CAPEA president's message.

This year marks the 17th publication of the California Association of Professors of Educational Administration's annual journal, Educational Leadership and Administration: Teaching and Program Development, whose theme this year is Preparing Leaders to Create Equitable Schools. In addition to this theme, some of our articles address the five focus areas that serve to inform CAPEA's future directions. These areas are Teaching and Program Development, Diversity and Social Justice, Technology, Research, and Advocacy. The ten articles that highlight this year's theme and CAPEA's focus areas present a broad range of perspectives addressing current challenges we face in educational leadership, asking us to consider new ways of framing the conversations that might lead to new directions for leaders and the organizations they guide.

In the invited paper, Preparing Principals To Lead the Equity Agenda, Manny Barbara and Marty Krovetz continue a discussion begun at the Fall 2005 CAPEA Conference addressing this year's theme. Embedded in schools or districts are matters of race and language that can either promote or hinder both equity and closure of the achievement gap. The authors suggest ways in which all within a school community might engage in efforts to address these systemic issues.

Camille A. Smith continues the discussion of equity by examining the underachievement of children of color in School Factors that Contribute to the Underachievement of Students of Color and What Culturally Competent School Leaders Can Do. She presents practices that culturally proficient school leaders can use to have an impact on academic achievement.

The failure to sustain reform efforts in pubic school systems is the focus of Sustainability Crisis: Time for Resolution by Ray Garcia. This case study identifies the skill sets needed to ensure the continuation of reforms in urban settings by drawing on perceptual data gathered from principals in 36 schools in one urban district. By suggesting how leadership preparation programs can develop such skill sets, the author frames a new picture of the concept of sustainability.

A five-year case study of the impact of early childhood education on children of poverty is the focus of Robert Slaby, Sharon Loucks, and Pat Stelwagen's article, Why Is Preschool Essential in Closing the Achievement Gap? The study results affirm other research that children of poverty who attend preschool outperform those who do not and suggests specific hallmarks of successful programs for three- and four-year olds.

Inquiry as a Strategy for Leading School Improvement by Barbara A. Storms and Andrew Gordon sets the tone for the next series of articles whose focus is leadership preparation programs. With the underlying goal of integrating the theory of school change with its practical applications, the authors describe how one university has placed an increasing emphasis on collaborative inquiry and one school leader's experiences using this approach since completion of the program. This article suggests that preparation programs can provide school leaders with an ongoing method--a habit of mind--that predisposes them to use inquiry as a way of addressing school issues. The article also suggests that case studies, such as this one, may be a promising method for tracking the impact of preparation programs.

While more schools and colleges of education are using administrator competencies to frame their leadership programs, no instrument has existed to examine the dispositions of effective school leaders. In their article, The Validation of the Administrator Dispositions Index, Laura E. Schulte and Penny Kowal describe and provide validation data for the instrument, Administrator Dispositions Index, that is based on the Standards for Advanced Programs in Educational Leadership from the National Policy Board for Educational Administration. The instrument may provide data to educational leadership program professors and administrators on their candidates' administrator dispositions which in turn can serve to inform the program curricula.

Ron Oliver further suggests in Assistant Principal Professional Growth and Development: A Matter that Cannot be Left to Chance that the standards for educational leadership may also be used to guide the design of clearly-defined and consistent professional development growth activities for assistant principals. This study examines the professional development needs and perspectives that may aid schools and colleges of education in planning and providing programs to meet both individual as well as the larger educational program goals.

As educational leadership preparation programs integrate to a greater degree the use of technology to support their efforts, research into best practices continues to be essential. An Exploration of Online Peer Interaction among Preparing School Leaders by Cynthia C. Choi, Tricia Browne-Ferrigno, and Rodney Muth compares the online interactions among members of two learning communities from the same professional preparation program for school principals and administrators. Both the distance-learning cohort and the onsite university-district partnership engaged in online activities to support face-to-face instructional delivery and while the content and instructor remained consistent in both cohorts, the differing modes of instructional delivery offered the opportunity for a comparative examination of the cohort interactions.

Looking at the bigger picture of educational leadership programs, Darla J. Twale and A. William Place suggest Reconceptualizing the School of Education: Bridging the Cultures. Challenging the academy to walk the talk, they offer a conceptual model of a school of education that is congruent with the organizational model it may suggest to its students for confronting the challenges of schools today. It presents a collegiate ideology, academic culture, mission statement, managerial climate, and organizational structure that can help our schools and colleges of education envision its programs in a more holistic manner.

Finally, CAPEA Associate Editor Elizabeth C. Reilly presents, in Toward Equitable Schools: Reflections and Challenges, a distillation of the broader issues and themes of this year's contributing authors. In her commentary, she invites your reflections about the complexity of preparing leaders for equitable schools as she identifies questions for future inquiry.

These ten articles challenge the status quo. CAPEA's mission is to keep vital the discourse necessary to provide optimum programs for educational leaders of the future. The authors' insights and perspectives offer ways not only for us to improve our programs, but challenge us to broaden the voices of inclusion to the larger educational community and beyond. I invite you to bring along a colleague and join the conversation.

Robert W. Kibby

President, 2004-2005,

California Association of Professors of Educational Administration

National University