Purpose: This article sheds light on some basic questions about the distribution of educational leadership preparation degree programs among different types of institutions and the distribution of advanced degrees, by type, exploring change over time and the relationship to regional labor market estimates.
Method: We used data from five major national data sets (Institutional Postsecondary Education Data System, Survey of Earned Doctorates, Schools and Staffing Survey, National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data, and Census data) to explore the production of graduate degrees in educational leadership by institutions of higher education and the distribution of graduate degrees across building level leaders in K-12 public education systems. We used two institutional classification systems— the Carnegie Classification and the U.S. News & World Report higher education classification—to group postsecondary institutions by resources and rank. The time period for our analysis is 1990 to 2003.
Findings: On the production side, we found that the number of graduate degree programs and degrees granted in educational leadership increased considerably from 1993 to 2003, with master's degree programs increasing by 16% and the number of master's degrees granted increasing by 90%. Degree production shifted by institutional type, with the role of research universities in producing master's, specialist, and doctoral degrees declining dramatically and Comprehensive colleges and universities showing over a four-fold increase in the share. Degree production fluctuates widely among states, unrelated to school population estimates, suggesting areas for further research and policy analysis.
Adams, J.E., & Copland, M. (2005). When learning counts: Rethinking licenses for school leaders. Report. Seattle, WA: Center on Reinventing Public Education.
2.
Aldersley, S.F. (1995). “Upward drift” is alive and well: Research/doctoral model still attractive to institutions. Change, 27(5), 50-56.
3.
Alexander, F.K. (2001). The silent crisis: The relative fiscal capacity of public universities to compete for faculty. The Review of Higher Education, 24(2), 113-129.
4.
Baker, B., & Cooper, B. (2005). Do principals with stronger academic backgrounds hire better teachers? Policy implications for improving high-poverty schools . Educational administration Quarterly, 41(3), 413-448.
5.
Baker, B.D., Wolf-Wendel, L.E., & Twombly, S. (2007). Exploring the faculty pipeline in educational administration: Evidence from the Survey of Earned Doctorates. Educational Administration Quarterly43(2), 189-220.
6.
Baker, B., & Young, M.D. (2007). Degree production and program expansion in educational leadership: A trend analysis. Austin, TX: UCEA.
7.
Brewer, D.J. (1993). Principals and student outcomes: Evidence from U.S. high schools. Economics of Education Review, 12(4), 281-292.
8.
Clotfelter, C. (1996). Buying the best: Cost escalation in elite higher education. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
9.
Conrad, C., & Blackburn, R. (1986). Current views of departmental quality: An empirical examination. The Review of Higher Education, 9(3), 249-265.
10.
Educational Research Service. (1998). Is there a shortage of qualified candidates for openings in the principalship?Arlington, VA: Author. Retrieved on September 15, 1999, from http://www.naesp.org/misc/shortage.htm
11.
Educational Research Service. (2000). The principal, keystone of a high-achieving school: Attracting and keeping the leaders we need. Arlington, VA: Author.
12.
Farkas, S., Johnson, J., & Duffett, A. (2003). Rolling up their sleeves: Superintendents and principals talk about what's needed to fix schools. New York: Public Agenda.
13.
Figlio, D.N. (2002). Can public schools buy better-qualified teachers?Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 55(4), 686-699.
14.
Gates, S.M., Ringel, J.S., & Santibanez, L. (2003). Who is leading our schools? An overview of school administrators and their careers. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
15.
Glassick, C., Huber, M.T., & Maeroff, G. (1997). Scholarship assessed: Evaluation of the professoriate . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
16.
Grogan, M., & Priese, S. (2006). Domain 7: Program design and delivery. In M. D. Young (Ed.), Research on leadership preparation: Interim report of the joint research taskforce on educational leadership preparation (pp. 22-24). Columbia, MO : University Council for Educational Administration .
17.
Grogan, M., &. Robertson, S. (2002). Developing a new generation of educational leaders by capitalizing on partnerships. International Journal of Educational Management, 16(7), 314-318.
18.
Hale, E., & Moorman, H. (2003). Preparing school leaders. Washington, DC: Institute for Educational Leadership .
19.
Haworth, J., & Conrad, C. (1997). Emblems of quality in higher education: Developing and sustaining high-quality programs. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
20.
Hess, F.M., & Kelly, A.M. (2005a). An innovative look at a recalcitrant reality. The politics of principal preparation reforms. Education policy , 19(1), 155-180.
21.
Hess, F.M., & Kelly, A.M. (2005b, May 18). Learning to Lead?Education Week, 24, 37.
22.
Huisman, J. (1995). Differentiation, diversity, and dependency in higher education: A theoretical and empirical analysis. CHEPS , Utrecht, The Netherlands: Lemma .
23.
Huisman, J., & Morphew, C. (1998). Centralization and diversity: Evaluating the effects of government policies in U.S. and Dutch higher education. Higher Education Policy, 11(1), 3-13.
24.
Lankford, H., Loeb, S., & Wyckoff, J. (2002). Teacher sorting and the plight of urban schools . Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 24(1), 37-62.
25.
Lankford, H., & Wyckoff, J. (2003). The supply of school leaders: A multivariate analysis of administrative certification and transitions to leadership positions. Albany, NY: University of Albany.
26.
Leithwood, K., Louis, K.S., Anderson, S., & Wahlstrom, K. (2004). How leadership influences student learning. Toronto, Ontario: Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement & Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
27.
Levine, A. (2005). Educating school leaders. New York: The Education Schools Project.
28.
McCarthy, M. (1999). The evolution of educational leadership preparation programs. In J. Murphy & K. S. Louis (Eds.), Handbook of research on educational administration: A project of the American Educational Research Association (pp. 119-139). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
29.
Mercer, J. (1998, October 9). As elite universities increase spending, many others struggle to keep pace. Chronicle of Higher Education , A31.
30.
Morphew, C.C. (2002). A rose by any other name: Which colleges became universities. The Review of Higher Education, 25(2), 207-224.
31.
Morphew, C., & Huisman, J. (2002). Using institutional theory to reframe research on academic drift. Higher Education in Europe, 27(4), 492-506.
32.
National Center for Educational Statistics. ( 2003a). Digest of education statistics. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved June 1, 2006, from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d03/tables/dt079.asp
33.
National Center for Educational Statistics. ( 2003b). IPEDS Degree Completions 1993-2003. Washing, DC: Author. Retrieved June 1, 2006, from http://www.nces.ed.gov/ipeds/
34.
National Opinion Research Center/National Science Foundation. (1990-2000). Survey of earned doctorates, 1990-2000. Chicago: University of Chicago.
35.
Neave, G. (1979). Academic drift: Some views from Europe. Studies in Higher Education, 4(2), 143-159.
36.
Olson, L. (1999, March 3). Demands for principals growing, but candidates aren't applying. Education Week, 18(25), pp. 1, 20.
37.
Olson, L. (2000, January 12). Principals wanted: Apply just about anywhere. Education Week, 19(17), 16.
38.
Pascarella, E.T., & Terenzini, P.T. (2005). How college affects students: A third decade of research (vol. 2). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
39.
Pounder, D.G., Galvin, P., & Shepard, P. (2003). An analysis of the United States Educational Administrator Shortage. Australian Journal of Education, 47(2), 133-145.
40.
Ringel, J., Gates, S., Chung, C., Brown, A., & Ghosh-Dastidar, B. (2004, May). Career paths of school administrators in Illinois. TR-123-WF. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
41.
Roza, M. (2003). A matter of definition: Is there really a shortage of school principals?Seattle, WA: Center on Reinventing Public Education.
42.
Sandlin, R., & Feigen, S. (1995, fall). Collaboration between the university and school district: Can it work?Teacher Education Quarterly22(4), 75-82.
43.
Schofer, E., & Meyer, J.W. (2005, December). The worldwide expansion of higher education in the Twentieth Century. American Sociological Review, 70, 898-920.
44.
Southern Regional Education Board. (2001). Preparing a new breed of school principals: It's time for action. Atlanta, GA: Author.
45.
Spillane, J.P. (2004). Standards deviation: How schools misunderstand education policy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
46.
Spillane, J.P., & Zoltners-Sherer, J. (2004, April). A distributed perspective on school leadership: Leadership practice as stretched over people and place. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA.
47.
Task Force on School District Leadership. ( 2001, February). Leadership for student learning: Restructuring school district leadership. Washington, DC: Institute for Educational Leadership.
48.
Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. (2003). Better leaders for America's schools: A manifesto. Washington, DC: Author.
49.
Toutkoushian, R., & Smart, J. (2001). Do institutional characteristics affect student gains from college?The Review of Higher Education, 25(1), 39-61.
50.
Tucker, M., & Codding, J. (Eds.). (2002). The principal challenge; Leading and managing schools in an era of accountability. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
51.
U. S. Department of Education. (2005). FY 2005 school leadership application for grants. Washington, DC: U. S. Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement.
52.
Young, M.D. (2003) The leadership crisis: Gender and the shortage of school administrators. In M. D. Young, & L. Skrla, (Eds.), Reconsidering feminist research in educational leadership (pp. 265-298). New York: SUNY Press.
53.
Young, M.D., Petersen, G.J., & Short, P.M. (2002). The complexity of substantive reform: A call for interdependence among key stakeholders. Educational Administration Quarterly, 38(2), 137-175.
