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140 PREPARATION OF SCHOOL LEADERS

principal preparation programs should teach the 17 skills/competencies listed on the survey.

The survey was distributed to and completed by Illinois superintendents who attended the

September 6, 2007, ISBE Superintendents’ Conference in Springfield, Illinois.

Principals who attended the Illinois Principals’ Fall Conference in Peoria, Illinois, on Oc-

tober 14, 15, and 16, 2007 were administered a survey similar to the one given to the superin-

tendents. The principal survey focused on two goals: 1) to rate the degree of the quality of the

17 skills/competencies listed that they received from their principal preparation program and

2) to rate the importance of principal preparation programs to teach the listed

skills/competencies.

To triangulate the data gathered from superintendents and principals, the Committee re-

quested both the Illinois Education Association (IEA) and the Illinois Federation of Teachers

(IFT) to survey their memberships. Two goals for the survey were: 1) to indicate the degree to

which principals manifested these skills/competencies in daily leadership practice and 2) to

gather classroom teacher perceptions of the importance of list of skills/competencies needed

to be a successful principal. Both the IEA and the IFT responded to this request by electroni-

cally administering the survey to their respective members.

Only fully completed surveys were used; resulting in 157 superintendent, 103 principal,

and 803 teacher surveys being included in the data analysis. The Statistical Package for the

Social Sciences was used to run statistical analysis of the data resulting in numerical means,

frequency distributions, and standard deviation results.

FINDINGS

Survey responses from superintendents, principals, and teachers were analyzed statisti-

cally. Table 2 represents survey respondents’ answers to the questions: (for superintendents)

“indicate the degree of the quality of the skills of your most recently hired principal”; (for

principals) “indicate the degree of the quality of the skills you received from your preparation

program”; and (for teachers) “indicate the degree of the quality of the skills of your princi-

pal”. Respondents indicated their choice from the following scale: 1 = unprepared, 2 = little

preparation, 3 = adequately prepared, 4 = very well prepared, 5 = outstanding preparation.

Table 2. Degree of Attainment of Principal Preparation Skills/Competencies

(Superintendent = S Att, Principal = P Att, and Teacher = T Att).

Vision Culture Operations Discipline Distributed Leadershi

p^

Adaptive Leadershi

p^

Situational Awareness Professional Develo

pment

Monitor School Effect Visibility Celebrate Change Agent Advocate Allocate Re-sources Curriculum Communicate Personal

S
Att

3.56 3.69 3.93 3.80 3.52 3.46 3.47 3.43 3.46 4.02 3.84 3.40 3.70 3.46 3.56 3.61 3.67

P
Att

3.37 3.48 3.25 3.05 3.34 3.23 3.16 3.27 3.12 3.71 3.36 3.36 3.61 3.19 3.39 3.30 3.06

T
Att

3.32 3.10 3.18 2.87 2.99 2.82 2.93 3.43 3.18 3.09 3.29 3.03 3.23 3.22 3.15 3.16 3.09

Superintendents, principals and teachers were surveyed as to their perceptions of the im-

portance of preparation programs to teach the 17 skills/competencies. Respondents estimated