Questions the book addresses include: How will school leaders respond to changes in immigration, technology, and social policy? What effect will changing standards and demands for accountability have on their job? What impact will privatization and choice have on public schools? What challenges does the black/white achievement gap present?

As Milli Pierce notes in her introduction, 21st-century principals have to be skilled at creating strong, committed teams that can help them run their schools. "If principals are expected to do it all, we can be assured of mediocre performance, not because they aren't capable but because we have asked them to be superhuman."

Milli Pierce is director of the Principal's Center at Harvard University. Deborah L. Stapleton was a 2002 Harvard University administrative fellow at the Principal's Center.