In 2019, program leaders and professors in the university’s educational leadership program noticed a significant decline in enrollment, and state leadership test scores for the program were below the state average. Using the Five Whys protocol and five stages of the design thinking process as identified by IDEO (Brown & Katz, 2019 ), they set to resolve the issues. The Five Whys protocol is an iterative and formative interrogative technique used to explore cause-and-effect relationships. As noted by Serrat ( 2017 ), the primary goal of the technique is to determine the root cause of a problem by repeating the question up to five times. Each response informed the foundation for the next iteration and allowed the group to settle on the root cause of the problem. Then, design thinking was used to provide a solution-based approach to resolving the problems noted. Program leaders began by forming a stakeholder workgroup that included school district leadership development professionals from each of the university’s surrounding districts. Program leaders used district leader input to understand what skills school districts needed in graduates of the university program and considered possible program changes to address the problems noted. The result of the year-long process was a program transformation, with increased enrollment and improved state assessment scores, to a widely accepted and successful master’s degree program that is supported by all districts served by the university.

Educational leadership demands that school leaders be able to communicate clearly and effectively in writing, both academically and professionally. Leaders of a Master’s in Educational Leadership (M.Ed.) program at a university in the southeast of the United States established an interdisciplinary collaboration with the university’s Faculty Writing Partners program to develop valid and reliable rubrics to assess graduate students’ writing abilities through critical task essays. The critical task essays connect required internship experience in each course with a targeted Florida Principal Leadership Standard (FPLS), coursework, and scholarly research. However, an objective performance measure for the critical task essays was lacking. Accordingly, a criterion-referenced rubric was developed to: 1) specify criteria for writing in relation to grammar, mechanics, and organization, 2) identify quality peer-reviewed research as evidence to support clinical experience, 3) effectively articulate in writing personal strengths, weaknesses, and plans for improvement towards mastery of the FPLS, and 4) provide consistency in expectations and feedback among professors and adjunct instructors. The rubric demonstrated validity and reliability, and likely led to consistently higher scores on both the critical task essays and, most importantly, the Florida Educational Leadership Examination (FELE).   Résumé: Le leadership en éducation exige que les cadres scolaires sachent communiquer clairement et efficacement sous forme écrite, tant au niveau pédagogique que professionnel. Les responsables de la maîtrise en leadership éducationnel dans une université du sud-est des États-Unis ont établi une collaboration interdisciplinaire avec les responsables du programme « Faculty Writing Partners » à la même université afin de développer des critères valables et fiables pour évaluer, au moyen de textes d’analyse critique, les aptitudes en rédaction de leurs étudiants diplômés. Ces textes ont comme objectif de relier les expériences acquises par ces étudiants lors d’un stage obligatoire dans chaque cours au Florida Principal Leadership Standard (FPLS), au travail qu’ils ont effectué dans le cours, et à leurs recherches universitaires en général. Il manquait cependant une mesure objective pour évaluer les textes d’analyse critique. On a donc conçu un tableau fondée sur des critères précis pour : 1) spécifier nos attentes en ce qui a trait à la grammaire, la syntaxe et l’organisation du texte; 2) reconnaître l’article de recherche de bonne qualité évalué par les pairs comme complément de l’expérience clinique; 3) articuler efficacement sous forme écrite les qualités, faiblesses et objectifs d’amélioration personnels relatifs à la maîtrise du FPLS; et 4) assurer une uniformité parmi les professeurs et les instructeurs associés dans leurs attentes et leurs conseils. Le tableau s’est avéré valable et fiable. D’ailleurs, en toute probabilité, il a mené à de meilleurs résultats pour les textes d’analyse critique et surtout pour le Florida Educational Leadership Examination (FELE).   Keywords / Mots clés : educational leadership, professional writing for school leaders, academic writing for school leaders, improving FELE writing scores / leadership en éducation, rédaction professionnelle pour cadres scolaires, rédaction universitaire pour cadres scolaires, amélioration des résultats en rédaction pour le FELE

Some evidence shows that educational leaders have become more aware and knowledgeable of school counseling programs since the ASCA National Model was released more than 20 years ago. However, such research is based on self-reported perceptions and experiences. This study aimed to develop an inventory to objectively assess the level of knowledge about comprehensive school counseling programs among educational leaders. After developing the Educational Leaders’ Knowledge of School Counseling Inventory (ELKSCI), we collected validity and reliability data among school counseling experts and leaders.