A study released yesterday by NYU's Institute for Education and Social Policy takes a look at graduates of the city's controversial Leadership Academy, which offers educators an alternative route to becoming school principals.

According to the study, graduates of the Leadership Academy's 14-month Aspiring Principals Program (APP) tend to be younger educators with fewer years of teaching experience than other new principals who were traditionally trained. In keeping with the program's mission to place its graduates in the hardest-to-staff schools, they are also  more likely to serve at troubled schools with a history of poor student achievement. Nonetheless, the study says, program veterans showed gains comparable to those of their traditional peers, and on elementary and middle school ELA exams, their increases outpaced those of other new principals.<!--more-->

Although this report is largely positive, a May analysis by The New York Times showed that schools headed by Leadership Academy graduates have not done as well on the city's  A-F report card grading system as schools led by experienced principals or by new principals who came through traditional routes. In fact, the Times found that schools with academy graduates were less than half as likely to earn As on their report card and almost twice as likely to earn Cs or worse.

In its coverage of the NYU study, the Times notes that, while NYU just compared academy graduates with new principals, its May analysis compared them with both new and experienced principals. Additionally, the Times examined all program graduates  while NYU's study focused on a group of principals over a three-year period.

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