Education and Leadership

Educational Leadership Opportunities in K-12 Urban City Schools This paper intends to show that the best educational leadership can provide to individuals is to provide students with the skills they need to skillfully and successfully cope with "today" and upon doing so to be secure in the knowledge that the tomorrows and the future will follow. This paper will research, explore and examine the options that present themselves to today's graduate student with a Master of Education K-12 Leadership in the urban city school setting. According to Elliot W.

Eisner: The unknowable future is not a sound basis on which to plan curriculum." Eisner that upon first contemplating the creation of a curriculum that will prepare students for the future seems to be a task that is unachievable because the future world is something we see through a "glass but darkly" concerning the future.

However, as Eisner points out no one escaped while growing up the hearing of that old familiar refrain of: "but someday you will need to know this." Indeed this is the future for some and clearly no one envisioned this future.

Eisner states quite wisely that: we can best prepare students for the future by enabling them to deal effectively with the present." Eisner can be commended for clarity in his thought as it is true that "today" is that which the individual possess and faces after having completed their formal education and entering the workforce in teaching.

The questions of "where do I belong in this education system?" "How can I measure up?" are dominant at this time as the learner becomes the teacher and enters the league of aspiring professionals and the workforce. The purpose of this paper is to explore the most pressing issues faced as well as the most promising opportunities available for the individual who has completed their Masters Degree in Education K-12 Leadership and seeks employment in an urban school setting specifically in California.

Expert testimony of Thomas Sobol, Ed.D, since 1995, the Christian A. Johnson Professor of Outstanding Educational Practice at Teacher's College, Columbia University. Sobol, a well seasoned having served for 16 years a Superintendent of Schools in Scarsdale, New York and an English Teacher for 12 years in Massachusetts and New York public schools. Also, serving on committees and board in the education administration and co- chairing the National Research Council's Committee on education Finance: Equity, Adequacy and Productivity formed by the U.S. Congress.

There is much that could still be listed to verify the validity of Sobols' testimony, however the verifying will end with acknowledging that Mr. Sobol is Author of two published works. When asked to identify two specifics as follows: 1. What conditions and resources are minimally required for any school and; 2. What role the State should play in ensuring the provision to students of educational essentials? The summary of Mr. Sobol's conclusions were stated as follows: Conclusion to question 1 - Mr.

Sobol stated that in the very least the government should guarantee to students the following essentials: qualified and stable teaching force; up-to-date textbooks and other learning material; and physical conditions conducive to effective teaching and learning." Conclusion to question 2 - In answer to question 2 Mr.

Sobol stated that: An appropriate state policy would be to require the presence in schools of educational essentials and then to monitor the schools for compliance with that requirement and to act to rectify noncompliance." Sobol cites it as being a problem that reforms have been coming from the top down. Instead Sobol holds that,.