Susan M. Gates, Jeanne S. Ringel, Lucrecia Santibanez, Karen M. Ross, and Catherine H. Chung, RAND Education
2003
This report examines data on school administrators - principals, superintendents, and others - to better understand who they are, where they come from, how much they earn, and a host of other issues. It draws on the NCES Schools and Staffing Survey, the Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey and much additional literature. Its seven chapters are short and easy to read and include some interesting insights - such as the fact that principals now are older mainly because schools are hiring older candidates these days. Those wanting detail can find a wealth of data in its seventy-four pages of appendices. The authors conclude that, in general, there is no "crisis" in school administration. Plenty of teachers get administrators' certificates, principals' pay has kept pace with managers' pay in other industries, and many who exit the principal's office actually move into other administrative jobs in schools. Yet such averages mask the fact that some schools and districts must struggle to find high-quality leadership. Unfortunately, RAND's cure amounts to minor mid-course corrections. The sensible ones include improving the working conditions for principals and looking to private schools for best practices. Less credible is its suggestion that "schools and districts need to attract high quality potential administrators into the teaching pool." For better advice, we hope you'll turn to the Thomas B. Fordham Institute's recently released Manifesto on school leadership, at http://www.edexcellence.net/detail/news.cfm?news_id=1. RAND's report is available at http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1679/.
