Foundations of Ethical Preparation: Principles and Decision-making Models
Sixteen years ago, Beck & Murphy (1994) addressed the recent rebirth of educational ethics. It was their belief that educators must be guided by morally sound decisions and encourage others to do the same (p.1). Approaching two decades currently, university administrator preparation programs are still struggling with how to infuse ethics into the curriculum. Educational leaders lose jobs each year due to ethical lapses and lack of preparation, yet many preparation programs continue to focus on administration science mentioned in the introduction of this paper.
This author believes that three key foundational pieces must be addressed in ethical preparation in order to prepare pre-service and practicing leaders. The foundation begins with: 1) teaching and practicing with ethical principles/perspectives, 2) teaching and practicing ethical decision-making formats/models and 3) embedding the ethics theory/practice in all content/field work for pre-service administrators and within dedicated training time for the leadership team employed within the school district. Of course, the over-arching goal in all three pieces is to teach educational leaders how to employ moral reasoning through the systematic use of principles and decision-making models. A good place to begin the discussion is with ethical principles.