Programs preparing culturally responsive school leaders must address how race, power, and individual, institutional, and cultural racism impact beliefs, structures, and outcomes for students of color. To develop greater awareness of race, instructors in a principal preparation program assigned students in a primarily White cohort to compose racial autobiographies. Analysis of these racial autobiographies revealed early racial identity development impacted by racial isolation and family influence. The autobiographies included evidence of growing racial awareness and movement away from racial unconsciousness and colorblindness toward acknowledgment of privilege and commitment to future action. Racial autobiography serves as a useful tool to have students examine their own racial identity-a necessary first step toward building an awareness of race, privilege, and institutional and societal systems of racism and other forms of oppression. Further study will determine what changes in leadership practice, if any, might be attributed to this increased awareness.

In recent years, significant attention has been directed to the need for more and better-prepared educational leaders (Young, Crow, Murphy & Ogawa, 2009). While many organizations prepare school principals, evidence of program impact is sparse (Orr & Pounder, 2008; Southern Regional Education Board, 2008). The study described in this article seeks to examine the effects of purposefully designed collaborative learning experiences, as delivered through a university–district principal preparation partnership, on program participants. The article describes the first phase of the research: the examination of baseline candidate leadership perceptions, which led to the development of leadership identity and problem-framing research continua intended to assess participants’ preprogram perceptions. The continua include five stages of leadership identity development and five types of problem framing. Preliminary findings indicate striking differences among program candidates’ placement along these continua. Future stages of this research project will assess postprogram impact.

This qualitative study examined the instructional leadership perceptions of four first-year principals. Findings illuminate five themes drawn from the data: definitions of instructional leadership, challenges that first-year principals faced, how these principals addressed these challenges, how the novice principals plan to enact their instructional leadership during the second year on the job, and an unexpected theme—perceived insider advantage. This study contributes to a better understanding of the instructional leadership challenges that first-year principals face, and it highlights implications for preparation programs and district initiatives that might contribute to more effective support to novice principals as they enact instructional leadership.

In this original qualitative study, we examined the processes employed by a school district that had made progress in closing achievement gaps in a post-No Child Left Behind context. The district served more than 26,000 students in an economically and ethnically diverse community. Secondary analysis of the findings uncovered a primary driver-effective, sustained districtlevel leadership-which drove two secondary drivers: district-developed and deployed systems and a culture of shared accountability. Results of this study suggest that these three drivers caused reported changes at the campus and classroom levels, which in turn contributed to the progress that the district made in closing achievement gaps.