Problems in building continuous professional development programs for school administrators

the article identifies the problems of developing continuous professional education programs for school administrators. It describes the financial, economic, legal and socio-cultural conditions of contemporary school administrators’ activities. Based on a preliminary analysis of a modern school principal, the article shows the changes in their work conditions and identifies the new areas of professional responsibility. The author studies the research practice of school administrators’ professional development and analyzes the federal documents accompanying the development of general education. The basis for the proposed conclusions is the content of continuous professional education (CPE) short-term programs (25 to 180 study hours) presented on the websites of Institutions for Education Development and Institutions for Teachers’ Continuous Education (2014−2015 curriculum addressed to managers of educational organizations). The author has analyzed 115 CPE programs in 13 Russian Federation regions in order to identify the compliance of their topics with the federal priority areas of education development. The study shows that the processes of education modernization are the main directions of improving the content of these programs. The author also identifies specific features of how the topics of the programs found online are formulated. The study demonstrates that a significant number of continuous professional development programs lack clear titles, abstracts and curricula, which makes it complicated to get essential information about the content and make a conscious choice. Overall, the openness and accessibility of these programs is extremely low. The conclusions are addressed to methodology experts, instructors in the field of continuous professional education and developers of CPE programs for school principals. They can also be used for teaching purposes in training of students of «Education and Educational Sciences» programs.