| Summary: | Research of the last decade has pointed to strong leadership by the principal as one of the most important determinant of a school's effectiveness and level of student achievement. Today's principals, especially those at the helm of urban schools, face myriad challenges as they attempt to lead their school down the path to academic excellence. The increasingly important educational role of the principal, combined with the escalating problems plaguing inner-city schools, make it crucial that urban principals receive top-notch graduate preparation. Recent research on principal preparation programs nationwide indicates similarity in instructional content but wide variations in quality. Few graduate programs integrate theory with practical experiences and fewer still provide the special skills needed to work in urban schools. Do today's urban principals feel their graduate programs prepared them to meet the challenges of running an urban school? This quantitative study used the instrument, Principal's Perception of the Principalship, to examine the perceptions of 72 school principals in an urban school district in the south. Subsidiary questions focused on the relationship between principal's age, gender and work experience and their perceptions of preparation programs. Thirty-nine percent of principals felt their programs were not effective in preparing them to function in an urban school; twenty-six percent felt their programs were very effective and thirty-five percent said their programs were effective. No significant differences were found to exist between the groups in terms of gender, age, or years of experience as a teacher. Those respondents who had more years of experience as a principal were less critical of their administrative preparation program. Data revealed that those administrative training programs with an internship component were perceived as more effective than those without; university educators should keep this information in mind when planning and assessing their principal preparation programs. An alarming finding is that fifty-five percent of respondents saw dealing with student academic decline and student behavior as the areas in which their administrative program failed them the most. This is especially alarming in light of the renewed focus on the principal as school instructional leader.
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