Preparation of School Administrators

THE topic treated in this chapter has not been the subject of sufficient research to warrant inclusion in earlier issues of the REVIEW. However, there has been a crescendo of interest during recent years in problems relating to the preparation of school administrators. Two occurrences probably account for this increase in interest. One is the formation and program of the National Conference of Professors of Educational Administration, which began its annual week-long workshops in 1947. The publications of this organization, both theoretical and factual, are now extensive (19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24). The other force contributing to interest in the subject has been the launching in 1950 of the Cooperative Program in Educational Administration, a project to improve the professional preparation of school administrators, financed by generous grants from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation to several universities in the nation (33). Some significant research and other publications have already been stimulated by the Kellogg grants, but the large outpouring of reports which the grants are expected to encourage will not occur until the research centers have had more time to develop their materials. At least one of the university centers has anticipated the interest in forthcoming publications by a booklet describing the research which is in progress (35). At this stage it is impossible to present much more than a progress report on work relating to the preparation of school administrators, for intensive labor is only beginning in this field. Nevertheless, this is an appropriate time to pick up the threads of work on the subject and to sketch major lines of endeavor.