NPBEA to Help Revise Model Standards for School Leaders
The model standards of the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC), developed in 1996 by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and last revised in 2008, generated controversy in the field during their most recent revision effort last fall and this spring. The National Policy Board for Education Administration (NPBEA), which convenes an array of stakeholder groups, is partnering with CCSSO to consider the feedback received from the field and make final adjustments to the new standards, now planned for release this fall.
NPBEA was among the groups that approved the original standards nearly 20 years ago and has been involved to some degree in subsequent revisions. Its constituent organizations* all have close connections to the work addressed in the standards, but some of these constituents felt their voices were not heard in the recent standards update.
“Enlisting this board to help complete the revision will foster greater ownership and transparency around the process—and result in a more useful end product,” said Rodrick Lucero, AACTE’s vice president for member engagement and support, who serves as the Association’s representative to NPBEA. “I’m proud to bring our field’s perspectives to the development of the next iteration of the ISLLC standards. As a board, we are excited to take on the important work of looking at school leader preparation and at what school leaders should know and be able to do, in light of the significant feedback received from the field.”
In particular, numerous comments have addressed the question of whether to list expectations around ethics and social justice in discrete standards, as last year’s version did, or to weave these expectations throughout every standard, as the May draft did. All input from the field is being considered seriously through a careful process of coding every feedback form and identifying trends to incorporate into the standards.
“It’s daunting to engage broadly with the field in the development of standards and to ensure the standards are vetted thoroughly,” Lucero said. “However, if these standards are to be a credible guide for high-quality preparation and practice, this engagement is essential.”
Download the current (2008) ISLLC standards here.
Download the latest revised draft (May 2015) here.
* NPBEA membership includes AACTE and CCSSO as well as AASA: The School Superintendents Association, the Association of School Business Officials International, the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration, and the University Council for Educational Administration.
Tags: AACTE partner organizations, equity, ethics, principal preparation, program improvement
