At a time when high-quality educational leadership is critically needed, the quality of most preparation programs for principals and superintendents who run the nation's schools ranges from "inadequate to appalling," a new study conducted by Columbia University's Teachers College finds.

According to the report, Educating School Leaders, many of the nation's education programs are engaged in a counterproductive "race to the bottom," in which they compete for students by lowering admission standards, watering down coursework, and offering faster and less demanding degrees. In many cases, the report adds, such programs serve as little more than "green stamps [that] can be traded in for raises and promotions" by teachers who have no intention of becoming administrators. "These programs have been responsible for conferring master's degrees on students who demonstrate anything but mastery," said Arthur Levine, Teachers College president and author of the report. "They have awarded doctorates that are doctoral in name only. And they have enrolled principals and superintendents in courses of study that are not relevant to their jobs."

Offering a set of nine criteria by which education leadership programs should be judged, the report — which was funded by the Annenberg, Ford, and Ewing Marion Kauffman foundations — calls for the elimination of incentives for reducing program quality, higher standards for leadership programs, the shuttering of poor-quality programs, a new core curriculum of study, and a restructuring of how advanced degrees are awarded.

"We must change the system and find new models for establishing strong leadership in our schools," said Levine. "In the long term, I hope the report will play a part in broadly changing the system nationally."

To download the complete report (89 pages, PDF), visit: http://www.edschools.org/pdf/Final313.pdf.