The School Improvement Planning Handbook
The School Improvement Planning Handbook

Author: Daniel L. Duke

Publisher: R&L Education

Published: 2012-12-27

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 1610486331

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Developing and updating school improvement plans is an annual ritual for virtually all school principals and their school improvement committees. Still, large numbers of schools continue to produce disappointing outcomes. The authors believe that part of the problem is the result of plans that focus on the wrong targets and that rely on ineffective strategies for improvement. To help principals and their school improvement committees develop and implement plans with a greater likelihood of success, the authors offer a step-by-step process for school improvement planning. They go on to pinpoint specific school improvement goals, including raising reading and mathematics achievement, building robust school cultures, addressing the needs of English language learners, improving instruction, and reducing absenteeism and dropouts. For each goal, a variety of objectives and proven strategies is presented along with sample school improvement plans. The book addresses the differences in planning to turn around a low-performing school, planning to sustain improvements over time, and planning to move a good school to a great school.

School Portfolio Toolkit
School Portfolio Toolkit

Author: Victoria Bernhardt

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-02

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1317922611

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The School Portfolio Toolkit is a book that includes over 300 tools, strategies, templates, and examples for use in building school portfolios and for planning, implementing, and evaluating continuous school improvement. The Toolkit was written to support school personnel with the mechanics of putting together a school portfolio, as well as to offer processes and strategies to move whole school staffs into and through continuous improvement. The tools in the Toolkit will help staffs create, implement, and maintain school portfolios and begin the journey of continuous improvement. Each chapter deals with one topic related to the school portfolio and comprehensive school improvement, with related documents and tools. The School Portfolio Toolkit book provides templates, tools, examples, and strategies that will help you analyze your school's data, create a vision that is truly shared by the school staff, build a continuous school improvement plan to implement the school vision, formulate a leadership structure to implement the vision, involve parents, community, and business in implementing the vision, embed up to forty different powerful professional development designs into your school plan, evaluate your continuous school improvement work, and create a School Portfolio that will organize and serve as a framework for the continuation of this work

Handbook of School Improvement
Handbook of School Improvement

Author: Jo Blase

Publisher: Corwin Press

Published: 2010-03-30

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1452230765

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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

The Gradual Art of School Improvement
The Gradual Art of School Improvement

Author: Richard Steward

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-06-13

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 0429648049

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

School improvement in recent years has largely focused on rapid improvement and quick fixes. Yet, genuine and sustainable school improvement is complex, gradual and incremental. It requires developing a culture and focusing relentlessly on teaching and learning. The Gradual Art of School Improvement is a comprehensive practical guide to school improvement, covering aspects such as improvement planning, staff development, the learning environment, dealing with outside pressures including inspection, curriculum design and the role of leaders at all levels. It includes: Detailed accounts of the steps that can be taken to create a positive learning culture over time Case studies and worked examples, concentrating on the practical aspects of school improvement from the perspective of an experienced and successful head teacher Ready-to-use practitioner resources that readers can adapt and use in their own settings Accessibly written and entertaining, this book is an invaluable resource for leaders at all levels and stages of their career.

School, Family, and Community Partnerships
School, Family, and Community Partnerships

Author: Joyce L. Epstein

Publisher: Corwin Press

Published: 2018-07-19

Total Pages: 508

ISBN-13: 1483320014

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Strengthen programs of family and community engagement to promote equity and increase student success! When schools, families, and communities collaborate and share responsibility for students′ education, more students succeed in school. Based on 30 years of research and fieldwork, the fourth edition of the bestseller School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, presents tools and guidelines to help develop more effective and more equitable programs of family and community engagement. Written by a team of well-known experts, it provides a theory and framework of six types of involvement for action; up-to-date research on school, family, and community collaboration; and new materials for professional development and on-going technical assistance. Readers also will find: Examples of best practices on the six types of involvement from preschools, and elementary, middle, and high schools Checklists, templates, and evaluations to plan goal-linked partnership programs and assess progress CD-ROM with slides and notes for two presentations: A new awareness session to orient colleagues on the major components of a research-based partnership program, and a full One-Day Team Training Workshop to prepare school teams to develop their partnership programs. As a foundational text, this handbook demonstrates a proven approach to implement and sustain inclusive, goal-linked programs of partnership. It shows how a good partnership program is an essential component of good school organization and school improvement for student success. This book will help every district and all schools strengthen and continually improve their programs of family and community engagement.

Improving Quality in Education
Improving Quality in Education

Author: Bert P.M. Creemers

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-07-03

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 1136729828

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book explores an approach to school improvement that merges the traditions of educational effectiveness research and school improvement efforts. It displays how the dynamic model, which is theoretical and empirically validated, can be used in both traditions. Each chapter integrates evidence from international and national studies, showing how the knowledge-base of educational effectiveness research can be used for improvement purposes. In a clear and practicable manner it outlines: Foundations of the improvement approach Research projects investigating the impact of the dynamic approach Guidelines and practical solutions to translating the approach into action Further developments for school improvement Exploring the crucial factors in the establishment of this environment, the authors outline a dynamic framework that helps schools collect data, through self-evaluation mechanisms, taking decisions about priorities for improvement, and developing appropriate policies and action plans. This approach emphasises educational targets and provides means to achieve them that are flexible enough to fit in with the circumstances of the individual school. The book draws upon research across the world, conducted especially in the United States, Europe, and Australasia, expertly showcasing how the dynamic approach can be used in a wide variety of educational settings A key book for all professionals working in education; academics, researchers, policy-makers, school advisors and practitioners will find it invaluable. Not only it is a must for graduate students, university libraries, and individual academics but also for school management teams, school support agencies and officials in educational policy.

The School Improvement Planning Handbook
The School Improvement Planning Handbook

Author: Daniel Linden Duke

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1610486315

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Developing and updating school improvement plans is an annual ritual for virtually all school principals and their school improvement committees. Still, large numbers of schools continue to produce disappointing outcomes. The authors believe that part of the problem is the result of plans that focus on the wrong targets and that rely on ineffective strategies for improvement. To help principals and their school improvement committees develop and implement plans with a greater likelihood of success, the authors offer a step-by-step process for school improvement planning. They go on to pinpoint specific school improvement goals, including raising reading and mathematics achievement, building robust school cultures, addressing the needs of English language learners, improving instruction, and reducing absenteeism and dropouts. For each goal, a variety of objectives and proven strategies is presented along with sample school improvement plans. The book addresses the differences in planning to turn around a low-performing school, planning to sustain improvements over time, and planning to move a good school to a great school.

Learning to Improve
Learning to Improve

Author: Anthony S. Bryk

Publisher: Harvard Education Press

Published: 2015-03-01

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 161250793X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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.

Design-Based School Improvement
Design-Based School Improvement

Author: Rick Mintrop

Publisher: Harvard Education Press

Published: 2020-08-12

Total Pages: 377

ISBN-13: 1612509045

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

At the heart of the effort to enact and scale up successful school reforms is the need for more robust links between research and practice. One promising approach is design development, a methodology widely used in other fields and only recently adapted to education, which offers a disciplined process for identifying practical problems, assessing evidence of outcomes, accounting for variability in implementation and results, and establishing a foundation for broader understanding of the problem and proposed solutions. This exciting new book provides a practical guide for education leaders who are seeking to address issues of equity in their schools and want to pursue this approach. The book provides a step-by-step description of the process, augmented by case studies of four education leaders: Christine, a middle school principal who is concerned with the volume of disciplinary referrals in her school; Michelle, an elementary school principal who wants to address achievement gaps; Eric, an assistant superintendent who wants to improve the quality of principals’ instructional feedback to teachers; and Nora, a high school principal who is concerned about the use of racial and homophobic slurs in the hallways. The book follows each of these leaders as they formulate and refine interventions to address these problems. Design-Based School Improvement also includes a series of “excursions into theory” that discuss the research basis for design-based improvement. The author—a leading thinker about policy implementation and school reform—shows a profound appreciation for the complexity of work in schools and the deep and sustained thinking entailed in undertaking productive change. By bringing theory to life and putting it in the hands of skilled practitioners, this book promises to become an invaluable resource for education leaders seeking to solve problems of equity and social justice in schools.

Data Analysis for Continuous School Improvement
Data Analysis for Continuous School Improvement

Author: Victoria L. Bernhardt

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-09-19

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 1351587862

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Data Analysis for Continuous School Improvement provides a new definition of school improvement, away from a singular focus on compliance, toward a true commitment to excellence. This book is a call to action. It is about inspiring schools and school districts to commit to continuous school improvement by providing a framework that will result in improving teaching for every teacher and learning for every student through the comprehensive use of data. A culmination of over 30 years of doing the hard work in schools and districts both nationally and internationally, Data Analysis for Continuous School Improvement shares new, evidence-based learnings about how to analyze, report, communicate, and use multiple measures of data. The updated edition provides a wealth of tools, protocols, timelines, examples, and strategies that will help schools and districts become genuine learning organizations.