Administrators must be supported, encouraged, and required to exhibit strong fiscal, managerial, and planning skills in addition to educational expertise. They must demonstrate leadership and collegiality to assist teachers in creating the conditions in which students can best learn. The changes begun by Education Reform will especially impact principals. Unprecedented authority and responsibility has been granted to them to give both the flexibility to pursue educational excellence and the accountability for their school's success. Principals should be given support so that they can proactively manage the change process through relevant opportunities for professional development and collaboration.
Principals are accountable for the performance of their schools.
Based on the state standards, Distinguished Administrators will be selected to work with their peers and lead state sponsored events. While it is essential that administrators be well versed in pedagogy, the skills they should develop for certification should be related as much to management as to direct instruction. This distinction calls for a different type of training for administrators than teachers. Candidates for this new system will be recruited from diverse socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds. In addition to teachers, lawyers, social workers, business people and others will be encouraged to enter the educational field as administrators.