What is the state of university-based principal preparation programs? How are these essential training grounds of future school leaders viewed -- by themselves as well as by the school districts that hire their graduates? Do the programs need to improve? If so, by what means?

This publication seeks to help answer those questions by bringing together findings from four reports commissioned by The Wallace Foundation to inform its development of a potential new initiative regarding university-based principal training. In addition to confirming close-to-unanimous agreement among university educators and school superintendents about the important role principals play in advancing student achievement, it finds five themes:

• District leaders are largely dissatisfied with the quality of principal preparation programs, and many universities believe that their programs have room for improvement.
• Strong university-district partnerships are essential to high-quality preparation but are far from universal.
• The course of study at preparation programs does not always reflect principals' real jobs.
• Some university policies and practices can hinder change.
• States have authority to play a role in improving principal preparation, but many are not using this power as effectively as possible.

The publication offers insight into the obstacles that stand in the way of improvement and suggests the need for action in: redesigning principal preparation by building on what we know from research and high-quality programs; establishing stronger connections between universities and districts; and ensuring that state policymakers create structures that encourage the proliferation of high-quality programs.

The good news, according to the report, is that many university programs seem to be open to change -- and they benefit from having a number of strong programs to look to as models.

What is the state of university-based principal preparation programs? How are these essential training grounds of future school leaders viewed -- by themselves as well as by the school districts that hire their graduates? Do the programs need to improve? If so, by what means?

This publication seeks to help answer those questions by bringing together findings from four reports commissioned by The Wallace Foundation to inform its development of a potential new initiative regarding university-based principal training. In addition to confirming close-to-unanimous agreement among university educators and school superintendents about the important role principals play in advancing student achievement, it finds five themes:

• District leaders are largely dissatisfied with the quality of principal preparation programs, and many universities believe that their programs have room for improvement.
• Strong university-district partnerships are essential to high-quality preparation but are far from universal.
• The course of study at preparation programs does not always reflect principals' real jobs.
• Some university policies and practices can hinder change.
• States have authority to play a role in improving principal preparation, but many are not using this power as effectively as possible.

The publication offers insight into the obstacles that stand in the way of improvement and suggests the need for action in: redesigning principal preparation by building on what we know from research and high-quality programs; establishing stronger connections between universities and districts; and ensuring that state policymakers create structures that encourage the proliferation of high-quality programs.

The good news, according to the report, is that many university programs seem to be open to change -- and they benefit from having a number of strong programs to look to as models.

What is the state of university-based principal preparation programs? How are these essential training grounds of future school leaders viewed -- by themselves as well as by the school districts that hire their graduates? Do the programs need to improve? If so, by what means?

This publication seeks to help answer those questions by bringing together findings from four reports commissioned by The Wallace Foundation to inform its development of a potential new initiative regarding university-based principal training. In addition to confirming close-to-unanimous agreement among university educators and school superintendents about the important role principals play in advancing student achievement, it finds five themes:

• District leaders are largely dissatisfied with the quality of principal preparation programs, and many universities believe that their programs have room for improvement.
• Strong university-district partnerships are essential to high-quality preparation but are far from universal.
• The course of study at preparation programs does not always reflect principals' real jobs.
• Some university policies and practices can hinder change.
• States have authority to play a role in improving principal preparation, but many are not using this power as effectively as possible.

The publication offers insight into the obstacles that stand in the way of improvement and suggests the need for action in: redesigning principal preparation by building on what we know from research and high-quality programs; establishing stronger connections between universities and districts; and ensuring that state policymakers create structures that encourage the proliferation of high-quality programs.

The good news, according to the report, is that many university programs seem to be open to change -- and they benefit from having a number of strong programs to look to as models.

Intended for state officials involved in the assessment and approval of university and other programs to train future school principals, this report describes five design principles for effective program evaluation. "While states will undoubtedly want and need to develop systems unique to their context, they could benefit from having guideposts to organize what can be complex work," says the report, which was written jointly by representatives from New Leaders, which helps train school leaders and designs leadership policies and practices for school systems, and the University Council for Educational Administration, a consortium of universities that seeks to promote high-quality education leadership preparation and research. The principles, which emerged from a New Leaders/University Council project to develop a model evaluation system and accompanying of tools, are:

• Structure the review process in a way that is conducive to continuous program improvement.
• Create appropriate systems to hold programs accountable for effective practices and outcomes.
• Provide key stakeholders with accurate and useful information.
• Take a sophisticated and nuanced approach to data collection and use.
• Adhere to characteristics of high-quality program evaluation.

The report also describes how two states, Illinois and Delaware, have approached evaluation, and provides a tool from its model-development work, an assessment that states can use to determine their degree of "readiness" for building a stronger system to evaluate principal preparation programs.

Intended for state officials involved in the assessment and approval of university and other programs to train future school principals, this report describes five design principles for effective program evaluation. "While states will undoubtedly want and need to develop systems unique to their context, they could benefit from having guideposts to organize what can be complex work," says the report, which was written jointly by representatives from New Leaders, which helps train school leaders and designs leadership policies and practices for school systems, and the University Council for Educational Administration, a consortium of universities that seeks to promote high-quality education leadership preparation and research. The principles, which emerged from a New Leaders/University Council project to develop a model evaluation system and accompanying of tools, are:

• Structure the review process in a way that is conducive to continuous program improvement.
• Create appropriate systems to hold programs accountable for effective practices and outcomes.
• Provide key stakeholders with accurate and useful information.
• Take a sophisticated and nuanced approach to data collection and use.
• Adhere to characteristics of high-quality program evaluation.

The report also describes how two states, Illinois and Delaware, have approached evaluation, and provides a tool from its model-development work, an assessment that states can use to determine their degree of "readiness" for building a stronger system to evaluate principal preparation programs.

Intended for state officials involved in the assessment and approval of university and other programs to train future school principals, this report describes five design principles for effective program evaluation. "While states will undoubtedly want and need to develop systems unique to their context, they could benefit from having guideposts to organize what can be complex work," says the report, which was written jointly by representatives from New Leaders, which helps train school leaders and designs leadership policies and practices for school systems, and the University Council for Educational Administration, a consortium of universities that seeks to promote high-quality education leadership preparation and research. The principles, which emerged from a New Leaders/University Council project to develop a model evaluation system and accompanying of tools, are:

• Structure the review process in a way that is conducive to continuous program improvement.
• Create appropriate systems to hold programs accountable for effective practices and outcomes.
• Provide key stakeholders with accurate and useful information.
• Take a sophisticated and nuanced approach to data collection and use.
• Adhere to characteristics of high-quality program evaluation.

The report also describes how two states, Illinois and Delaware, have approached evaluation, and provides a tool from its model-development work, an assessment that states can use to determine their degree of "readiness" for building a stronger system to evaluate principal preparation programs.

Increasing the effectiveness of two- to four-year college transfer is critical for meeting national goals for college attainment and promoting upward social mobility. Efforts to improve institutional effectiveness in serving transfer students and state transfer policy have been hampered by a lack of comparable metrics for measuring transfer student outcomes.

In this report, we propose a common set of metrics for measuring the effectiveness of two- and four-year institutions in enabling degree-seeking students who start college at a community college to transfer to four-year institutions and earn bachelor's degrees. These include three community college measures -- transfer-out rate, transfer-with-award rate, and transfer-out bachelor's completion rate -- and one measure for four-year institutions -- transfer-in bachelor's completion rate. We also examine a fifth measure: the overall rate at which the cohort of students who start at a community college in a given state go on to earn a bachelor's degree from a four-year institution.

In the conclusion of the report, we discuss implications for institutional leaders and policymakers and identify areas for further research.

America's top colleges and universities should institute an admissions preference for low-income students because such students -- even when they are high-achievers academically -- now face unjustified barriers and make up a mere 3 percent of enrollment at the elite schools, according this report from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. The Cooke Foundation found that such a "poverty preference" for admissions to selective higher education institutions, akin to existing preferences for athletes and the children of alumni, would create a more level playing field for disadvantaged students.

The Cooke Foundation report shows dramatic differences between enrollment rates at the most selective schools for students from families with the highest and lowest incomes. It highlights the major challenges low-income, high-achieving students face when seeking admission to these colleges and universities.

Perhaps the most significant new finding of the report is that the vast majority of students in America's most competitive institutions of higher education -- 72 percent -- come from the wealthiest 25 percent of the U.S. population. In sharp contrast, only 3 percent of students in the most selective schools come from the 25 percent of families with the lowest incomes. The report is the first comprehensive analysis conducted on the postsecondary admissions process as it affects high-achieving, low-income applicants.