Principle 4 The primary goal of public schools is to educate children for the responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy. Principle 5 School leadership is an intellectual, moral, and craft practice. Whether one exercises one's leadership from a position within higher education or from a position within elementary and secondary schools, one must be well educated in both the theory and practice of professional education. School superintendents, principals, and directors of student activities must not only be good practitioners but good theorists. University professors and student affairs leaders must not only be good theorists but also good practitioners.
Administration occurs in a social and historical context.
Schools are not concrete realities divorced from the individuals who learn, teach, and lead within them. Principle 7 Schools are sites of cultural politics. By their very nature schools are about the political act of legitimating and failing to legitimate different group's cultures. Principle 8 Leadership should not be equated with positions in a bureaucracy. Principle 9 Leadership should be separated from any implication of hierarchical relations.