California’s Bay Area. David continued as a high school principal for nine years before moving into district leadership where he served as the Director of Student Support Services. It was in this role that David was immersed in Equity work and learned first hand the role of Equity Driven Leadership. David continued in his leadership journey moving to San Diego Unified School District as an Area Superintendent. In this role, David supervised 28 schools and provided principal coaching, supervision, and professional learning. During this time, David earned his Ed. D. at San Diego State University and soon thereafter, became a superintendent in a K-8 District in San Diego County. David moved to higher education when the opportunity to serve as a team lead in the redesign of San Diego State University’s Preliminary Administrative Services Credential Program surfaced. In this role, David works with local District partners and 12 California principal preparation programs to redesign their programs. David also teaches in the principal preparation program at SDSU.

Alejandro Gonzalez Ojeda Ed.D. is an assistant professor of educational leadership at San Diego State University, and an instructional technology leader at Health Sciences High & Middle College. Alejandro was born in Mexicali, a Mexican border town adjacent to California. As an immigrant and an English Language Learner, he encountered both positive and negative experiences throughout his education in the US. These experiences have influenced his perspective on supporting inclusion and access for all students. He started his career in education as a school technologist in San Diego, and soon developed an appreciation for supporting learners and building the capacity of teachers through professional growth. Alejandro's scope of research and publications span policy in education, instructional practices across gradespans and disciplines, and leadership preparation pipelines.

Principal Preparation Programs serve two major consumers, the candidate’s that enter their programs and the districts that hire them. Therefore, it is essential to align program redesign efforts to district needs, which we have learned vary across the state. Today we talk to Dr. Franciso Edobedo, Superintendent of the Chula Vista Elementary School District (CVESD), located in southern San Diego County, to learn what superintendents are looking for in principals and other school leaders entering the field, and again with Douglas Fisher, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University, about why and how prep programs should work with districts like Dr. Escobedo’s. Their collaboration led to various redesign improvements over the course of Wallace’s UPPI Initiative, but in this episode, we dive deeper into how they were able to share, evaluate and act on data through an equitable lens.

In our last episode, we dove into identifying the gaps between “learning” and “doing”, highlighting the work of University Principal Preparation Initiative. We learned that through thoughtful planning using frameworks developed by Wallace to address the growing need for more collaboration between districts and universities. In this episode, we’re going to dive into a case study of how one UPPI program at University of Connecticut and what they’ve learned from their program redesign. We spoke at length with Richard Gonzales, who oversees the principalship and superintendency program at UConn and serves as the director of UConn's UPPI initiative project, specifically about the redesign of their core assessments. Dr. Gonzalez and current program candidate Symone James, explain the core assessments, how they were tied to clinical practice and what that structure accomplished in closing the “learning” and “doing” gap of principal preparation.

While the role of the principal remains essential, it has evolved over time. Throughout it's evolvement, preparation programs, districts and state policy makers have worked in siloes, creating gaps between the skills learned in an ed leadership program and what a principal actually does at their job. In this episode we learn what the research says about what the the gaps between "learning" and "doing" are and how to address them. Then we hear about how those findings are seen and implemented through the eyes of one of the University Principal Preparation Initiative's Project Directors, Tim Drake. Tim Drake is an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy at NC State University. He completed his Ph.D. in education policy studies at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Drake has an M.Ed. in international education policy and management from Vanderbilt and a B.A. in history teaching from Brigham Young University. Dr. Drake studies the policies and practices that influence the effectiveness of school leaders. Specifically, he works at the intersection of research, policy, and practice to inform the ways in which school leaders are trained and supported. His current research projects include educator data use, leadership preparation and development, early grades/pre-K leadership, and turnaround school leadership. Dr. Drake is Principal Investigator of the Wallace Foundation’s University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI) for NC State.

​​​​​​​School leadership is second only to teaching among school-related factors in its impact on student learning, according to research. The Wallace Foundation's Knowledge Center on School Leadership includes decades of research and institutional knowledge on the principalship, and with the ever present focus on improving schools in our country, the findings from it's multi-year initiative to redesign principal preparation programs couldn't be more timely. In this first episode, we talk to Rochelle Herring, a senior program officer in education at The Wallace Foundation, with extensive experience working with school districts in various roles about they "why" behind investing in the principalship as an effective and strategic way to multiply positive student outcomes. A full report of the Launch of the University Principal Pipeline Initiative (UPPI) can be found here: https://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/Documents/Launching-a-Redesign-of-University-Principal-Preparation-Programs.pdf