CERTIFICATE PROGRAMS

State Certification for School Building Leaders

Imagine being the principal at a New York City public school in today's climate, reading about the failure of public education in the morning newspaper, then returning home to receive another dose of criticism from the nightly news. Be sure that a day would not pass without a reminder of your shortcomings and a disregard for many of your positive accomplishments. In this very rough climate of little support and lots of scrutiny, there is a great need for exceptional educational leaders. These individuals must possess the confidence and passion to lead our schools, and, even more importantly, they must be prepared to weather this climate and to continue to lead effectively in spite of it. Our rigorous program, coupled with our supportive faculty, can help you meet that challenge.

The Program

Our program in Educational Leadership is based upon the notion that the greatest predictor of student achievement is the quality of the teaching, and the greatest predictor of the quality of the teaching is the quality of principal leadership.

Course Content

Program coherence across content areas is achieved through a common set of beliefs about organizational learning and principal leadership. These Guiding Principles are made explicit throughout the curriculum and provide students with a framework within which to make sense of what they are learning as well as respond to unanticipated situations and circumstances once they are on the job.

Teaching Approach

Our approach is based upon the belief that adults learn best when that learning is directly linked to relevant real-world challenges. The program organizes learning around authentic problems, conditions and events reflective of an urban school environment. These challenges are presented to students both as hypothetical simulations and in the form of in-depth case studies of real schools. Students move through the curriculum as a cohort. The cohort is broken down into cooperative learning groups. The work for which students are responsible is organized around collaboratively developed responses to assigned challenges. The program makes limited use of traditional evaluation tools such as quizzes, final exams and term papers. The evaluation of student performance relies more heavily on indicators that are directly linked to the work that students will be doing when they become principals.

Additional Requirements for SBL Applicants

In addition to the overall Admissions requirements, each applicant must have earned a Master's Degree since this is a post-Masters program. A 3.0 minimum GPA earned on in the graduate degree and 3 or more years of full-time teaching and/or school-based work experience is mandatory. Applicants without a Master's degree must complete the MSEd before being recommended for SBL or SDL certification.