Reforming the California Public School Administrator Licensure System through the Alignment of Research, Policy, and Practice: Policy Perspectives and Recommendations from the California Association of Professors of Educational Administration (CAPEA)

The current era of school reform has illuminated and amplified the importance of school leaders in providing the conditions and support necessary to engender powerful teaching and learning for all children. Commensurate with this phenomenon is an increased focus on holding school leaders accountable for essential school outcomes. As a consequence, renewed attention has been directed by policy makers, scholars, and school district leaders on the methods used to assess leadership competence and the programs used to prepare effective administrators. Comparatively less attention has been given to the design and quality of state administrator licensure systems and especially those that are explicitly crafted around an empirically sound conceptual framework, a thoughtful rationale that addresses both formative and summative functions, or the sensitivity to certify the competence of administrative professionals in increasingly complex educational environments. This report outlines the rationale, policies, and practices commonly used to license school administrators, and it concludes with a set of recommendations to help guide the reform of California's administrator licensure system. (Contains 1 table.)