30 INVITED CHAPTERS
cipals will succeed simply by giving more attention to technical aspects of instruction. For
example, many families are concerned that today’s easy access to information on the Internet
limits parental influence on their children’s cultural and religious beliefs. Not surprisingly,
they want schools that support, or at least do not counteract, the family’s enculturation efforts.
Other families see world-wide competition for jobs as a threat to their children’s standard of
living, and they pressure schools to create special programs and credentials that give some
students future competitive advantages. Still other families, particularly those with limited
resources, depend on the schools for basic education and child care and expect that these
services will be provided with sensitivity to cultural, linguistic, and economic differences.
National dialog about school quality mirrors and encourages these local conflicts. Various
policymakers, think tanks, and professional organizations promote quite different visions of
school quality and frequently encourage their local allies to avoid any compromise. The
school office is contentious as well as crowded.
Intensified conflicts come just as public policies have given families more ways to express
dissatisfaction with their schools. Those who disagree with current practices can exit through
charters and vouchers, influence volatile tax and bond elections, participate in powerful
school governance groups, and appeal to elected officials outside the school system to
intervene. If too many dissatisfied families opt out, resources quickly become insufficient for
high-quality schools. If they stay involved and advocate for change, there is a real possibility
that even the most promising leadership interventions will be brief, lasting only until a new
issue or group gains the spotlight.
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE EDUCATIONAL-LEADERSHIP PROFESSION
Heightened participation and intensifying conflict complicate principals’ jobs, but the
task of responding is not theirs alone. The entire profession shares both the risk of failure and
the responsibility for success. Successful professional work depends on an institutional
infrastructure of university preparation, state licensing, and norms that are supported by
professional organizations, and these, in turn, depend on an implicit agreement between the
profession and the public. “Worked out gradually in statute and custom,” (Sullivan, 2005, p.
3) this agreement essentially promises that the profession will apply expertise and
commitment to public values in finding solutions to human problems that would be addressed
less reliably through a free market. In exchange, the profession is given some protection from
competition through licensing and some independence in practice. As both educators and
economists have noted, granting professional status to any field limits others’ freedom and
adds costs to the service in question. For example, requirements for state licensing limit both
who can apply for principal positions and the choice of candidates available to employers. In
a democracy that values both individual liberty and efficiency in public services, such limits
must be justified and accepted by policymakers (Bull, 1990; Cox & Foster, 1990).
The university’s role in this professional equation is critical, if not usually the visible
headlines of public debate. Like professionals themselves, university preparation programs
enjoy a measure of protection from competitors and, in exchange, are responsible for
developing knowledge for practice, educating new practitioners, and stewarding the implied
contract between the profession and public that underlies professional practice. These
responsibilities are daunting today, because the participation and conflict affecting principals
also work in opposition to traditional views about how universities support a trajectory toward
full professional status (Starr, 1982). These trends reduce the autonomy that education
professionals have with respect to both employers (policymakers) and clients (families and