Traditional leadership preparation programs and licensure requirements give only token consideration to social justice concerns. This article examines the emerging social justice discourse in the educational administration field and discusses several challenges that must be considered as universities and others attempt to prepare school leaders for social justice critique and activism. Social justice scholarship in educational leadership emphasizes moral values, justice, respect, care, and equity; always in the forefront is a consciousness about the impact of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and disability on schools and students’ learning. School leadership programs face the challenge of preparing new leaders to critically inquire into the structures and norms that result in inequitable schooling for many students and to undertake an advocacy role to influence educational policies to achieve social justice.

Purpose – The purpose of this legacy paper is to review leadership preparation over time in the United States and addresses challenges ahead. It is hoped that the US developments will be instructive to an international audience interested in strengthening the preparation of school leaders. Design/methodology/approach – The paper synthesizes research and commentary on leadership preparation programs in the US as a basis for identifying five challenges ahead. Findings – Meaningful change should be informed by the past but not bound by tradition. It is imperative to be open to different viewpoints, to take reasonable – and at times bold – risks, and to question deeply held values and assumptions. Broad recognition of the significant role school leaders play in facilitating student learning suggests that the political climate is right to effect meaningful reforms in leadership preparation in the US. Those involved in preparing school leaders are urged to address the challenges identified in this paper. Research limitations/implications – Encouraging work is underway, but many more people need to be involved in efforts to rigorously assess and improve leadership preparation. Practical implications – We do not have all the answers but cannot be paralyzed by what we do not know. We are ethically responsible to act on what we do know, such as incorporating the compelling research on learning theory into the leadership preparation curriculum. Originality/value – The traditional complacency in the educational leadership professoriate cannot continue if university preparation programs are to meet the needs of the next generation of school leaders. The time is short, and the stakes are high for all involved especially for PK-12 students.

As members of the review committee for the first Exemplary Educational Leadership Preparation (EELP) Award given by the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA), we were charged with naming a recipient of the award and ranking the other nominees. We were gratified that 10 excellent educational leadership preparation programs were nominated, but once we began the process, it soon became apparent that simply ranking these programs was not the best way to proceed because of at least two reasons. First, as some programs were stronger in certain areas than others, and no one program was the best in everything, it was difficult for us to agree upon a consensual rank order. Instead, we found that we were more likely to reach an agreement by clustering the programs into three categories-those that were strong, but for one reason or another fell short of being exemplary (perhaps because of a limited number of faculty); those that seemed on the cusp of excellence, but lacked sufficient evidence of success because they were still in the early years of their development; and finally, those that we could all agree deserved to be called exemplary. The second reason we opted to avoid a simple rank order is that it was clear that different programs could take different paths to success and by trying to identify the best program, it could lead to the false impression that there was a single best approach to becoming exemplary. Our field has suffered through too many attempts at creating a "one best model" (Jacobson, 1990), and we did not want to give credence to this idea. One size does not fit all, and in reading the applications, it became increasingly clear that context was critical to how a preparation program could best serve its community. What works best in Chicago might have to take an entirely different focus and form in San Antonio and vice versa, yet both could easily earn the accolade of "exemplary."

Do administrative licensure policy reforms address social justice concerns? By analyzing the policy discourse (in interviews and documents) in Indiana and North Carolina, this article shows that policy actors believe the focus on heightened standards will raise the quality of leadership candidates. In turn, they believe that this focus on quality will address diversity, achievement gaps, and other equity issues. However, they are concerned about whether higher education can and will adequately implement the needed curricular practices. The complexities of administrator shortages, budget shortfalls, and high-stakes testing complicate implementation of reforms in leadership preparation. By focusing on social justice, this analysis reveals ways in which the two states’ policy actions have treated equity and social justice as components of quality.