Don’t jump from problem to solution without first investigating root causes. This book helps you more accurately focus on school improvement issues, so you can avoid wasting precious time and resources. It is clearly written, contains lots of real examples, and is presented in a style and format designed for the non-expert. It will help you make decisions which will improve learning for all students.
This book will help you understand how to integrate data-based decisions into the daily work of the school. It is a practical and relevant handbook for converting data into wise decision-making and planning. It will give you the skills to successfully make data-based decisions, measure student learning and program effectiveness, evaluate student progress, use data to improve instruction, integrate a "Dynamic Planning" process into the daily operation of your school.
Implement the Common Core State Standards with downloadable reproducibles, lists of resources to support the many topics affected, discussion questions, and relevant information to share with your colleagues. Explore the background of the standards and the changes that must take place to meet them. The authors offer five principles for school leaders on effective coaching and feedback.
This essential guide for new and veteran school leaders explores 15 vital topics, strategies, and examples for achieving successful school leadership through effective management.
The purpose of this book is to provide a toolkit of resources, activities, and steps, towards building teams to assess and design distributed leadership practice among school leaders. The author defines leadership practice as the interactions between leader and follower, relating to a situation over a period of time. The most important task is to help leaders perfect their performance of these daily routines through observation and reflection of their own practice. The intent of this book is to give school teams a new way of thinking about the relationship between leadership practice, classroom performance, and student achievement. This book is designed to help school leaders bring distributed leadership into practice, offering unique tools to help identify pitfalls in leadership within present school-wide efforts.
This updated and expanded edition discusses many different tools for root cause analysis and presents them in an easy-to-follow structure: a general description of the tool, its purpose and typical applications, the procedure when using it, an example of its use, a checklist to help you make sure if is applied properly, and different forms and templates (that can also be found on an accompanying CD-ROM). The examples used are general enough to apply to any industry or market. The layout of the book has been designed to help speed your learning. Throughout, the authors have split the pages into two halves: the top half presents key concepts using brief languagealmost keywordsand the bottom half uses examples to help explain those concepts. A roadmap in the margin of every page simplifies navigating the book and searching for specific topics. The book is suited for employees and managers at any organizational level in any type of industry, including service, manufacturing, and the public sector.
Conflict is both a timely and a timeless challenge in schools, stymying school reform initiatives and elevating administrators’ job stress. If “school is a family,” as many claim, it is often a dysfunctional one. Relationships between and among staff, parents, community and school boards may be destructively divisive, or alternatively, schools may avoid addressing controversial issues like inequity, fearful of tensions that would be unleashed. From Conflict to Collaboration: A School Leader’s Guide to Unleashing Conflict’s Problem Solving Power offers a novel perspective. Rather than impeding school reform, school leaders may harness conflict to spark organizational vitality and growth. Honoring diverse viewpoints enables savvy school leaders to engage stakeholders in meaningful collaboration that builds capacity, enshrines productive dialogue and group problem-solving as cornerstones of school culture, and energizes the school community. Drawing on knowledge from the fields of education, engineering, psychology and business, the book offers an on-the-job guide for present and future school leaders. Dozens of actionable leadership strategies are highlighted; case studies illustrate key concepts; and probing questions for school leaders and school improvement teams follow each chapter. In a step-by-step process, the book demonstrates how the techniques of design thinking may be applied to build a school’s “conflict agility.”
Written by experienced leaders in gifted education, this book is a foundational guide for supervisors, administrators, and districts seeking to create culturally responsive and equity-focused gifted policies and programs. Engaging chapters supported by real-world vignettes and interactive contemplation corners outline key elements of culturally responsive leadership and the administrative actions necessary for disrupting systems of oppression within gifted programs. Topics covered include culturally responsive gifted education, multitiered systems of support, authentic family engagement, the use of data to inform systemic change, and more. Featuring authentic applications of culturally responsive gifted leadership practices and an innovative tool to evaluate gifted program inclusivity, this book is essential reading for all current and future leaders in gifted education.
This timely and essential book provides a comprehensive guide for school leaders who desire to engage their school communities in transformative systemic change. Sharon I. Radd, Gretchen Givens Generett, Mark Anthony Gooden, and George Theoharis offer five practices to increase educational equity and eliminate marginalization based on race, disability, socioeconomics, language, gender and sexual identity, and religion. For each dimension of diversity, the authors provide background information for understanding the current realities in schools and beyond, and they suggest "disruptive practices" to replace the status quo in order to achieve full inclusion and educational excellence for every child. Assuming that leadership to create equity is a unique practice, the book offers * Clear explanations of foundational terms and concepts, such as equity, systemic inequity, paradigms and cognitive dissonance, and privilege; * Specific recommendations for how to build support and sustainability by engaging colleagues and other stakeholders in constructive dialogues with multiple perspectives; * Detailed descriptions of routines and roles for building effective equity-leadership teams; * Guidelines and tools for performing an equity audit, including environmental scans; * A change framework to skillfully transform your system; and * Reflection activities for self-discovery, understanding, and personal and professional growth. A call to action that is both passionate and practical, Five Practices for Equity-Focused School Leadership is an indispensable roadmap for educators undertaking the journey toward an education system that acknowledges and advances the worth and potential of all students.
