This paper reports on the current thinking about the position of principal and superintendent in America's schools. The positions of school principal and district superintendent have been undergoing changes in definition and scope over the last century and a half. As America undergoes significant societal transformation, the definition of these two positions has to evolve to meet the complex demands the country puts on its schools. The history of the development of the principalship and superintendency is given to provide context for the challenges aspiring education leaders will face in the new millennium. A noted systemic problem in higher education is the inability of many universities to provide adequate instruction relevant to today's leadership needs in education. Recommendations include leadership preparation programs being redesigned to reflect collaborative instructional leadership that works through transformational processes. Such programs must be organized around problems of practice and delivered in collaboration with practitioners. Developmental evaluation processes need to be contained to assess aspiring leaders based upon their level of development. Programs should have a critical mass of five to six faculty devoted to the preparation of new forms of leadership for the schools. (Contains 51 references.) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.

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This empirical study is intended to assess whether a standards-based integrated teacher preparation curriculum is more beneficial in developing professional competencies than a traditional course-oriented curriculum at a college of education in a state university. Using multivariate analysis of variance, we found that students who went through the new integrated curriculum reported higher levels of professional preparation in all 13 standards and competency areas than those who went through the traditional course-oriented curriculum. This finding remained strong even when the teaching majors were included and controlled as another factor variable. Students in the integrated curriculum and those in the traditional curriculum had comparable characteristics, high school grade point averages (GPAs), and college GPAs. Additional related findings and suggestions for future studies also emerged.

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