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The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs -- which prepare the majority of school principals -- have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. This report shares lessons learned from redesigning university principal preparation programs. From 2016 to 2021, seven university principal preparation programs, with their district and state partners, fundamentally reshaped their principal preparation programs under The Wallace Foundation's University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI). This report describes the methods of and findings from the RAND Corporation's five-year study of UPPI. It is primarily intended as a secondary resource for readers who would like more detail about the study's findings and methods. Key findings are highlighted in the report in brief and three upcoming targeted reports: one for principal preparation programs, one for school districts, and one for state education organizations. [For the report in brief, see ED620468. For Volume 2, see ED609667.]

This report in brief shares findings from the RAND Corporation's five-year study of The Wallace Foundation's University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI). The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs (PPPs)--which prepare the majority of school principals--have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. To test a path forward, The Wallace Foundation provided grants to seven universities and their partners to redesign their PPPs in line with research-supported practices. Key findings, which suggest that significant change around research-based practices is possible, are presented in this report. This report illustrates that it is feasible for universities -- in partnership with high-need districts, state agencies, and with the support of mentor programs that have engaged in successful redesign -- to improve principal preparation programs to reflect the best available evidence. [For the full report, see ED620465.]

The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs--which prepare the majority of school principals--have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. To test a path forward, The Wallace Foundation provided grants to seven universities and their partners to redesign their principal preparation programs in line with research-supported practices. This targeted report shares findings from the RAND Corporation's five-year study of The Wallace Foundation's University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI), with an emphasis on findings for state policymakers. [For "District Partnerships with University Principal Preparation Programs: A Summary of Findings for School District Leaders. RAND Principal Preparation Series. Volume 3, Part 4. Research Report. RR-A413-6," see ED621351.]

The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs--which prepare the majority of school principals--have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. To test a path forward, The Wallace Foundation provided grants to seven universities and their partners to redesign their principal preparation programs in line with research-supported practices. This targeted report shares findings from the RAND Corporation's five-year study of The Wallace Foundation's University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI), with an emphasis on findings for school district leaders. [For "Collaborating on University Principal Preparation Program Redesign: A Summary of Findings for University Principal Preparation Program Providers. RAND Principal Preparation Series. Volume 3, Part 3. Research Report. RR-A413-5," see ED621347.]

The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs--which prepare the majority of school principals--have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. To test a path forward, The Wallace Foundation provided grants to seven universities and their partners to redesign their principal preparation programs in line with research-supported practices. This targeted report shares findings from the RAND Corporation's five-year study of The Wallace Foundation's University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI), with an emphasis on findings for other principal preparation programs. [For "Redesigning University Principal Preparation Programs: A Systemic Approach for Change and Sustainability--Report in Brief. RAND Principal Preparation Series. Volume 3, Part 2. Research Report. RR-A413-4," see ED620468.]

State policymakers, including state leaders, districts, and professional associations, play a role in fostering an environment that supports the development of effective school principals, with the broad policy objective of achieving high principal quality across the state. This report examines how seven states use state policy levers to advance policy change to improve the quality of school principals. These states are all actively engaging in a collaborative initiative focused on principal preparation program redesign. All seven states in the study were part of The Wallace Foundation's University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI). Launched in 2016, UPPI is supporting seven university-based principal preparation programs to work in collaboration with their district and state partners to redesign and improve the programs to better support the development of effective principals. The UPPI programs and their respective states are: (1) Albany State University (Georgia); (2) Florida Atlantic University (Florida); (3) North Carolina State University (North Carolina); (4) San Diego State University (California); (5) the University of Connecticut (Connecticut); (6) Virginia State University (Virginia); and (7) Western Kentucky University (Kentucky). This report focuses on seven policy levers that states can use to improve school leadership: (1) setting principal standards; (2) recruiting aspiring principals into the profession; (3) licensing new and veteran principals (4) approving and overseeing principal preparation programs; (5) supporting principals' growth with professional development; (6) evaluating principals and (7) using leader tracking systems to support analysis of aspiring and established school leaders' experiences and outcomes. The report concludes with two appendixes. [For Appendix B, see ED609669. For Volume 1, see ED590580.]

States play a role in fostering an environment that develops and supports effective school leaders. Prior research has highlighted opportunities to enhance state involvement in supporting school leadership through a range of policy levers, especially by promoting improvements to principal preparation (Manna, 2015; Davis, 2016). The Wallace Foundation launched the University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI) in July 2016. The four-year, $48.5 million initiative supports seven universities, their district and state partners, and mentor programs to redesign the universities' principal preparation programs according to evidence-based practices. State partners to the seven universities committed to reviewing their policies that affect university-based principal preparation and work with stakeholders to consider policy change. RAND Corporation researchers are analyzing the implementation of UPPI and changes to the design and delivery of preparation programs. RAND's first report on UPPI (Wang et al., 2018) documented findings from the first year of UPPI implementation. This document is an appendix to "Using State-Level Policy Levers to Promote Principal Quality: Lessons from Seven States Partnering with Principal Preparation Programs and Districts. RAND Principal Preparation Series. Volume 2. Research Report. RR-A413-1" (see ED609667) that examines the role of state policy efforts to improve the principalship. In that report, the authors focus on cross-site themes distilled from an in-depth look at how each state partner uses state policy levers described by Manna (2015). This appendix contains state-specific profiles about the use of policy levers for each of the seven UPPI states. Leaders from each of the seven states provided fact checks and, in some cases, corrections, where appropriate.

School principals are charged with complex responsibilities that can include developing a school vision and culture, supporting teacher effectiveness, managing challenges and crises, communicating with the greater community, and more. However, recent research and surveys of school administrators indicate that principal preparation programs do not adequately prepare graduates to cope with school realities. In response to concerns about the state of initial principal preparation, The Wallace Foundation established the University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI), a four-year effort to redesign seven universities' principal preparation programs according to evidence-based principles and practices. Each university collaborates on the redesign with high-need school districts and a state partner, and is supported by a mentor program. This report focuses on the implementation of UPPI in its first year, from fall 2016 to fall 2017. The authors report on UPPI progress and identify cross-cutting themes in the UPPI implementation effort that can help other university principal preparation programs and their partners undertake their own principal preparation system improvement efforts. Key Findings: (1) UPPI programs began with some evidence-based features and contexts already in place; (2) UPPI partnerships used the first year to develop a vision for the new program and the redesign process. The teams at each site engaged in three primary re-envisioning activities: standards development, program assessment, and logic model development; (3) Each UPPI team focused on redesigning its curriculum and instruction; (4) UPPI leadership teams explored changes to clinical experiences and candidate recruitment and selection; (5) University-based leads--the individuals from each university leading the overall initiative at that site--and actively engaged partners drove the initiative in the first year; (6) UPPI prompted partner states and districts to consider issues and/or undertake activities they may not have otherwise; and (7) UPPI leadership teams developed strategies to mitigate the most pressing challenges, such as turnover and capacity limitations. [For the executive summary to this report "Launching a Redesign of University Principal Preparation Programs: Partners Collaborate for Change. RAND Principal Preparation Series. Volume 1. Executive Summary," see ED590581.]

School principals are charged with complex responsibilities that can include developing a school vision and culture, supporting teacher effectiveness, managing challenges and crises, communicating with the greater community, and more. However, recent research and surveys of school administrators indicate that principal preparation programs do not adequately prepare graduates to cope with school realities. In response to concerns about the state of initial principal preparation, The Wallace Foundation established the University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI), a four-year effort to redesign seven universities' principal preparation programs according to evidence-based principles and practices. Each university collaborates on the redesign with high-need school districts and a state partner, and is supported by a mentor program. The report summarized in this document focuses on the implementation of UPPI in its first year, from fall 2016 to fall 2017. The authors report on UPPI progress and identify cross-cutting themes in the UPPI implementation effort that can help other university principal preparation programs and their partners undertake their own principal preparation system improvement efforts. Key Findings: (1) UPPI programs began with some evidence-based features and contexts already in place; (2) UPPI partnerships used the first year to develop a vision for the new program and the redesign process. The teams at each site engaged in three primary re-envisioning activities: standards development, program assessment, and logic model development; (3) Each UPPI team focused on redesigning its curriculum and instruction; (4) UPPI leadership teams explored changes to clinical experiences and candidate recruitment and selection; (5) University-based leads--the individuals from each university leading the overall initiative at that site--and actively engaged partners drove the initiative in the first year; (6) UPPI prompted partner states and districts to consider issues and/or undertake activities they may not have otherwise; and (7) UPPI leadership teams developed strategies to mitigate the most pressing challenges, such as turnover and capacity limitations. [For the full report "Launching a Redesign of University Principal Preparation Programs: Partners Collaborate for Change. RAND Principal Preparation Series. Volume 1," see ED590580.]