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The National College for School Leadership: A Successful English Innovation?

In the u.s., the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) in England has been hailed as an outstanding example of innovation in the preparation of educational leaders. According to Arthur Levine, the NCSL "proved to be the most promising model we saw, providing examples of good practice that educational administration programs might seek to emulate." (1) In England, there are mixed views about the achievements and influence of the NCSL. In its short life, it has fundamentally changed the landscape of leadership and management development by establishing a suite of impressive programs, developing a notable electronic platform, and becoming a major sponsor of school leadership research. Its overall conception, scale, and execution have been called "a paradigm shift," (2) and the college is now the dominant influence on school leadership development and research. However, the NCSL has also pursued scale at the expense of depth, demanded too little from its participants, and overemphasized practice at the expense of theory. In this article, I describe the origins, aims, and signature features of NCSL, discuss the criticisms leveled against it, and present some lessons for U.S. universities. ORIGINS AND AIMS Before the establishment of the NCSL in 2000, leadership programs were offered by a range of providers, including universities, professional associations, and local education authorities (LEAs). Interest in these programs was heightened by the 1988 Education Reform Act, which passed on substantial management responsibilities to school governing bodies and principals. However, there was no mandatory requirement for school leaders to have a specialist qualification in educational administration, and many principals were appointed on the basis of their professional experience alone. The Labour Government, elected for the first time in 1997, gave a high priority to education. It was persuaded by the school effectiveness research that enhancing school leadership was a key driver of educational improvement, and so the NCSL opened in November 2000, followed by an official launch by Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2002. The goals of the NCSL signal the breadth of its ambition: 1. To provide a single national focus for school leadership development, research and innovation 2. To be a driving force for world-class leadership in our schools and the wider community 3. To provide support to and be a major resource for school leaders 4. To stimulate national and international debate on leadership issues. (3) These goals indicate the national and global ambitions of the NCSL. It has produced a raft of programs for all levels of school leadership. Its "world-class" claim might be regarded as rhetorical, but the NCSL organized a program of visits to leading centers in seven countries to learn about good practice, (4) and it also encourages international scholars and practitioners to contribute to its research. SIGNATURE FEATURES The NCSL is unique in that it provides a national focus on leadership, stresses development at all stages of leadership, relies heavily on practice and practitioners, practitioners, and reaches a very large number of school leaders. Each of these features has much to offer as well as some drawbacks. A national center. The NCSL has substantial recurrent funding and is housed in a lavish, specially designed center, leading Ray Bolam to claim that the NCSL now operates "what is probably the most comprehensive and sophisticated national school leadership development model in the world." (5) The creation of such a central facility was a major change from the previous ad hoc arrangements, which ranged from a few days of induction by LEAs through university master's and doctoral programs. University programs were, and continue to be, targeted at leaders at all levels and drew mainly on theory and research rather than participants' experience. …