Politicizing the Department of Education in the War Against DEI: Theorizing Implications for the Principal Preparation Landscape

Abstract

This essay theorizes implications of mounting political efforts to dismantle the Department of Education (DoE) as part of the anti–Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) movement, with particular attention to consequences for principal preparation programs. While overlooked, federal policies have played a critical albeit complex role in shaping the principal preparation landscape. This essay challenges prevailing narratives that characterize federal impact on preparation programs as minimal, offering a more nuanced account of how federal policies support the development of high-quality and equity-oriented school leaders. This essay identifies three primary areas of federal influence: prioritizing high-needs schools, encouraging the adoption of innovative and evidence-based practices, and facilitating national understanding of the principal preparation landscape. These dimensions are used to theorize consequences of defunding or dismantling the DoE for educational leadership preparation. In addition to implications for policymakers and lobbyists ahead of the impending congressional vote about the DoE’s future, implications are offered for future research and federal policies to improve and expand the scope of influence over preparation programs.

1. Background

The current anti-DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) movement in the United States represents a politically charged reaction against efforts to address systemic inequities in education and beyond. The origins of the anti-DEI movement can be traced to the broader sociopolitical backlash following the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color, public reckonings with racial injustice, including the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, and the amplification of racial consciousness through the 1619 Project. The New York Times’ 1619 Project, which reframed U.S. history around the legacy of slavery, became a lightning rod for conservative critique, with opponents alleging that it promotes racial division and liberal indoctrination (Carroll, 2025; Johnson, 2024). The first legislative response, Arizona’s Saving American History Act of 2020, sought to penalize schools adopting the 1619 Project’s curriculum by withdrawing federal funding, a move copied by at least five states.

The attack on DEI escalated when a video recording of an anti-bias training in Seattle caught the attention of conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who defined Critical Race Theory (CRT), an academic framework that examines the impact of race and racism by centering attention on how laws, policies, and structures reproduce racial biases and prejudices (Crenshaw et al., 1995), as an ‘existential threat’ to the United States. After making the rounds across the media, Rufo’s alarm caught the attention of President Trump, motivating his Executive Order 13950. Signed on 22 September 2020, Executive Order 13950—Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping—sought to regulate the content of diversity training programs conducted by federal agencies, federal contractors, and federal grant recipients. The order prohibited the use of federal funds to support training materials that, in the language, promote or include CRT-based tenets—concepts deemed ‘divisive’ (Carroll, 2025).

Anti-DEI efforts quickly spread from K–12 education to higher education. Legislative language from federal orders became templates for state laws prohibiting diversity statements, identity-based admissions or hiring preferences, DEI offices, mandatory DEI training, and courses informed by CRT (Lu et al., 2025). The Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and UNC further catalyzed this movement by effectively terminating race-conscious admissions. These judicial and legislative decisions have constrained diversity-oriented recruitment, hiring, and programmatic efforts within public institutions. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education DEI Tracker, such legislation has been introduced in at least 29 states and passed in 16. Notably, states like Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, and Florida have led the charge, introducing multiple anti-DEI bills (Lu et al., 2025). These attacks embolden plans to dismantle the DoE.

2. Dismantling the Department of Education

Though not a stranger to calls for its closure (Fusarelli & Fusarelli, 2014; Radin & Hawley, 1988), the Department of Education (DoE) is again facing this threat to its existence. While these ideas initially surfaced prior to the 2024 U.S. elections as part of the Heritage Foundation’s rightwing manifesto, Project 2025, President Trump initially denied these plans (Sherwood, 2024; Kanno-Youngs & Green, 2024). Yet many of his executive orders and policy intentions align with the educational priorities of the document, including plans to dismantle the DoE. Chapter 11 of Project 2025 proposes a slew of radical policies to overhaul the federal role in education, threatening programs and initiatives that have long supported equitable experiences and outcomes for marginalized students (Heritage Foundation, 2024).

Because the DoE was established by congressional approval, any plans for its closure must be authorized by Congress. To begin this process, Senator Mike Rounds has filed the ‘Returning Education to Our States Act,” a bill to transfer functionalities within the DoE to other federal agencies. In the interim, President Trump’s executive order to the U.S. Education Secretary, Linda McMahon, has instructed her to start dismantling the department by shutting down key functionalities.

Perhaps most consequential, the DoE’s 2026 proposed budget includes a 15% cut, equivalent to USD 12 billion, impacting a range of federal programs and initiatives. Among the impacted programs, the budget makes no request for funding to support teacher and school leader incentive grants, the Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED), and the Education Innovation and Research program for the 2026 fiscal year. Justification for proposed defunding includes the verbiage, “Elimination of this program is part of the Administration’s overall effort to restore fiscal discipline and reduce the federal role in education” (U.S. Department of Education, 2025c, p. 20).

Massive workforce reduction of the DoE by the Trump administration has been regarded as tantamount to dismantling it, impacting several federal programs. Knox (2025) reports that former and current staff have complaints about a lack of capacity to fulfill legislative duties such as administering federal student aid and enforcing anti-discrimination laws. Similarly, funding cuts to other entities within the department also impact capacity and, thus, organizational efficiency. For instance, the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), the open-access public library of educational documents funded and managed by the DoE, ceased operation in April because of loss of funding (Barshay, 2025).

In addition to strategic moves to undermine the capacity of the DoE, the administration has extensively leveraged executive orders to curtail the initiatives and impact of the federal government on higher education. C. Jackson et al. (2025) argue that roughly USD 1 billion in federal contracts for educational research held under the Institute of Education Sciences, the research, evaluation, statistics, and assessment arm of the U.S. Department of Education (IES), have been canceled. Educational organizations and scholars have raised concerns about the impact that dismantling the IES will have on educational research, impacting scholars’ and policymakers’ ability to advance evidence-based policies (F. J. Levine & Scott, 2025). Widespread cancellation of research contracts and grants through entities such as the National Science Foundation created havoc across the United States and internationally, as it pertains to USAID projects.

Federally funded datasets and associated efforts to support their usage have also been caught in the crossfire, with more than 3000 datasets being impacted (Palmer, 2025). As one example, efforts to train college officials and researchers on how to use and report data to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), which is used to track trends in higher education enrollment, completion, financial aid usage, and other institutional characteristics, have since been terminated (Blake, 2025).

Programs for institutions seeking to redress the impact of systemic inequities on marginalized students (e.g., HBCUs, diversity initiatives, etc.) have not escaped these attacks. One of President Trump’s first acts was signing the Presidential Action titled, Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing, an order to terminate initiatives, offices, and positions that address DEI within 60 days (Trump, 2025). The act criticizes the DEI initiatives of the former administration as forcing “illegal and immoral discrimination programs”. In another order, the president moved an initiative for supporting Historically Black Colleges and Universities from the DoE to the oversight of the White House, though the exact intentions are unclear. More recently, the DoE ended discretionary funding to Minority Serving Institutions, alleging discrimination in programs that exclusively benefit institutions that meet racial quotas (U.S. Department of Education, 2025d).

Two interrelated political rationales motivate current attacks on the functionalities of the DoE and the eventual plan to return complete control of education back to states. Underscoring the two reasons is the ideological value of conservative legislators, one that opposes the existence and priorities of the education department.

On the one hand, Republican legislators have long held that education belonged to states and historically pushed against the centralization of education policies. Perhaps the earliest depiction of this was under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, who sold the idea that “states should solve their educational problems themselves” (Fusarelli & Fusarelli, 2014, p. 190). The failures of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act motivated provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to “reset educational federal boundaries”, returning power and control back to states (Heise, 2017, p. 1859; Uzzell et al., 2024). R. Anderson (2025) describes the current administration and its education policies, including calls for the DoE’s dismantling as a return to Reagan’s era of ‘new federalism’, characterized by deregulation and devolution of federal responsibilities to states.

The second, and perhaps most significant, factor driving recent plans to shutter the DoE centers around its commitment to equity and civil rights enforcement, a mandate despised by conservative policymakers. Conservative policymakers, including President Trump, have accused the DoE of being polluted by liberal ideologies. Several have defined these plans as a backlash to existing DEI efforts and the associated progress made to support racial and other forms of equity. Others, such as Rooks (2025), have classified these attempts as more than just a backlash but rather “an attempt by the federal government to roll back the clock to a time when segregated institutions were the preferred preserve of the most wealthy and privileged”, with the federal government redefining what is considered discrimination. To this end, this essay contends that current plans to dismantle the DoE function as part of the anti-DEI movement, serving to admonish the department’s role as an enforcer of civil rights and educational equity.

3. Purpose, Motivation, and Contributions of This Essay

Relevant to the special issue’s focus on the impact of legislative landmines (i.e., anti-DEI attacks) on doctoral education, this essay comes to this discussion through a theorization of the implications of plans to close the DoE on the principal preparation landscape, encompassing programs that use master’s and doctoral programs as pathways for educational leadership certification (Perrone & Tucker, 2019). We see this landscape as also extending to educational leadership faculty across doctoral programs and their research engagement relevant to principal preparation.

For obvious reasons, an understanding of how the federal government impacts principal preparation remains unclear, leaving scholars to categorize its influences as limited (Reyes-Guerra & Lochmiller, 2015), a view that this essay challenges. As the DoE fights for its survival, one which will determine the quality of education in the United States for decades, if not centuries, it seems as good a time as any to articulate the department’s influences over the field. Thus, the motivation for this essay and justification for its attention to principal preparation programs is undergirded by two sets of empirical findings that support arguments of principal preparation programs’ mediating influence on students’ experiences and outcomes (Donmoyer et al., 2012).

First, empirical studies have found that principals are second only to teachers in terms of impact on student achievement (Grissom et al., 2021; Leithwood et al., 2004). However, when one ponders the cumulative effects of principals over teachers, one might, in fact, speculate that principals’ influences are indeed larger. Because of these influences, states have sought to regulate entry into the principal pipeline by using principal preparation programs as gatekeepers. This gatekeeping role is supported by E. Anderson and Reynolds (2015), who found that most states require school leaders’ completion of a master’s degree in educational leadership—typically offered by principal preparation programs—as a condition of administrative licensure.

Juxtaposed with findings of positive effects of some preparation programs on graduates’ learning and career outcomes (M. Jackson, 2024a; Darling-Hammond et al., 2007; Davis & Darling-Hammond, 2012; Orr & Barber, 2009; Orr, 2011), there are reasons to believe the quality of principal preparation programs is a major predictor of school leaders’ effectiveness. For these reasons, the past two decades have witnessed increased investment from non-profit organizations such as the Wallace Foundation, states, and the DoE (M. Jackson, forthcoming-b; Orr, 2011; Darling-Hammond et al., 2022; Sanzo, 2017; Young et al., 2017). These investments underscore the notion that any effort to improve leadership effectiveness must include a comparable focus on leadership preparation and development (Espinoza & Cardichon, 2017), motivating the need to understand how current anti-DEI efforts might impact preparation programs’ ability to train educational leaders who are prepared to successfully improve schools for all students.

This essay makes at least two contributions that intersect with the bodies of literature on principal preparation and federal policies. First, few studies have offered discussions regarding federal policies and their implications for principal preparation and development. The existing literature that has done so predominantly focuses on the provisions and associated potential of ESSA to impact educational leadership and leadership preparation (see Haller et al., 2016; Young et al., 2017). Other scholars center attention on how states plan to leverage these provisions to support principal preparation, though these usually provide no evidence of actual implementation or impact (e.g., De Voto & Reedy, 2019; Espinoza & Cardichon, 2017; Reid et al., 2020). In addition to broadening the scope of federal policies examined, this essay provides insights into the DoE’s initiatives, with specific attention to their impact on the principal preparation landscape. Second, using these findings as an entry point to understand the impact of federal policies on principal preparation, we problematize existing plans to shutter the DoE. By doing this, we articulate arguments about the impact of the DoE on the field, which could support advocacy efforts.

Structure of the Paper

To organize these arguments, the rest of this paper is organized as follows. First, the role of the federal government is discussed, traced to the establishment of the Department of Education, and notable federal education policies. Then, the influence of federal policies in higher education is examined, with specific attention to major federal initiatives impacting the operations of principal preparation programs. We then identify common themes of federal influence over principal preparation, using this to inform the problematization of plans to dismantle the DoE. This essay concludes with critiques of these initiatives and implications for future research and federal policymakers.

4. The Role of the Federal Government in Education

Although the federal government has long been involved in education, it was not until 1965 that the federal government established a substantial role in educational policy. The passage of civil rights laws in the 1960s and 1970s (e.g., Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973) made their enforcement a fundamental and long-lasting focus of the Department of Education (U.S. Department of Education, 2025b).

In 1965, as part of President Johnson’s War on Poverty, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was signed into law, signaling the federal government’s role in advancing educational equity (McGuinn, 2016; Wong, 2020). This legislation resulted in a set of federal programs being launched to improve educational access and opportunities for children from low-income families. As one example, funding under Title I—the largest source of federal funding—was earmarked for schools serving high concentrations of economically disadvantaged students. Relatedly, the Higher Education Act of 1965 established funding to support student financial aid programs, including grants and loans, to make colleges more accessible and affordable, particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

4.1. The Establishment of the Department of Education [DoE]

Federal presence in U.S. education is a long and convoluted battle that culminated in departmental status for education in 1980—the DoE. This history dates to the 1860s, a time when federal involvement in education was limited to gathering statistical data on schools, with founding legislation denoting its function to show the condition and progress of education across states (McGuinn, 2015; Stallings, 2002). Radin and Hawley (1988) provide a detailed analysis of the history of the federal role in education, transcending calls for it as a cabinet-level department in the 1860s and subsequent establishment of the Office of Education (OE), demotion of the OE to bureau status, transfer to the Department of Interior, and later the Federal Security Agency, supported by continued advocacy to establish a separate cabinet-level department for education.

National concerns regarding education motivated questions of the federal government’s role and authority, which inspired the growth of federal programs in the 1960s. As the size of federal programs grew, calls to consolidate national educational initiatives under a single cabinet-level agency were heard. In a task force commissioned by the then-President, Lyndon B. Johnson, a recommendation was made for the establishment of the DoE. The report reads:

We believe that the President will wish to develop a policy calling for a sharp increase in federal support for education and research and a better balance among various elements of the program. Our recommendation of a Department of Education is based on that assumption.

(As cited in Radin & Hawley, 1988, p. 18)

The establishment of the DoE as a cabinet-level agency in 1980 centralized the federal government’s involvement in education, though this was not without opposition (Fusarelli & Fusarelli, 2014; Radin & Hawley, 1988). In fact, political opposition blocked more than 130 attempts to form the DoE between 1908 and 1975 (Stallings, 2002). Arguments against its establishment were rooted in concerns of federal overreach, with conservative policymakers citing the lack of national constitutional authority (McGuinn, 2011, 2015).

When the DoE was created, Congress noted its functions around improving educational experiences and outcomes across states, especially for historically marginalized groups, including ensuring equal access to education, facilitating community engagement with education, and promoting evidence-based practices (U.S. Department of Education, 2025a). Despite these laudable goals and corresponding efforts to expand states’ capacity to drive systemic reform, scholars have noted limited capacity at the department as undermining its own efficiency, stemming from its origins (Fusarelli & Fusarelli, 2014; Manna & Ryan, 2011; McGuinn, 2015; Radin & Hawley, 1988).

The DoE’s influence over educational policies is considered a complex process that is both cooperative and coercive. According to McGuinn (2011), its cooperative nature relies on states as conduits for federal spending and the implementation of federal policies on the ground. Manna (2006) argues that federal policymakers must ‘borrow strength’ from states to achieve federal priorities. In exchange, and reflecting the DoE’s coercive influences, federal policies have pushed states to institute unpopular educational reform, especially in areas of equitable funding and access (McGuinn, 2015). As a result, the existence of the DoE has been contentious, as have its educational policies, resulting in their popularity increasing and decreasing over time.

4.2. Notable Federal Education Policies

Among the prominent federal policies, the NCLB Act, passed in 2001, was among the most popular and controversial. Under NCLB, the federal government increased its involvement in K-12 education through top-down command-and-control measures (Egalite et al., 2017; McDonnell, 2005). Through a carrot-and-sticks approach, the DoE attempted to drive improvement across schools by using funding to incentivize progress, while using corrective action such as school restructuring or closure as sanctions. Scholars criticized these moves as resulting in the narrowing of curricula, as schools focused predominantly on tested areas. Another concern pertains to proficiency scores being lowered across some states to evade sanctions (Ryan, 2004).

The economic recession in 2007 created a policy window for the federal government to shape educational reform initiatives (Saultz et al., 2017). The passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in 2009 led to an investment of nearly USD 100 billion for education, with USD 4 billion earmarked for the Race to the Top (RtTT) initiative, a competitive grant program used to incentivize states to embrace the administration’s priorities on improving low-performing schools. The initiative has been heralded for revolutionizing the role of the federal government in education. Three elements undergirded the initiative’s philosophy: an emphasis on the ends, “tight on goals but loose on the means”, a shift from a sanction- to an incentive-based way of motivating state reform, and a revisioning of the DoE’s role in facilitating capacity-building and innovation, moving away from compliance monitoring (McGuinn, 2011).

The reauthorization of ESEA as ESSA in 2015 replaced the NCLB and marked a significant shift in federal policies, reversing decades of centralizing educational policies. Amidst bipartisan backlash against federal overreach resulting from the NCLB sanctions, ESSA returned control of education to states, reducing its involvement in K-12 education (Uzzell et al., 2024). As scholars emphasized, ESSA was designed to address the criticisms of NCLB’s rigid, test-driven accountability structure by increasing flexibility and states’ capacity through increased resource allocation. The devolution of the federal role in education has been speculated to be a ‘retreat from equity’ (Fusarelli & Ayscue, 2019), though several scholars have noted key provisions of the law that retain protection for marginalized groups (see Ayscue et al., 2023; Cook-Harvey et al., 2016; Egalite et al., 2017).

Finally, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 again created an imperative for the federal government’s involvement in the response and recovery efforts across schools. Through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds, USD 190 billion was allotted by Congress to support and expand states’ and, by extension, their districts’ ability to mediate the impact of the pandemic on their constituencies. Passed in three waves, ESSER funds were used to address COVID-19 learning loss and facilitate schools reopening. As Thelen-Creps et al. (2022) explain, these funds were explicitly designed to address COVID-19-exacerbated inequities, as evidenced by the legislation’s equity provision, which mandates that historically disadvantaged students—including students from low-income families, students of color, English learners, students with disabilities, and students experiencing homelessness—must receive an equitable share of state and local funds in states’ COVID-19 response. Early studies on school and district responses support this argument, acknowledging increased attention to equity across institutions, which was in part attributed to the availability of ESSER funds (see M. Jackson, 2024b; M. Jackson et al., 2024).

Despite disagreements regarding the appropriateness of federal powers in education, based on the policies discussed above, the federal government has impacted educational policies in at least three ways. First, and perhaps most obvious, federal policies, though typically centered attention on K-12 reform, have been incidental to the development and integration of public education in the U.S. (McGuinn, 2015; Radin & Hawley, 1988). Through especially NCLB, the federal government has established a more formal role in promoting improved and equitable educational outcomes (Manna & Ryan, 2011). Subsequent initiatives, such as RtTT, further highlight the federal role in incentivizing attention to improving low-performing schools across several priorities. Next, and central to its civil rights enforcement role, the DoE has long been concerned with the experiences and outcomes of marginalized students, which is evident in its policy priorities. Attentiveness to equity has undergirded federal policies and programs to facilitate improvement for schools serving historically marginalized students, funding to mediate access and resources gaps, and support and protection for their inclusion across public education. Finally, the federal government has often acted as a savior for the field of education during times of crisis, rushing with its financial powers to address states’ deficiencies in combating the impact of different crises on education. The economic recession of 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic are noteworthy examples that saw larger and more substantive financial support from the federal government (Shores & Steinberg, 2022).

5. Principal Preparation Programs and Federal Influences

To situate later arguments of federal programs and their influences over principal preparation programs, we first provide an overview of the principal preparation landscape.

5.1. Overview of the Principal Preparation Landscape

The leadership preparation landscape encompasses educational leadership programs and their associated credentials in educational leadership. These credentials typically qualify candidates to be school and district leaders and are offered across four types of certifications: specialist, add-on, master’s, and doctoral degrees.

Scholars have found a significant increase in the number of programs in educational leadership and an associated number of degrees and certifications from 1993 to 2014 (Baker et al., 2007; Perrone & Tucker, 2019). As of 2014, Perrone and Tucker (2019) report a total of 705 institutions offering one or more certificates and degrees in educational leadership across the four levels. They also noted that a greater number of institutions offered master’s degrees, compared to the other areas, which makes sense given state-level licensure mandates requiring said (see E. Anderson & Reynolds, 2015). In addition to this traditional pathway, scholars have noted an increase in the number of non-university-based providers, typically referred to as alternative pathways. Although there is limited empirical knowledge on their operations, at least 32 states have legitimized their existence (E. Anderson & Reynolds, 2015).

As the number of educational leadership programs in operation increases, so have criticisms about their quality and the need for greater accountability. Undergirding these concerns and associated efforts to remedy these shortcomings is the gatekeeping role played by these programs over the principal pipeline. Consequently, criticisms of principals’ inefficiencies and unpreparedness for different leadership responsibilities are often conflated with the shortcomings of principal preparation programs (see Darling-Hammond et al., 2010; Herrington & Wills, 2005; A. Levine, 2005; Miller & Martin, 2015). In the words of former UCEA executive director Michelle Young, “[t]here is a pervasive and ongoing perception that leadership preparation is a problem” (Young, 2013, p. 247). While an array of criticisms has been levied at preparation programs (see Young et al., 2009), we focus on three dominant ones that have persisted.

First, and perhaps the most enduring, preparation programs are extensively criticized for their overly theoretical emphasis, which scholars have argued is disconnected from the realities of school leadership (Farkas et al., 2001). In a classic critique of preparation programs, Bridges and Hallinger (1997) noted the lack of “meaningful connections forged among theory, research, and practice” across traditional preparation programs (p. 131). In support of this argument, Hess and Kelly’s (2007) analysis of 210 syllabi from 56 preparation programs reported that course documents were not oriented towards the practical leadership and management responsibilities of school leaders. These findings support the earlier and widely cited criticisms of A. Levine (2005), who called out leadership preparation programs nationally as ranging from “inadequate to appalling, even at some of the country’s leading universities” (p. 23). These criticisms were grounded in what Levine found to be the prevalence of irrelevant curricula, described as being disconnected from the realities of school leadership.

Second, the traditional leadership preparation program referenced by Bridges and Hallinger (1997) has also become another area of criticism, since, in the mind of scholars, it represents a form of ineffective or lower-quality principal preparation. Despite the absence of a clearly articulated definition for traditional preparation programs, they are often distinguished by their lack of programmatic elements and structures that are associated with positive graduate outcomes; they also serve as the reference group for innovative, non-traditional, or exemplary principal preparation programs (see Cosner, 2019; Davis & Darling-Hammond, 2012; B. L. Jackson & Kelley, 2002; Orr & Barber, 2006). According to these scholars, traditional preparation programs are characterized by their non-selective recruitment, lack of coherence and vision, and inadequate program structures. Notwithstanding increased calls for preparation programs’ adoption of these features, E. Anderson and Reynolds (2015) found that few states (less than 50%) have attempted to influence the adoption of these features through their approval policies (e.g., clinically rich internships, district-university partnerships, targeted recruitment, etc.). These findings mirror those reported by Briggs et al. (2013), who found that only five states required principal preparation programs’ adoption of all key programmatic components of effective programs, suggesting the prevalence of traditional forms of principal preparation across the United States, despite decades of extensive criticisms.

Another area of criticism pertains to the limited attention among preparation programs to preparing school leaders to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student population. These arguments are supported by two lines of research. Studies have reported that principals are unprepared to engage with equity-oriented leadership approaches (see Green, 2017; Miller & Martin, 2015; Tuters & Portelli, 2017). These findings are corroborated by scholars who report limited attention to discussions of equity, social justice, and marginalized identities across preparation programs (see Baecher et al., 2013; O’Malley & Capper, 2015). For example, Hawley and James’ (2010) survey of faculty from 18 University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) member institutions reported the relegation of these discussions to isolated social justice and diversity courses, which was often left at the discretion of individual faculty.

Although these criticisms have endured for at least the last three decades, numerous preparation programs have undergone redesign and restructuring to address these areas (e.g., Leggett et al., 2023; Liou & Hermanns, 2017; Reed & Llanes, 2010), though often attributable to mandates or investments from nonprofit, state, and federal entities.

5.2. Federal Influences

Federal efforts have, in more recent times, targeted educator preparation programs, typically housed in institutions of higher education. The DoE’s major avenue for influencing preparation programs is through incentivizing program-level reform and the adoption of federal priorities in exchange for funding (Manna & Ryan, 2011; McGuinn, 2011), though, as noted below, these have at times operated indirectly.

5.2.1. Direct Influences

Direct influences refer to those programs, policies, and initiatives that directly target the scope of principal preparation programs. Direct funding for principal preparation programs is typically authorized by ESEA in support of the department’s attention to traditionally disadvantaged and under-resourced schools. Two major avenues for federal policies funding principal preparation are offered through Title I and Title II provisions of ESSA and prior iterations (Darling-Hammond et al., 2022; Reid et al., 2020; Young et al., 2017). In this way, federal dollars flow directly into principal preparation programs, expanding their capacity to advance the department’s priorities.

First, Title I programs, though they have traditionally focused on identifying and improving low-performing schools, allow states and districts to use federal funds for activities targeting the knowledge and development of school principals and other school leaders, areas that could lend themselves to partnership with preparation programs. As Espinoza and Cardichon (2017) note, states and districts are expected to allocate 7% of their Title I funds to improve low-performing schools, with the flexibility to invest in evidence-based strategies that strengthen the quality of school leadership (also, Herman et al., 2017).

From the Title I purse, Congress authorized the DoE to appropriate funds for School Improvement Grants as a mechanism for supporting the nation’s lowest performing schools. Leveraging this funding source, the department established the Turnaround School Leaders Program (TSLP) to build the quality and supply of school leaders with the knowledge and skills needed to improve low-performing schools (Aladjem et al., 2018; U.S. Department of Education, 2014). The TSLP influenced principal preparations’ attention to the leadership demands of turnaround schools.

Next, under Title II, Part A provision of ESSA—Preparing, Training, and Recruiting High-Quality Teachers, Principals, or Other School Leaders—states may allocate up to 8% of funds to support pipeline initiatives, including recruitment, preparation, and professional development (Haller et al., 2016; Young et al., 2017). Similar to Title I programs, this provision encourages states’ attention to improving conditions across schools serving high populations of low-income and minority students, facilitating equitable access to effective school leaders.

The DoE has also used a range of competitive federal grants to strengthen existing efforts to prepare and develop high-quality school leaders through its Title II, Part B provision (Espinoza & Cardichon, 2017; ESSA, 2015). Among these, the Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED) program prioritizes the adoption of evidence-based practices to support the non-traditional preparation and certification of school leaders to serve in high-need schools. Similarly, the School Leader Recruitment and Support (SLRS) (formerly the School Leadership Program) funds the recruitment, preparation, placement, and retention of leaders for high-need schools.

5.2.2. Indirect Influences

Another category of impact uncovered was indirect, with preparation programs or the landscape benefiting from federal initiatives. We consider these indirect since these initiatives often lack any specific reference to leadership preparation or development priorities; however, the funding of the DoE has been channeled into other initiatives or regulations, which then impacts preparation programs. We note four initiatives that have indirectly impacted the operations of principal preparation programs.

First, as part of the RtTT competition, states were invited to compete for federal dollars by proposing and enacting innovative and evidence-based policy changes (McGuinn, 2011). To increase the likelihood of success, states must align their policy reform with the administration’s four priorities. One of the priorities, emphasis on recruiting and developing effective leaders, created an avenue for states to invest in preparing educational leaders to mediate inequities and the ineffectiveness of low-performing schools.

Second, the DoE-funded and maintained IPEDS includes data on the landscape of educational leadership programs and their operations (Baker et al., 2007). As a condition of receiving Title IV federal aid, educational leadership programs must report data to the department about their certification offerings, program modality, number of degrees conferred, as well as graduates and their demographics (Perrone & Tucker, 2019).

Third, the federal government’s involvement in influencing accreditation and licensure regulations across preparation programs operates through a facilitative mechanism. For institutions to receive federal funds, through financial aid or other programs, higher education institutions, including principal preparation programs, must seek national accreditation from a preferred accreditation body as a precondition for eligibility (Browne-Ferrigno & Muth, 2009; Natow, 2022; Orr & Barber, 2009). The federally recognized accrediting body for educator preparation programs, the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (formerly known as NCATE), uses the National Educational Leadership Preparation standards to accredit educational leadership programs, which parallels the Interstate School Leadership Licensure Consortium Standards for school leaders (Reyes-Guerra & Lochmiller, 2015).

Finally, the Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) program, renamed the Education Innovation and Research (EIR) grant, was established in 2009 as part of the ARRA to encourage and expand innovative practices that improve student achievement, awarding funding to support three levels of implementation: development, validation, and scale-up, with requirements at each level being evidence of effectiveness as demonstrated by studies that met WWC standards (Haller et al., 2016). Described as the Obama administration’s second-largest evidence-based initiative, the program has funded over 250 grants in total across more than 26 states, amounting to approximately USD 1.7 billion (Campbell & Quirk, 2019).

6. Themes of Federal Influence and Consequences of Proposed Closure

Here, we problematize how plans to dismantle the DoE will inevitably impact the field of principal preparation. We first do so by articulating major themes of influences from federal policies that have impacted the principal preparation landscape. We then theorize how plans to shutter the DoE will undo years of federal investment in leadership development and preparation. We organize these discussions across three themes: prioritizing high-needs schools, encouraging the adoption of innovative and evidence-based practices, and facilitating a better understanding of the preparation landscape. Although we discuss these individually, we acknowledge significant overlaps across these areas

6.1. Prioritizing High-Needs Schools

Federal policies have directed resources to support the preparation and professional development of principals across and for high-needs schools, warranting preparation programs’ attention to equity-oriented leadership approaches (Reid et al., 2020; Williams & Welsh, 2017; Young et al., 2017). ESSA, through its Title II, Part A provision, seeks to improve the number, quality, and effectiveness of school leaders to expand educational access for low-income and minority students (ESSA, 2015).

De Voto and Reedy’s (2019) study of whether and how states prioritize educational leadership under ESSA reported attention to principal preparation activities by 43 states. For example, the state of Vermont intends to focus on remedying aspiring principals’ ability to manage high-needs schools through training centered around “standards-based, data-driven, and differentiated instruction, equitable access to high quality instruction, cultural competence, subject and content-specific issues, and the effective leveraging of resources to address equity and excellence” (as cited in De Voto & Reedy, 2019, p. 185). Likewise, Reid et al. (2020) describe Pennsylvania’s implementation plan as prioritizing equity to address high levels of educator turnover and the lack of diversity in the educator pipeline.

The SLRS program was established through the Office of Innovation and Improvement at the DoE to fund the recruitment, training, and retention of principals across high-needs schools (Federal Register, 2013). Relatedly, the TSLP originated out of concerns among policymakers around the need to improve chronically low-performing schools. Sources suggest that the DoE invested more than USD 20 million to support grants across two grant cycles—2014 and 2015—benefiting the efforts of 12 programs. Early findings revealed that 43% of program completers were employed in turnaround schools within one year of graduation (Aladjem et al., 2018).

The SEED program is another initiative that embraces a similar emphasis on high-needs schools by providing funding to increase the preparation of highly effective educational leaders to serve across high-needs schools (Reid et al., 2020; Saultz et al., 2017). With supporting effective principals being one of two absolute priorities for the program, its funding has impacted preparation through non-traditional pathways, professional development, and professional enhancement, such as advanced credentialing. The program privileges three competitive preference priorities, including proposals that seek to increase educator diversity, promote equity in student access to educational resources and opportunities, and those that support a diverse educator workforce and professional growth to strengthen student learning.

Indirectly, the RtTT initiative saw states competing for federal grants from the DoE. In exchange for federal funds, states must align their policy reform with the administration’s four priorities. One of the priorities’ emphases on recruiting and developing effective leaders created an avenue for states to invest in preparing educational leaders to mediate inequities and the ineffectiveness of low-performing schools. Three of the nineteen recipients included plans to strengthen principal preparation, including North Carolina, Florida, and Tennessee. In North Carolina, 4% of the state’s RtTT grant (USD 17.5 of $400 million) was earmarked to “increase the number of principals qualified to lead transformational change in low-performing schools in both rural and urban areas” (NCDPI, 2010, p. 10).

Problematization: Shutting down the DoE would halt national efforts to prepare school leaders for high-needs schools, undermining calls for preparation programs to engage with equity-oriented leadership approaches as part of their program delivery (Williams & Welsh, 2017; Young et al., 2017). Without ESSA’s Title II provisions, the SLRS, TSLP, and SEED grant programs’ funding to support and encourage states and preparation programs’ attention to equity-focused pre-service preparation and development would disappear. Moreover, because some states might lack the capacity to independently fund these initiatives, attention to improving access to high-quality school leaders across high-needs schools would likely be sidelined, impacting school leaders’ competencies and attention to remedying inequities across K-12 schools. Thus, the disappearance of these initiatives might exacerbate leadership shortages across high-needs schools, widening educational disparities for marginalized students, and effectively undermining calls for principal preparation programs’ attentiveness to school leaders’ equity-oriented responsibilities.

6.2. Encouraging the Adoption of Innovative and Evidence-Based Practices

Another major way in which the DoE has impacted preparation programs is through its funding mandates or competitions that require alignment with evidence-based practices, such as those endorsed by the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) (Fien et al., 2021; Haller et al., 2016). Federal programs have played a critical role in supporting exemplary, innovative, and effective principal preparation practices by expanding programs’ capacity to embrace features associated with positive student outcomes, such as mentoring and coaching, rigorous and selective recruitment, partnership with school districts, cohort-based models, clinically rich internships, and alignment with national standards. For example, Irby et al. (2022) discussed providing mentoring and coaching for school leaders participating in virtual professional learning communities as part of their SEED-funded project. Likewise, the National Institute for School Leadership received funding from both the SEED and EIR grant programs and used it to facilitate one-on-one in-person coaching for principals (Masters et al., 2022).

The SLRS and TSLP have also encouraged the adoption of innovative approaches across principal preparation programs. Among these, strong mentorship and coaching, intensive and immersive internships, and partnerships with districts to mediate theory-to-practice gaps were made possible as a result of the programs and their funding (see Aladjem et al., 2018; Browne-Ferrigno & Muth, 2009; Davis & Darling-Hammond, 2012; Sanzo, 2012, 2017; Searby & Duncan, 2018). Donmoyer et al. (2012) featured the impact of one program funded by the SLRS grant competition in two different cycles. The program, described as “the antithesis of the cash-cow type programs that Levine railed against in 2005”, embodied a range of innovative practices that included, for example, rigorous selection and elaborate recruitment practices, the adoption of a cohort model, formal and informal mentorship extending beyond students’ graduation, and partnerships with school districts (p. 10; see also Sanzo et al., 2011).

Despite the lack of principal preparation specification in the RtTT competition, the three states investing in it demonstrated attention to the adoption of evidence-based practices in their own competition. As one example, Florida’s focus on principal preparation centered around the establishment of partnerships between programs and school districts, with faculty participants unanimously acknowledging the positive impact on “program content, learning experiences, and operating norms” (Reyes-Guerra & Lochmiller, 2015, p. 288). Brown’s (2015, 2016) independent evaluation of North Carolina’s investment in principal preparation found stronger and more evidence-based features across the three established academies compared to traditional programs across the state. In addition to targeted recruitment and selective admission practices, the use of cohorts, immersive internships, and mentoring and coaching support distinguished the three academies.

Another form of innovation spurred by federal initiatives is the legitimization of alternative licensure and certification pathways. Hackmann (2016) attributed the prevalence of alternative licensure pathways for school leaders to the RtTT competition requirement for states, resulting in growth in approved alternatives to university-based leadership preparation (see Fusarelli et al., 2018, for a noteworthy example). In support of his findings, Vogel and Weiler (2014) found that 24 states have made changes to principal licensure requirements since the RtTT competition was initiated in 2010. A later update by E. Anderson and Reynolds (2015) notes that 32 states allow alternative pathways to licensure. Similar influences have been afforded by ESSA, with states having flexibility to work with alternative programs (New Leaders, 2018; Reedy & Doiron, 2018; Young et al., 2017), though states are encouraged to monitor and regulate leadership academies to ensure their engagement with effective preparation practices. Among the provisions for states to yield, established leadership academies must restrict admission to aspiring principals who demonstrate a strong record of, or potential to improve, student academic achievement, immersive clinical experiences, and mentorship (ESSA, 2015, p. 115). Several states, including Maryland, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee, plan to invest in leadership academies embodying the adoption of evidence-based practices such as coaching and mentoring, immersive internships, and partnerships with districts to address pipeline diversity and improve overall program quality and equity (De Voto & Reedy, 2019; Espinoza & Cardichon, 2017; Reid et al., 2020; Young et al., 2017).

Problematization. Any attempt to cease the DoE’s functions would impact decades of investment and endorsement of high-quality and innovative principal preparation practices. Because high-quality principal preparation is described as an expensive endeavor (see M. Jackson, forthcoming-b), federal initiatives have expanded preparation programs’ capacity to engage with practices like mentoring, coaching, immersive internship, and partnerships. E. Anderson and Reynolds’ (2015) findings that few states (less than 50%) have attempted to influence the adoption of these features through their preparation policies give reasons to believe states might be unprepared or even unwilling to fill these gaps (see also Briggs et al., 2013). Thus, any closure or end to federal programming impacting preparation programs could stall efforts to reduce the number of traditional programs in existence. As a case in point, most federal programs have mandated the establishment of partnerships with districts to mediate the theory–practice gap that has long resulted in aspiring principals not being prepared to meet the school leadership demands of their local context. Relatedly, with the internship being the most valuable, yet challenging aspect of principal preparation, federal funding has removed cost as a prohibitive factor, allowing preparation programs to facilitate clinically rich, immersive, and, most times, yearlong experiences for aspiring principals with mentoring and coaching supports. The absence of these high-yield experiences will likely diminish the quality of principal preparation and, subsequently, the quality of school leaders prepared.

6.3. Facilitating a Better Understanding of the Preparation Landscape

The major data source within the DoE that encapsulates principal preparation programs is IPEDS. The use of IPEDS among scholars has centered on two lines of inquiry with direct implications for leadership preparation.

First, IPEDS has facilitated a better understanding of the leadership preparation landscape, acknowledging how many are in existence and where they are located. Because IPEDS captures degrees and certifications awarded by postsecondary institutions, this has proven somewhat useful in understanding the larger leadership preparation field, allowing scholars to provide insights about the distribution of programs and their offerings, as well as degree production (e.g., E. Anderson et al., 2022; Perrone & Tucker, 2019; Perrone et al., 2020). Baker et al.’s (2007) study of degree production in educational leadership over a 10-year period revealed the prevalence of three educational leadership degree programs: master’s, specialist, and doctoral degrees. In 2003, a total of 833 educational leadership degree programs were in operation, the majority of these offering master’s programs (57%), and almost a quarter of them granting doctoral degrees. Their findings also noted an increase in the number of degree-granting programs and the total degrees completed between 1993 and 2003. Building on these findings, Perrone and Tucker (2019) found a 72% increase in the number of institutions offering educational leadership degree programs. Relatedly, the number of degrees conferred from 2000 to 2014 saw a positive change of 102%, with the largest increases being seen in specialist and doctoral degrees.

Others in educational leadership have used the IPEDS to enhance the field’s understanding of the demography of the principal pipeline. Using this data source, at least two studies lament the mismatch between graduates from educational leadership programs and the K-12 student population, championing arguments for attention to the need to diversify the principal pipeline. Fuller and Young’s (2022) study of leaks that impede the diversification of the school leadership pipeline centered attention on graduates from educational leadership programs. Of those who graduated in 2016, people of color were underrepresented across preparation programs, with less than 30% existing in the sample. Further, they note that most educational leadership programs produce fewer than four Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) graduates annually. Perrone (2022) extended these discussions to the gender of ELP graduates, with the majority identifying as female (66%). Despite this, their representation is not matched in the principal pipeline, suggesting systemic biases against females and BIPOC graduates. Engagement with data from these sources has also supported criticisms of the preparation programs’ recruitment and admission practices, recognizing the disproportionate whiteness of their graduates, accounting for the demographic mismatch noted between K-12 students and the principal pipeline. In response, the need for preparation program faculty to re-think existing recruitment and admission practices, and strategies to do so, have been tabled by a few scholars (e.g., Fuller & Young, 2022; M. Jackson, forthcoming-a).

Problematization. Closing the DoE would terminate IPEDS, limiting data availability for research, which might ultimately impact scholars’ ability to advance evidence-based policy recommendations (F. J. Levine & Scott, 2025). Without federal data systems, states may lack resources or the will to maintain comprehensive datasets that spotlight the principal preparation landscape, hindering efforts to understand and improve the quality of school leaders prepared. Although some states might attempt fragmented data collection, without federal mandates and funding to drive this, inconsistencies might arise.

When one considers the findings from scholars using IPEDS and their significance to discussions about the principal preparation landscape, such as where school leaders are prepared, in what ways, and pathways to certification (see E. Anderson et al., 2022; Perrone & Tucker, 2019; Perrone et al., 2020), shuttering the DoE would reverse progress in this area. For example, insights from these studies have been used to understand educational leadership degree production, preparation program design, and aspiring principals’ preparation experiences, which serve important functions in shaping improvement across the landscape. Another prominent output of this data source that will be impacted is the recognition of the demographic mismatch between graduates from educational leadership programs and the K-12 student population (see Fuller & Young, 2022; Perrone, 2022), which creates an urgent need to question and revise existing recruitment and admission practices across programs.

7. Concluding Remarks and Implications

This essay examined the influences of federal policies on the principal preparation landscape, advancing a theoretical critique of political efforts to dismantle the DoE amidst broader anti-DEI attacks. Our engagement with the literature on principal preparation informed the identification of three major areas of federal influence over the field. Consequently, in this moment, preserving the DoE may be essential not only to the future of high-quality and innovative principal preparation, but to the broader promise of equitable public schooling in the United States.

7.1. Criticisms and Directions for Future Research

While touting the impacts of the DoE on the principal preparation landscape, we note several criticisms from scholars. We engage with these briefly.

Several scholars have criticized and bemoaned the limited federal attention and investment in principal preparation, compared to its parallel field, teacher preparation, which impacts their ability to understand and track all preparation programs in the United States (E. Anderson et al., 2022; Haller et al., 2016; Perrone et al., 2022). For instance, Perrone et al. (2022) emphasize that the absence of comprehensive federal datasets, unlike those for teacher preparation, impedes longitudinal analyses of principal preparation program outcomes.

Notwithstanding an acknowledgement of the impact of school leadership on student outcomes, Haller et al. (2016) note several disadvantages for proposals focused on leadership preparation and development initiatives in federal competition. Because these competitions rarely separate school leaders from other categories, proposals for projects focused on school leadership must compete against other categories. For instance, funding aimed at supporting principals is often lumped together under the broader category of Teacher and Leader Effectiveness, pitting school leadership against teacher education and development projects. Further, in instances where federal competitions are specific to school leaders, they note the infrequency or lack of funding for these initiatives. Another area that disadvantages proposals for leadership preparation is methodological issues that make them less competitive by federal standards. They note the lack of funded proposals focused on improving principals’ effectiveness in the EIR grant program as evidence of this disadvantage and lack of attention to principal preparation and development projects.

Another set of criticisms surrounds ESSA’s flexibility, and states’ and districts’ capacity to leverage it to support an emphasis on principal preparation and development activities. Scholars have argued that states have not taken full advantage of ESSA’s provision, including the ability to establish preparation academies, which scholars have attributed to limited capacity (De Voto & Reedy, 2019; Herman et al., 2017). The same is noted at the school and district levels, with Williams and Welsh (2017) arguing that despite the increased funding to support the preparation of school leaders, the lack of human and fiscal resources at these levels undermine their capacity to apply for and allocate ESSA’s funds for professional development.

A final limitation noted among scholars pertains to IPEDS and the intricacies surrounding its data collection and who is included. Because IPEDS reporting is mandated for institutions receiving federal aid, programs not benefiting such as alternative licensure programs—an area of principal preparation less examined and understood—are excluded (Hackmann, 2016; Perrone & Tucker, 2019). Perrone et al. (2020) have also found inaccuracies in the content of IPEDS as a result of program self-reporting. If institutions failed to accurately report their educational leadership offerings, they might have been excluded from national aggregation (E. Anderson et al., 2022). For example, scholars note the omission of degrees produced in the state of Vermont, despite there being at least two institutions offering educational leadership certifications (E. Anderson et al., 2022; Perrone et al., 2020).

We too note areas of concern regarding federal influences on the principal preparation landscape. We engage with these issues, as well as how future research efforts could respond to them.

Despite the extensive financial investment of the DoE, there is little empirical evidence regarding the impact of federal initiatives on preparation programs and their operations. This incongruence risks reinforcing narratives that the DoE’s influence on principal preparation is unimportant or limited. Scholars have attributed these patterns to weak evaluation requirements and the lack of research emphasis on federal initiatives, which are usually only concerned with the extent of fidelity of implementation to what was proposed, or program outcome measures, such as the number of individuals trained or employed upon graduation (Donmoyer et al., 2012; Orr, 2023; Orr & Barber, 2009; Sanzo, 2012, 2017).

Another concern that tempers our arguments is the extent to which federal competition encouraged the adoption of evidence-based practices. It is possible that the preparation programs that have won federal competitions might have already been aligned with these elements, thus positioning them at an advantage. This creates the question of whether these grants stimulate changes to align with evidence-based practices or reward programs with larger capacity that already have these structures embedded. Manna and Ryan (2011) explain that winners of these competitions are assumed to have greater administrative capacity or existing structures to easily align with the priorities of grant competitions. This is further supported by Donmoyer et al. (2012), who described their receipt of two SLP grants as indicative of existing program quality.

To address the two concerns, we offer implications for future research. In addition to faculty across preparation programs, we charge the editors of the two major leadership preparation-focused journals, Journal of Research on Leadership Education (JRLE) and International Journal of Educational Leadership Preparation (IJELP), to facilitate a special issue focused on federal influences on the leadership preparation field. We see the potential for a special issue that invites preparation program recipients of federal initiatives to discuss the impact on their programs, as well as the impact on graduates and program effectiveness. Studies that compare preparation program features and outcomes before and after receiving federal funds might support arguments about the extent of impact. Other studies could explore the innovations embraced by preparation programs as a result of their expanded capacity. To complement existing discussions about how states are planning to center attention on principal preparation under ESSA’s Title II, Part A provision, future studies could examine the actual initiatives implemented by states to support principal preparation.

7.2. Implications for Federal Policies

A final set of implications from this article is relevant to federal lawmakers and agencies who oversee or administer initiatives that impact principal preparation programs.

Because preparation program-specific competitions prioritize alignment with evidence-based practices, preparation programs in need of reform, however, due to lower capacity, might be inherently disadvantaged in these initiatives. If the aim of DoE’s initiatives is to eventually improve the quality of school leadership across the country, equal attention must be given to rewarding innovative and high-quality preparation programs, as well as expanding ineffective preparation programs’ capacity to meet these demands. As a result, we call on policymakers, specifically with the soon-to-be reauthorization of ESEA, to expand Title II, Part A provisions regarding expectations for states’ principal preparation initiatives to center exemplary features, allowing funding support for program redesign to align with these components. States could use these funds to support redesign or restructuring grants for programs, as part of efforts to reduce the number of traditional preparation programs in existence. As scholars remind us, high-quality principal preparation, referring to programs embodying the full suite of exemplary features, is an expensive endeavor, pointing to the need for funding to support alignment with these elements (Darling-Hammond et al., 2007; M. Jackson, forthcoming-b; Young, 2013).

Recognizing the mismatch between federal funding for preparation program initiatives and empirical evidence of impact, we call for stricter dissemination requirements for recipients of federal funding. Although we are cautioned against calls for evidence of distal outcomes such as impacts on student achievement, recognizing what scholars describe as methodological concerns that impede valid and reliable conclusions in this area (see Clifford et al., 2016; Grissom et al., 2019), we see the dissemination of findings relevant to graduates’ learning and career outcomes—commonly used measures of preparation programs’ effectiveness—as important (see Darling-Hammond et al., 2007; Orr & Barber, 2006; Orr, 2011; Orr & Orphanos, 2011). Thus, as part of receiving federal funds, preparation programs should be required to publish at least one open-access article in any respectable educational leadership or leadership preparation-focused journals within two years of the grant’s completion. As Sanzo (2012) notes, the lack of funding to support research leadership preparation creates a ‘compelling urgency’ to maximize the research potential of federal initiatives. Thus, published articles could serve as a space for preparation programs to reflect, delineate, and demonstrate how federal funding has impacted the operations of preparation programs and associated outcomes.

Finally, we see the potential for the DoE to directly impact scholars’ ability to provide national insights regarding the principal preparation landscape, moving beyond what exists in IPEDS. We reiterate calls from Perrone et al. (2022) for the DoE to lead this mandate by investing in a national database for educational leadership, one that tracks aspirant principals from entry into preparation program to exiting from the profession. We find their recommendation for data to be collected on program quality as crucial to problematizing and ultimately addressing the number of traditional or ineffective preparation programs in operation (see E. Anderson & Reynolds, 2015; A. Levine, 2005; U.S. Department of Education, 2004 for criticisms). By shedding light on preparation programs’ adoption of evidence-based practices or lack thereof, data on program quality could create an impetus for their improvement. It could serve as a tool to inform state legislators’ efforts to improve preparation programs through initiatives that expand programs’ capacity to align with evidence-based practices or address areas of weakness that undermine individual programs’ quality. On the other hand, programs that have gotten it right (i.e., high-quality, exemplary, and/or innovative preparation programs) could serve as models for other programs, which could lend themselves to additional research (Perrone et al., 2022).