Preparing school administrators to support effective instruction of English language learners (ELLs) is an important dimension of today's school leadership programs, yet often difficult to enact. This paper reports a comprehensive needs analysis of a school leadership advanced certificate program carried out by Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and school administration faculty. This contributed to a comprehensive understanding of the needs of faculty and candidates in their beliefs and experiences with ELL pedagogy. Implications for collaboration with TESOL faculty to strengthen more effective instruction for ELLs are discussed.A significant challenge in preparing candidates for school leadership positions is ensuring they are familiar with the unique needs of English language learners (ELLs). Even though the number of ELLs in primary schools in the United States has increased over 200% in 16 states in the last decade, with numbers growing faster than any other segment of the child population (D. J. Hernández, Denton, & Macartney, 2007), school leadership education programs significantly under-prepare candidates for their comprehensive role in supervising curriculum, instruction, and assessment to effectively meet the needs of specific ELL populations (
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