Innovations in School Leadership: An Analysis of Alternative Models of the Principalship

The NYC Leadership Academy is an independent, nonprofit organization that recruits, prepares, and supports visionary school leaders for the complex work of transforming high need schools into rigorous learning environments. The role of school leaders has changed significantly over the last 50 years and is likely to continue to change in the future, and the NYC Leadership Academy requested that the Capstone team research alternative models of school leadership and identify the benefits and barriers associated with them. Through literature reviews and interviews with policymakers, principals, teachers, advocacy groups, and research organizations, the Capstone team gathered information about the different forms principalship can possibly take. The information was compiled and analyzed to produce a report of findings and recommendations which would assist the NYC Leadership Academy in anticipating the ways principalship, and by extension principal training, may change in the future.