Preparing for Educational Leadership

Educational leaders are frequently thrust into positions that require a skill set that prospective leaders have not honed, frequently coming directly from the teaching ranks. Leadership programs try their best to prepare those candidates for success. However, no program can prepare a candidate for the intensity of instant decision making required to be a highly effective school building or district leader. We are sharing our sixty years of expertise and varied experiences in the case studies, performance tasks, simulations, teacher observation scenarios and “in-basket” short answer exercises provided in this book. We hope to help you, the prospective educational leader, understand the complexity of leadership and the daily decision-making required for success. The Educational Testing Service and Pearson Education are the two major testing and evaluation companies that provide assessments for prospective administrators. Both tests require candidates to make quick decisions based upon a skill set of state and/or national standards for educational leaders. We employed sample questions found on the test preparation websites of both companies as models in creating testing scenarios. We believe this preparation material will be helpful for you, the candidate, to be successful during the assessment process.