Expectations of what teachers and school leaders should know and be able to do change over time and context, as they do in most professions. Standards must reflect those changes. But with school leaders, expectations often appear to have outstripped the quality and supply of training and support, argue the authors.

In recent years, the context within which school leaders work has been characterised by increasing complexity in expectations for school leaders and greater demands for accountability. These changes have led to calls for more and better professional preparation programs, and greater attention to programs tailored to the needs of established school principals. The role of standards developers is to identify what is of central importance in the preparation of school leaders – to identify those features of leadership that are associated with student outcomes. These changes have also called for more attention to be given to the recruitment and selection of suitable school principals and to conditions of work that will increase the retention of effective leaders. Standards have a role to play here also in pointing to fair and valid forms of evidence to assess the performance of school leaders. Expectations of what teachers and school leaders should know and be able to do change over time and context, as they do in most professions. Standards must reflect those changes.