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Architecture deals with the creation and definition of space expressed in buildings and other physical structures. Pre‐service preparation programs and on‐going professional development for school leaders similarly are built structures designed to help aspiring and practicing administrators acquire critical knowledge, dispositions, and competencies as democratic educational leaders. Building on earlier work on the architecture of professional development, this paper argues that the pre‐service preparation of school leaders is a particular type of professional development; one that is formalized and routinely delivered in departments of educational administration. Next, current state and national standards documents are reviewed for evidence of explicitly or implicitly expressed democratic principles. The paper ends with a description of how the redesign of administrator preparation and professional development programs in the authors department, Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin‐Madison, created spaces for professional learning and community building anchored in democratic principles.

Purpose: To describe the importance of exemplary literacy teacher preparation today, the changing landscape of teacher preparation accreditation and the recently revised and launched International Literacy Association (ILA) National Recognition programs.

Design: In this chapter, the authors examine the current context of literacy teacher preparation in the United States, including the changing landscape of national accreditation, national recognition, and certification requirements. Next, the authors provide a brief overview of the ILA Standards for the Preparation of Literacy Professionals 2017 (Standards 2017) (International Literacy Association (ILA), 2018) and consider how Standards 2017 may inform literacy teacher preparation programs, state standards, and certification. Then, the authors discuss how the role of reading/literacy specialist in Standards 2017 is being applied in the ILA National Recognition program. To close the chapter, the authors share guiding questions and two case studies from exemplary literacy preparation programs – West Virginia University and the University of Texas at San Antonio – in an effort to provide practical examples of program innovation and improvement in these challenging times in literacy teacher preparation.

Findings: The authors discuss the current context of teacher preparation today, the ILA Standards 2017 with specific attention to the reading/literacy specialist role and standards.

Practical Implications: ILA National Recognition program involve reflection, self-study, on-site visits by peers to support and inspire ongoing literacy teacher preparation program quality and improvement.

In a global context characterised by a growing recognition of the role that educational leaders play in ensuring school effectiveness and the consequent need to design effective leadership preparation programmes, many educational leadership preparation providers around the world have borrowed international standards and frameworks in order to guide their programmes and assure their quality. This trend has been on the rise as a response to globalisation pressures and a growing interest in acquiring international recognition through accreditation agencies. However, this raises important questions about the potential repercussion of using foreign, mainly Western, frameworks to develop or assess national leadership preparation provision. Evidence from relevant literature indicates that these frameworks, when applied to local contexts, need to take contextual factors into account. In this chapter, we engage with existing literature in relation to leadership preparation, internationalisation and professional standards to reflect on our experience of using international standards to develop the Masters in Educational Administration programme offered by Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) in Oman. We hope to contribute to existing internationalisation literature by providing a different perspective on educational administration and leadership preparation from a non-Western tradition, thereby expanding the understanding of meaningful leadership preparation in general.

Aims to present a framework for licensing school principals in the United States, specifically the state of Connecticut. Contains three elements that depart substantially from other initiatives to reform preparation and licensure. (1) Pre‐service preparation of principals will focus on the knowledge base for teaching and learning. As currently conceived, it is possible for a candidate to qualify for initial certification without taking formal coursework in educational administration. (2) Study of educational administration will occur during the beginning years of administrative service. (3) Licensure will be performance‐based. Candidates for initial certification will need to demonstrate their knowledge of teaching and learning and their ability to evaluate and supervise teaching. Prior to professional certification, principals will be required to show that they fostered a school culture that focused on teaching and learning and where all students achieved. Begins with discussion of the role of licensing and recent calls for reform of principal preparation and licensure. Following a review of the literature that supports Connecticut′s reform strategy, presents five postulates it is believed will advance the revision of preparation and licensure. Follows a hypothetical candidate from pre‐service through to professional certification to explain how Connecticut′s proposal is implemented. Includes a consideration of licensing in countries other than the United States in the summary.

Reviews the current debate in the USA concerning the general dissatisfaction with administrator preparation and resulting tensions between the award of the PhD versus the EdD, with a preference for the award of the latter articulated by critical observers of the profession. Design considerations are highlighted for the implementation of EdD curricula in Australia, where the professional doctorate is now being offered at a number of universities. Implications are drawn from the US experience regarding the need to legitimate the EdD as a valued qualification of standing in its own right and clearly focused on meeting the needs of practitioners. Describes a curriculum process model, initially developed at the University of Texas at Austin, with the potential and capacity to guide and inform university‐based administrator preparation as well as on going professional development over the course of a career span of intermediate length. Concludes that appropriate models are needed which gave shape and form to a professionally oriented EdD, abstracting from relevant theoretical principles and derived from a knowledge base that can be justified on its own terms.

The purpose of this paper is to determine if the professional information technology (IT) in Puerto Rico has had an impact during the job search process, financial compensation and success in the industry, from the point of view of management, with the emergence of certification.

The design used in this research was the cross‐sectional and not experimental. To analyze the data in this study the authors used descriptive and inferential statistical techniques.

In accordance with the views expressed by managers, IT professionals with experience are more likely to be selected during the recruitment process and achieve success in their industry compared to professional certification or degree. When managers evaluate the compensation of professionals, certification, academic degree or work experience do not significantly affect the attitude of managers.

The research questions were answered based on the views of managers about the phenomenon studied and did not consider the professionals themselves.

The mechanisms for certification are expensive and tend to be time consuming. The results of this study provide practical benefits to IT professionals because they can be used as a reference.

The results of this research provide valuable information to industries, organizations or businesses and IT professionals in Puerto Rico because they may be used as a reference concerning Puerto Rico's IT industry.

Education in India is valued as a transformative tool for upward mobility, increased opportunity and individual freedom. A variety of education policies over the years have sought to ensure greater equity with varied impact. Student learning has suffered across the country in part due to differences in regional access, linguistic ability, and family income. Furthermore, India lies at the intersection of aspiring ambitions of international influence and vast inequities ensuring many sectors of the populations lag far behind the “modern” aspirations of the middle class. In this conflicting space, Indian policy-makers established the Right to Education Act in 2010 as an effort to create broad and sweeping change in educational policy. This chapter seeks to look critically at the main components of the act, now 10 years in, to evaluate how some of the most controversial aspects of the law, have affected student learning, through the lens of teacher quality, including teacher preparation, teacher professional development, teacher dispositions, and teacher’s attitudes and perceptions of students. Vignettes from teacher experiences will be used to illustrate challenges and recommendations will be provided to support teacher educators working to ensure a more equitable and socially just education for Indian students.

School-level leaders should not be expected to be mired in emotional turmoil and sacrifice their own health, happiness and well-being to do their jobs effectively. While the emotional aspects of school-level leadership have continued to evolve and become increasingly complex since the turn of the twenty-first century, the supports available to these individuals remain outdated, ineffective, and moribund. If mentoring, anonymous telephone support lines and other ‘old school’ approaches for supporting school leaders were still effective, they would not be struggling to deal with the emotional aspects of their work and workload. Further, there is a need to provide ‘just-in-time’ supports that are available to school-level leaders when concerns arise. Absent structural changes, isolated and individualized approaches to self-care cannot mitigate the challenges principals face or the physical, mental and emotional toll associated with their work and workload. Communal strategies and policy levers are recommended in an effort to go beyond mindfulness and other (potentially) individualistic and neoliberal approaches to self-care. This chapter also explores how principal preparation programmes and other formal professional learning opportunities are an untapped resource in terms of strengthening school-level leaders' emotional regulation capacity and building a general appreciation for the emotional aspects of school-level leadership.