The preparation of educational administrators has been increasingly under indictment for its failure to prepare school leaders effectively (Achilles, 1984, 1990; National Commission on Excellence in Educational Administration, 1987; Murphy, 1990; Hallinger and Murphy, 1991). The criticism has focused on inadequate recruitment and selection procedures, ineffective classroom instruction, low standards for both admission to and completion of training programs, inconsistent content “decoupled from the realities that principals confront on the job” (Hallinger and Murphy, 1991, p. 515), and the perception that graduates are ill-prepared to assume roles in school leadership. In 1986 The Danforth Foundation initiated a response to the mounting criticism of educational administration preparation programs by sponsoring, over a five-year period, twenty-two university principal preparation programs, or projects, that would incorporate several innovative elements. These elements included, but were not limited to, shared responsibility between universities and school districts for recruiting students, jointly developed curriculum content, full-time internships, and provisions for placing program graduates in administrative positions (Ubben, 1989). The following pages describe, in part, one university's response, as a Danforth Program for the Preparation of School Principals, in providing a program in educational administration that is more closely linked with the practitioners’ world of school leadership.