A 13-member working group of principals and education leadership experts will review and finalize the long-awaited school leadership standards later this month before sending the measures to the National Policy Board for Educational Administration for approval in October.

Three sitting principals were added to the final standards revision process after a review showed that practicing principals were under-represented while the higher education community was over-represented on the various committees that worked on the standards during the nearly two-year-long undertaking, said Mary-Dean Barringer, the strategic initiative director for education workforce at the Council of Chief State School Officers, the organization that owns the copyright to the standards and is leading the revision process jointly with the NPBEA.

The Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium Standards, or ISLLC, are used to set benchmarks for what principals should know and do to lead students and teachers.  

According to the CCSSO, the standards are supposed to "detail the leadership skills and knowledge effective district and school leaders need in order to influence teaching and student learning."

They were last updated in 2008. Two previous drafts—one released in September and another in the spring—were met with mixed reactions from the principal and educational leadership communities.

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