This book takes a practical look at how standards in education can be raised. It cuts through jargon and shows how ideas and intentions can be translated into effective action that will help a school.
This work brings together various improvement strategies, including action research, systematic problem solving, teacher effectiveness, educational change staff development, to provide a comprehensive account of school improvement.
Learn how successful principals make a difference in their school’s performance! Based on a ground-breaking study and numerous firsthand accounts, this illuminating book captures unique perspectives from 20 outstanding principals, representing a wide range of urban and rural schools. This resource includes: The nine personal characteristics that help principals lead high-performing schools Practical strategies for balancing both administrative responsibilities and instructional leadership Guidance on using a systems-development approach to support excellence at every level Discussion of the use of research and data for school improvement Tips and suggestions from effective principals, along with recommended resources for further learning
This fascinating book focuses on those who are most affected by changes in education policy and systems—the pupils. It draws on empirical evidence from a number of research projects and distils this into a compelling account of contemporary schooling from the pupils' perspective. Jean Rudduck calls for a shift in the way we currently view young people at school and sets out a case for radically rethinking aspects of school organization, relationships and practice. Her research confirms that we need to see pupils differently, to re-assess their capabilities and reflect on what they are capable of being and doing.
How to Help Your School Thrive Without Breaking the Bank will help you improve your school without investing in externally developed, expensive, and time-consuming reform programs or initiatives. It's packed with replicable strategies and practical tools that educators in any school can incorporate to transform the culture and improve student achievement and professional practice. You'll learn how to * Hone your own leadership and grow new leaders among your staff; * Develop a vision and a mission for your school; * Promote excellence among both staff and students; * Make the most of your time and facilitate effective meetings; and * Mine and use data with purpose. For most schools, times are tough and money is tight—but school leaders must still focus on how to steadily improve student achievement. Academic performance will improve in the long term only if your school has a healthy culture marked by integrity, a strong work ethic, collaboration, and reflective risk taking. Strengthening those foundational elements will help you sustain positive change in your school, even in difficult economic times. The good news is that you already have the resources you need to help your school thrive. This book will help you to maximize them.
This book shows school leaders how they can infuse their daily practice with an examination of the actions they take to improve their schools. It identifies eight steps that inform the school improvement process and boost student achievement. These steps provide a framework for examining school improvement as part of a genuine process with meaning and value for all those involved.
As a field, education has largely failed to learn from experience. Time after time, promising education reforms fall short of their goals and are abandoned as other promising ideas take their place. In Learning to Improve, the authors argue for a new approach. Rather than “implementing fast and learning slow,” they believe educators should adopt a more rigorous approach to improvement that allows the field to “learn fast to implement well.” Using ideas borrowed from improvement science, the authors show how a process of disciplined inquiry can be combined with the use of networks to identify, adapt, and successfully scale up promising interventions in education. Organized around six core principles, the book shows how “networked improvement communities” can bring together researchers and practitioners to accelerate learning in key areas of education. Examples include efforts to address the high rates of failure among students in community college remedial math courses and strategies for improving feedback to novice teachers. Learning to Improve offers a new paradigm for research and development in education that promises to be a powerful driver of improvement for the nation’s schools and colleges.
Provides specific information on how to transform schools into results-oriented professional learning communities, describing the best practices that have been used by schools nationwide.
The founder of Teach for America details the lessons learned during the organization's twenty-year existence and explains how the achievement gap in U.S. education can be closed.