Contextualized Principal Preparation for the Improvement of American Indian Education 245Part of the strategy for improving education for American Indian students must include
stopping the high turnover rates of school and district leaders at schools with high percentages
of Native American children (Gates, Ringel & Santebanez, 2006). Identifying and recruiting
American Indian teachers from schools serving Indian students, and offering those teachers a
contextualized principal preparation program that results in administrative certification
delivered on or near their reservation may be a method toward reducing the high turnover
rates allowing school improvement efforts to take hold.
INDIAN LEADERSHIP EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT (I LEAD)
The I LEAD program was a U.S. Department of Education funded project designed to
educate, certify, place and support 70 Native Americans toward becoming principals
throughout Montana and South Dakota. Candidates were Native American teachers recruited
from schools that serve a large proportion of Native American students (>40%) and were
selected based on the recommendations of their principal or superintendent and an
autobiographical essay. The project would provide an authentic context for leadership
instruction and problem-based learning while simultaneously increasing the capacity for the
improvement of schools serving high percentages of Native American children. Stewart and
Brendefur (2005) found that small groups of educators working collaboratively and focused
on improving day-to-day instruction were successful in bringing about a positive change.
Engaging I LEAD students in identifying and overcoming barriers to increased student
achievement could serve to improve the schools where these graduate students work.
Several authors have found that education leadership programs that incorporated PBL
combined with meaningful field experiences produced competent principals (Jackson &
Kelly, 2002; Murphy, 2001). Yet, very few studies that compared the efficacy of such
program innovations in the specific context of schools serving high percentages of Native
American children. It is one thing to create a plan for improved principal preparation through
grant proposals and syllabi. However, the strength of such efforts lay in plan implementation,
and not in the plans. To help focus the study, a single research question was developed: How
are I LEAD candidates (American Indian graduate students) in a contextualized principal
preparation program assuming leadership roles for the improvement of their schools?
APPLICATION OF BEST PRACTICES IN PRINCIPAL PREPARATION
The gap between theory and practice, education and experience, knowledge and
understanding, and other such dichotomies continue to form a foundation of criticism to the
formal preparation of principals (Levine, 2005; McCarthy, 1999). For intelligent practice to
flourish, the dichotomies must be collapsed (Dewey, 1938). Despite cries for reform in
principal preparation and program descriptions touted to promote principal competence,
traditional universities continue to separate classroom coursework and field experience
(Murphy, 1992; Murphy & Forsyth, 1999). Such a separation in activities during formal
education perpetuates habits that separate the understanding of how schools should work from
the actions that improve schools. If the vision articulated by the No Child Left Behind Act is
to be realized, then school leaders must go beyond understanding the principles of
professional practice to applying those principles in specific contexts promoting school
improvement. If preparation programs are to facilitate the growth of such leaders, then the
connections between university classrooms and school district programs can no longer be
assumed but must be demonstrated in ways that engage aspiring leaders.