School Leaders

The Exam You Sit
a Decade Later

The national principal and superintendent assessments, the Texas principal and superintendent exams, Florida’s leadership examination and the state leader exams — with data cases and constructed responses graded against the rubric.

On the same subscription as the teaching tests. Nothing you proved on the way here is thrown away.

Shapes

The Exams, as Published

Long tests with substantial written sections, built to leadership standards rather than to teaching ones.
A candidate who studied for these the way they studied for a content test tends to find that out late.

Published shapes of the school-leader examinations
ExamShape, as published
School Leaders Licensure Assessment120 selected-response questions plus four constructed responses in four hours, reported on a 100–200 scale with 151 to pass in most states that use it.
School Superintendent Assessment120 selected-response questions plus three constructed responses in three hours.
Texas principal and superintendentThe TExES Principal as Instructional Leader exam, paired with a separate Performance Assessment for School Leaders, and the superintendent exam — on the series’ 100–300 scale with 240 to pass.
FloridaFELE — the state’s educational leadership examination, in the shape Florida publishes.
New York, Georgia, CaliforniaNYSTCE School Building Leader, GACE® Educational Leadership, and CPACE for California administrators — each to its own framework.

From each program’s published framework as of August 2026. Passing scores are set by the state, the exam fee is the vendor’s, and which exam your state requires for which administrative certificate is your state education agency’s answer. These exams are among the more expensive on the roster, which is its own argument for being ready before you sit one.

On pass rates, since somebody always asks: Texas publishes them, and its principal exam has run near 59 percent. That is Texas’s published figure about Texas’s candidates, stated here because it is a fact worth knowing before you take a $400-range exam — not a claim about anyone who studies with us. We have no candidates yet and will not be publishing a pass rate we cannot substantiate.

One profile

You Passed the Pedagogy Test in 2019.
That Still Counts.

Every other product in this category treats the principal exam as a fresh customer and a fresh purchase.
Here it is the next step in a profile that has been building since your first certification test.

The leadership standards are not the teaching standards, and a great deal on these exams — operations, budget, community, personnel, the legal frame a principal carries — is genuinely new. But instructional leadership is instruction, examined from a different chair; the special-education law is the same law with more of it your responsibility; the data cases are the classroom data questions at a school scale. That overlap is real, and paying twice for it is a choice the shelf makes on your behalf.

Instructional leadership, from the other chair

Curriculum, instruction and assessment are still the largest thing on these exams — but the question is now what you do about a teacher’s practice rather than about a student’s work. The knowledge carries; the frame is what you study.

The law you now own

Special education, student privacy, civil rights, due process and employment — a principal is the person the statute means. Much of it is material you already met as a teacher, examined at the level of the person responsible for compliance.

The data cases, at school scale

School and subgroup performance, growth over cohorts, disaggregated results, and the improvement decision that follows — the same reading skill as the classroom data questions, applied to a building.

And the constructed responses, graded

Four of them on the principal assessment, three on the superintendent one, scored by a human against a rubric. Same essay engine, same unlimited attempts, same rubric shown before you write.

Where the line is

The Exam Is Not the Certificate

An administrative certificate takes a preparation program, an internship or practicum, and your state’s recommendation.
We are the exam, and only the exam.

  • We are not a leadership preparation program and not an approved provider of one, in any state. Nothing here counts toward a program requirement or produces a credential.
  • We do not supervise or document an internship. The practicum hours and the supervising administrator are your program’s, and we have no part in them.
  • We do not touch a leadership performance assessment. Where a state pairs its principal exam with a portfolio-style assessment of your own work, the same rule applies as on the teaching side: outside authorship is prohibited, and we practice the writing on synthesized cases only.
  • We do not register you for the exam or report anything to your state.
  • What we are for is knowing the material well enough that a four-hour exam with four graded essays in it is not a coin flip.

About the Leader Exams

Do I need a separate subscription for this?
No, and that is most of the point. The leader exams are on the same subscription as the teaching tests, at the same price, whenever you get to them — five years after your certification tests or fifteen. You resubscribe for the months you are studying, not for a second product.
Which leader exam does my state use?
Your state education agency decides, and it differs: some use the national assessments, several run their own, and a few pair an exam with a separate performance assessment. Their administrative-certification page is the authority.
I have been teaching for twelve years. How much of this is new?
More than you expect and less than you fear. Instructional leadership will feel familiar from a different angle; the law will feel familiar with more of it your responsibility; operations, budget, personnel and community engagement are largely new. The engine finds that boundary in the first few sessions rather than making you sit through the familiar half.
Is the superintendent exam included too?
Yes, along with the state superintendent exams where a state runs its own. Same subscription, no add-on tier.
Will you help with the leadership portfolio?
Only the way we help with the teaching one: practice writing on synthesized cases, graded against a rubric. We do not write, edit or review your own submission, and no arrangement exists in which we would.

The Principal Exam Is Already Included

$29/mo month to month, or $23/mo on annual billing. Launching Monday, June 21, 2027.

Join the Waitlist

Trademark Notice

Praxis® and ParaPro Assessment® are registered trademarks of ETS (Educational Testing Service); the School Leaders Licensure Assessment and School Superintendent Assessment are ETS assessments. AccelaStudy AI is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or approved by ETS; the marks and test names are used here for nominative identification of the examinations only, and no test item is reproduced.

TExES, CSET, CBEST, CPACE, FTCE, FELE, NYSTCE, MTEL, ILTS, OAE, MTTC, AEPA, NES, WEST, PECT, VCLA, ORELA, NMTA, and Foundations of Reading are trademarks of their state agencies and of Pearson Education, Inc. or its affiliates. None of them endorses this product, and AccelaStudy AI is not affiliated with any of them or with any state education agency or licensing board; the names are used here for nominative identification of the examinations only, and no test item is reproduced.

GACE® is a trademark of the Georgia Professional Standards Commission and ETS. Neither endorses this product, and AccelaStudy AI is not affiliated with either; the mark is used here for nominative identification of the examinations only.

AccelaStudy® and Renkara® are registered trademarks of Renkara Media Group, Inc. All third-party marks are the property of their respective owners and are used for nominative identification only.