Summary:
The Arkansas Leadership Academy (ALA) was established in 1991 and is a nationally recognized statewide partnership that includes 15 universities, 9 professional associations, the Arkansas Departments of Education, Higher Education, Career Education, and several other government and business agencies. In 2011, there were 49 partners involved collaboratively with the ALA (Arkansas Leadership Academy, n.d.). According to the ALA’s website:
The Academy, through the use of research and best practices, designs creative and innovative approaches to establish learning communities in public schools by developing human resources and by modeling and advocating collaboration, support, shared decision making, team learning, risk taking, and problem solving. Partners commit to changing their organizations to support system improvement. (About Us section, para. 2)
Embedded in the broad range of programs provided by the ALA, the Master Principal Program (MPP) specifically focuses on the development of principal leadership throughout the state of Arkansas (Arkansas Leadership Academy, 2012). The Arkansas Leadership Academy Master Principal Program (ALA MPP) is a multi-phase program established by the Arkansas 84th General Assembly to improve school performance through effective leadership development (Act 44, 2003). ACCESS FULL MANUSCRIPT AT: http://cnx.org/content/m44950/latest/