PERSPECTIVE: Of Dubious Efficacy—Questioning the Core of University-based Preparation Programs for School Leaders

Module by: Joseph Murphy

Summary: Joseph Murphy argues in this essay that much of university preparation of educational leaders is, at best, of questionable value and, at worst, harmful. Let me start with a few points to ground my claims.

This module has been peer-reviewed, accepted, and sanctioned by the National Council of the Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA) as a scholarly contribution to the knowledge base in educational administration.

Sources of Concern

First is the question of the “information base” that informs my reflections and subsequent conclusions. Insights are drawn from three sources. To begin with, my own research on the profession of school administration writ large and its preparatory function in particular grounds my observations. Empirical and conceptual analyses based on this scholarship have appeared regularly in print over the last quarter century. Collectively, this body of work, and a much more extensive body of analysis by colleagues in school administration, helps us to tally a grim catalogue of problems that have befallen prospective school administrators.

In addition, I have had the opportunity to work with colleagues in over 60 university-based preparatory programs and some of the leading non-university based programs over the last 15 years as they individually and collectivity, voluntarily and involuntarily labored to strengthen their certification and degree programs in school administration. While insights and conclusions from this policy and developmental work are less accessible than is the case with the more research-grounded work just noted, a number of published pieces are available.

Finally, across the last two decades I have talked both formally and informally with hundreds of practicing school leaders about their education within departments of school administration. These conversations and interviews produce distinct themes, and some of these patterns assume a positive hue. Unfortunately, collectively they reveal a less than flattering portrait about the work we do and the methods we employ to accomplish that work.

Long-time Insider Perspective

Second is the question of my “perspective” or “motive.” Let me begin by stating that this is not an essay from the camp of the unhappy or the disenchanted. Neither is it some cloaked effort to disenfranchise university-based education of school leaders.

I am an insider and am honored to be a member of the school administration family. On the other hand, it seems to me that some serious problems at least lie at the very core of our profession, problems that are much deeper and much more foundational than those uncovered by the cottage industry of criticism that is so prevalent in school administration today.

Not surprisingly, I argue that we have made almost no progress in addressing these profound deficiencies that have been deeply woven into our professional tapestry over the last half-century. But again, my intention is not simply to dismantle preparation as we know it but to assist in the re-building work.

Level of Critique

Third is the issue of the “level of critique.” A large body of scholarship of varying quality reveals that educational programs in school administration leave much to be desired across the entire preparatory experience—from recruitment and selection on one end of the continuum to program evaluation on the other.

All of this “analysis” has been nicely laid out multiple times since the formation of the National Commission on Excellence in Educational Administration in the mid-1980s. It serves little purpose to recapitulate that work here. Rather, my critique is intended to cut deeper, to the core of the preparation work itself as it has become defined by and embedded in our universities—especially our “research-oriented” institutions of higher learning.

Bleak Professional Mosaic

The central argument of the essay is that the foundations of the educational function in departments of school administration are wrong. That is, prospective school leaders have been largely miseducated because universities, especially research universities, have built their programs with raw materials from the academic storehouse while marginalizing practice.

Better recruitment, more attention to ethics (or policy), and more effective program evaluation—and the host of related “reforms” in preparation programs, even when they meet with some success—do not address this central deficiency. These and similar reforms bring different and generally better raw materials to the building site, but they continue to privilege materials from the academic warehouse.

The point is that without reframing what education for professionals is supposed to be, the field will continue to spend massive amounts of energy and very scarce resources in pursuit of marginal gains.

The argument is that the current frames by design and by weight of accumulated sediment have failed, are failing, and will continue to fail us into the future. They cannot be salvaged in any real sense, nor should we continue to pursue this path. Let us turn to examine half dozen or so tangible patterns in a rather bleak professional mosaic.

Practitioner-Scholars: Who Are They?

One of the most amusing and damning forms of university dominance and concomitant marginalization of practice lies behind the ubiquitously espoused mantra that our goal is to prepare “scholar-practitioners.” While no one would argue against the aim of helping prospective and practicing administrators learn and sharpen habits of scholarship, it requires a considerable leap of faith to conclude that traditional academic frames of scholarship have much applicability in the world of practice. The arrogance of the metaphor—and its embedded reality—is striking. A reasonable question in a profession with two distinct yet overlapping domains is why do we not spend an equal amount of time and energy advocating for the education of “practitioner-scholars” in the professoriate?

I have been on the educational leadership team for 30 years now and have never once heard such an idea proposed—or more importantly its meaning addressed. I am sure many colleagues could help answer this query. My own sense, based on the information sources noted above, is that a palpable (but quite civilized) presumption of academic superiority is embedded in the culture of university preparation programs—one that often overwhelms and silences—or transforms—colleagues from the practice arm of the profession who join the university family.

Theory-to-Practice Bridge: A Myth?

Let us explore another form of the core problem, the famous “bridge from theory to practice.” Hold in abeyance for a moment these two facts: (a) Despite freight train loads of rhetoric and happy talk at the university over 50 years about the foundational nature of this bridge, it has never been built; and (b) even it if were to materialize, it is highly unlikely that it would carry much traffic.

Ignore for a moment, if you can, the directional flow of the concept and the venue of its origin. Rather, focus on the concepts themselves, especially theory. I am aware of no body of evidence that suggests that theoretical constructs from the behavioral sciences guide practice in school administration to any real extent.

Indeed, some published evidence indicates that this is simply not the case. If confirming evidence is required, talk with 25 practicing school leaders—not enrolled in preparation programs—and listen to their conversations with their colleagues in an assortment of formal and informal settings for a week or two.

Why then are “theory” and this lamentable construction metaphor placed at the heart of the preparation narrative? The simple, and I believe most honest, answer is that it is so because university professors are writing the story. It is what university professors know and can do; therefore, it is privileged. The fact that it has only, at best, limited relevance to the folks being educated does not seem to bother us much. To be sure, practitioners need a considerable store of intellectual equipment to lead schools effectively. But let’s not fool ourselves as we roam around the palace; more of the knowledge that they need is on their side of the profession than on ours. When examined carefully, the bridge metaphor tells us more about what is wrong with university-based preparation programs than provide us with a useful heuristic to help us educate prospective school administrators well.

It is time to put the concept to rest. Frameworks that privilege just-in-time knowledge in the service of addressing authentic problems of practice offer us a much better alternative. Think of a DNA strand in lieu of the bridge.

Field Experience: Missing in Academy?

Let us address a third manifestation of the problem of scaffolding preparation on academic frames and of privileging academic disciplines by turning the spotlight on the question of who teaches in these university-housed preparation programs. At the risk of offending some colleagues, let me remind us that it is highly unusual—and, I would add, highly questionable—to have professionals educated/trained/developed mainly by people who are not part of the profession.

To make the point clear, you do not become a dentist, or a veterinarian, or accountant—or a professional in any of the applied fields—by studying about the field, or worse yet studying about something that someone at the university thinks might be helpful to the profession. One becomes a professional in the field by engaging in the work of the profession.

Yet, the most recent data on this issue reveal that over two-thirds of us have had no P-12 administrative experience. And over 90 percent of us at research universities lack P-12 administrative experience (McCarthy & Kuh, 1997). The explanations for this phenomenon that regularly cross my path have an Ozonian and Wonderland quality of justification at their core. It is odd, to say the least, that a professional school would have so many non-professionals preparing the next generation of professionals.

Reasons for this abound to be sure. From where I sit, the major explanation is that we consistently marginalize practice in the face of higher status university-based knowledge and “better” ways of doing business as determined by increasing numbers of people who really do not know the business of schooling or leading schools.

University Norms: Stumbling Blocks?

For a fourth example, let us turn to the high culture and norms in university preparation programs. Thirty years ago, much to the displeasure of his colleagues in research universities, Ed Bridges (1977) exposed the fact that university preparation programs are almost incapable of and highly resistant to situating learning in (or based on) the culture of schools and school districts.

Rather, onto an assortment of common-sense points of entry, universities load their own norms, ways of doing business, and perspectives into the education caldron in which preparation is brewed. Examples abound, but we will confine ourselves to three that are regularly, and often mindlessly, exposed by colleagues in departments of school administration.

First, we hear regularly about the need for our master’s students (or certification students) to take a statistics course (or “methods” courses in general). This is so, I am routinely informed, because newly minted leaders need to be able to understand the methods in the journal articles they read—to tease out shoddy work from more valid and robust scholarship. One really needs to consider thesanity of colleagues who make this and related claims.

The central point here is that principals and superintendents not in preparation programs by and large (and I am being very, very generous here) do not read journal articles. And anyone with 15 minutes of spare time and a phone can affirm this reality. And rather than grapple with the real world of school leadership and examining the types of reading one finds there and the avenues by which ideas are weighed and assessed, we continue to offer up views of the world that are comfortable to university folks but of remarkably little use to practicing school administrators. We privilege our world while marginalizing theirs. The hope for the emergence of an alternative universe—they should read journal articles!—is poor justification for continuing this charade.

Academic Writing: For What Purpose?

Let us turn to another regularly advanced argument that essentially ignores the reality of practice while honoring what is important at the university; that is, the need for school administration students to write extensive papers in general and “research” papers in particular. Despite a massive amount of evidence—that anyone can replicate by following a principal around for a week, or better yet actually assuming the role—that writing is a small part of the job of a school leader. These individuals live in a world of spoken words and rapid transactions, yet we continue to push ahead with our fascination with the written medium.

Again, at-the-end-of-the-day self-serving assertions are amassed to support what is valued by universities. For example, students are routinely and smugly informed that writing sharpens thinking. End of discussion. Of course it does, but it is only academic arrogance that allows us to maintain that strategies for sharpening thinking that have so little correspondence to the world of practice should hold the high ground in preparation programs.

Let us be clear that even when school leaders write, they do not write like we ask them to in preparation programs. Stop and interview 25 school leaders not currently in a preparation program and ask them when was the last time that they wrote anything that spilled onto a third page. And then inquire about the type of writing that they do. It takes an incredible leap of faith and a fair amount of arrogance to conclude that research paper writing will bring real gains to this work.

Moving away from the master’s program and to the doctoral program for a minute takes us to the most flagrant example of privileging university culture over the realities of practice—the dissertation. It is almost impossible to imagine a response to this question that would lead to an answer with the word dissertation in it: What do senior leaders in schools and districts need to be effective, and how can they best access that knowledge, those skills, and that set of values?

I have asked the following question of the last 15 or so superintendents with whom I have met or worked: “Given a newly minted EdD leader, what would you prefer that he or she have in her or his portfolio—nine hours of dissertation work or nine hours of learning to speak Spanish?” To a person, not surprisingly given the nature of schooling, they selected the language expertise.

The point is not that all students should master a foreign language. Nor is it that one cannot learn from completing a dissertation. The point is that a huge assortment of things are more important than dissertations, and a variety of ways exist to help people learn those things that bear some resemblance to the methods that they will need on the job. We don’t emphasize them because we privilege what we at the university value and know how to do.

Technical Skills: Serious Omission?

And finally, let us pause for a moment to examine the virulent strain of “anti-recipeism” that characterizes many of our programs, especially those based in research universities. Perhaps nowhere is the privileging of university perspectives clearer than at this point of infliction.

Thinking, “critically” of course, if at all possible, must hold the high ground. Reflection and analysis are presented as more valuable than “mere scripts and recipes,” technical skills of low value in preparation programs. My own sense is that only people inflicted with some social science virus and a home far away from real schools can believe this.

A central goal of professional education is to provide, dare I use the word, “answers” to real problems, scripts and recipes that improve professional practice. In the month before writing this essay, I employed the services of four professional people—an electrician (putting in a generator), a car mechanic (car that wouldn’t start), an accountant (business-related tax issue), and a veterinarian (sick cat). In every case, the professional in question went to a book (or a computer in one case) to look up the answer to the problem in front of them. Yes, they had to think and some answers were more clearly circumscribed, but in each case the search was for successful recipes that would solve the problem. I, fortunately, had the good sense not to be publicly disdainful of those recipes.

Sages’ Storytelling: Missing Reality?

Another dimension of this “anti-recipeism” is found in the almost universal disdain for practitioner-based colleagues who instruct by “telling war stories,” our derogatory label for various types of evidence from the field. This attack was, to refresh our memories, at the heart of the effort by university professors to wrest control of preparation away from practitioners in the 1950s, to move us away from “naked empiricism,” to the higher ground provided by the power of unifying explanatory theories. While I am not suggesting that our curriculum should be comprised primarily of “war stories,” let us peek behind the curtain for a moment.

As already noted, the raiment of the theory movement are considerably less resplendent than we have been led to believe over the last 50 years. Given our earlier analysis of the credentials of our colleagues, we also see that the storehouse of potential stories in many preparation programs is empty.

Equally important, and in a more positive light as our eyes adjust to the back-screen environment, we see that “stories” are indeed a quite legitimate and important strategy for learning in many applied professions. Somewhat surprisingly, perhaps, we also see that these same stories are a major (often the major) source for decision making in applied professions—trumping theory consistently and other forms of empirical evidence on a regular basis.

More directly, we see that school principals and superintendents use stories heavily to expand their own action-oriented learning curves. Again, the point is not that “war stories” are the appropriate ground for our curriculum.

On the other hand, it takes an incredible wobbly compass to get everyone marching to the goal of better preparation through stronger theory. It also takes a heavy dose of academic arrogance—non-empirically justified arrogance, I might add—to continue to marginalize important lessons forged in the field and passed to new members of the profession by stories of success and failure. My own assessment is that this has at least as much to do with control and status as it does with improving practice.

The point on the issue of culture is this: The world of the university is actually fairly simple—much less complex and much more placid than the world occupied by school leaders. Really, ask yourself when anything even approaching a crisis unfolded in a department of school administration. This is not the world of most schools and their leaders.

Our culture is one that honors complexifying, questioning, and creating divergence. This is neither the culture of schools nor that of school leaders. Their work is complex, confusing, and often laced with turbulence. The touchstones here are parsimonious models and answers, perspectives that enjoy little credibility in departments of school administration generally.

Our Monopoly Has Been Breeched

My sense is that our ongoing privileging of the academic arm of the profession in school administration in general and preparation programs in particular—either through design or ignorance or arrogance—will not be tolerated much longer. The monopoly bastion of university-based preparation has already been breeched and new foundations are being poured—slowly in some places and more quickly in others. And it is also clear to many of us that unless we find ways to make practice the calculus of preparation, most of the thoughtful work afoot on preparation reform will produce, at best, only marginal improvements.

References

Bridges, E. M. (1977). The nature of leadership. In L. L. Cunningham, W. G. Hack, & R. O. Nystrand (Eds.), Educational administration: The developing decades (pp. 202-230). Berkeley, CA: McCutchan.

McCarthy, M. M., & Kuh, G. D. (1997). Continuity and change: The educational leadership professoriate. Columbia, MO: The University Council for Educational Administration.

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Last edited by National Council of Professors of Educational Administration on Dec 6, 2006 2:04 pm US/Central.