Principals' Training Goes Under a Microscope.

In most states, becoming a principal requires completion of a training program that includes of mix of coursework and some kind of internship, usually through a college of education. Whether those regimens produce administrators who can improve school performance is, for the most part, anyone's guess, contends Linda Darling-Hammond, an education professor at Stanford University. With a grant of nearly $1.25 million from the New York City-based Wallace Foundation, Darling-Hammond is leading a new study of the effectiveness of training programs for school principals. In examining eight such programs, the scholar's research team plans not only to inspect their content, but also to evaluate the on-the-job performance of people who went through them. about changing the rules that govern how administrators are groomed.