Ed and Business Schools launch certificate program to build principals’ effectiveness
When a new training program launched in July to help school principals become better leaders and managers, the instructors expected to get maybe 100 participants. Instead, they were swamped. Six hundred registered for the Certificate in School Management and Leadership, which attests to the need that school principals feel to become better equipped to lead schools. There are nearly 114,000 school principals across the nation, and surveys say that superintendents are often unhappy with the preparation that principals receive. The four-course program is a partnership between the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) and the Harvard Business School (HBS). The program’s instructors are Mary Grassa O’Neill, former school principal and superintendent, senior lecturer on education, and faculty director of the School Leadership Program at HGSE, and Allen Grossman, senior fellow and retired professor of management practice at HBS. The Gazette sat down with O’Neill and Grossman to talk about the changing demands on school principals, and the preparation they...