ABSTRACT
The Illinois State University Center for the Study of Education Policy received a Wallace Foundation grant in 2001 and initiated the Illinois State Action for Education Leadership Project. However, by 2012 Illinois had implemented a statewide policy to scale up from four successful principal preparation programs in two Illinois districts. Five years later, by 2001, emerging school research and policy began to crystallize into new programs and practices in Illinois. The five-year period of ferment from 1996 to 2001 illuminates the intersection of national, state, and local initiatives in Illinois. The final recommendations of the Task Force, therefore, allowed for considerable flexibility and local decision-making in program design. The Task Force had to decide whether innovative models in principal preparation, from Illinois or elsewhere, were, in fact, successful—and whether they had elements that could be brought to scale in Illinois. The final recommendations of the Task Force, therefore, allowed for considerable flexibility and local decision-making in program design.
