Staying Ahead in Education Professional development programs allow administrators to stay on top of their game. By Carl Vogel November 2009

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Wilbur Parker, director of diversity initiatives at the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, speaks in class. (David DeBalko)

When Charles Soriano enrolled in classes a few years ago in the Mid-Career Doctorate in Educational Leadership program at the University of Pennsylvania, he was already an accomplished school administrator. Assistant superintendent of schools in the East Hampton (N.Y.) Union Free School District, Soriano had two master’s degrees—in English literature and educational leadership—and had served on state panels and advisory committees. He wasn’t satisfied and chose to pursue professional development. “I really believe school leadership is a craft,” he says. “I wanted that challenge to strive to get to the next level of my career. I do want to be a superintendent at some point, and while I don’t think it’s necessary to have a doctorate, I think the degree and the level of learning required is helpful in enhancing your chance of success.”

Administrators trying to keep up with developments in 21st-century education are finding that leadership at the school and even district level is changing. The three-year doctoral program at Penn’s Graduate School of Education offers working professionals the tools to strengthen educational outcomes at K12 districts, with a rigorous workload and a curriculum based on instructional, organizational, public, and evidence-based leadership. Harvard’s Graduate School of Education is also launching a doctor of education leadership program next summer.

“We find there are a lot of people hungry for the experience,” says Mike Johanek, director of the program at Penn. “We have people with responsibilities for running a building or a district, people who run the technology for a district, a state commissioner of education. You can’t ask people at this level to stop their career for three to five years to do a program like this; that’s not going to happen.”

Daniel Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, says it’s probably more important today than ever for top-level administrators to get more professional development, be on top of energy conservation and human resources issues, be a manager and be trained in the very latest pedagogical approaches to teaching. “So much attention is being paid to accountability and closing the achievement gap,” he says. “They are essentially CEOs in the school system.”

Office of University Communications, University of Pennsylvania.

But professional development does not have to be a doctoral program at an Ivy League school. Administrators can attend programs that cover everything from integrating technology into a curriculum to improving English-as-a-second-language courses. Professional development has become so valuable that even Boston Public Schools has created its own in-house professional development institutions to develop management skills among staff. And the Association of School Business Officers International will launch a new certification program for school business officials next fall. It is designed in part to strengthen careers and show stakeholders that such officials have the know-how to support them.

“The need for continuing education is as great or greater than ever before,” says Tim Sloate, director of research at the University Continuing Education Association. “As baby boomers retire, employers will have a harder time finding administrators who are as ready. Professional development can help.”

The University of Washington’s professional development programs in leadership offer the skills to maneuver around the complicated job of administrator, which in the 1960s was viewed as the domain of persons who simply kept an eye on the budget and kept programs humming along, according to Mike Copland, an associate professor and the chair of education leadership and policy studies at the University of Washington.

“Now we understand that leading instruction is a much more complex endeavor,” Copland says. “What does quality instruction look like, how do you lead to improve quality instruction, how can you grow teachers’ skills?”

Professional development programs cover technology in the classroom, No Child Left Behind requirements, data-driven decisions, and differentiated learning. Such K12 trends challenge administrators daily, and ongoing professional development provides district leaders with the state-of-the-art thinking on how a district can best approach such issues. At Eastern Kentucky University, for example, K12 administrators can attend an annual diversity conference that is a professional workshop on successful team building strategies.

K12 administrators sit with professors at Seton Hall University, which offers options for administrators who are interested in professional development and master’s degrees.

Seton Hall University offers options in professional development, including an executive doctoral program much like the one at Penn, and master’s degrees in issues such as school psychology and bilingual/bicultural education. The university also operates the New Jersey Superintendent Study Council, a group with more than 130 members who meet monthly to explore topics such as how to conduct a threat assessment and how to develop and implement a districtwide strategic plan. “Leading a school district today is like working in a level 5 hurricane. From high stakes testing to the different family structures that children grow up in today—it’s different than in the past,” says Charles P. Mitchel, Seton Hall’s College of Education and Human Services associate dean.

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