Download or read book The Challenges of School District Leadership written by Daniel L. Duke and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the rising interest in school districts, there are relatively few comprehensive resources available for graduate students in educational leadership programs. The Challenges of School District Leadership takes the position that the best way to prepare the next generation of school district leaders is to make certain that they are prepared to address the unending challenges that characterize public education today. Drawing on the latest research as well as actual examples, the book spotlights ten of the perennial challenges facing superintendents and school boards. Among the challenges discussed in detail are balancing equity and excellence, accommodating demographic change, coping with the increasing politicization of district leadership, deciding how to organize (or reorganize) a school system, and meeting the demands of educational accountability. This text is appropriate for graduate students in educational leadership, education policy, and the politics of education as well as school district leaders.
Download or read book The Challenges of School District Leadership written by Daniel Linden Duke and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the rising interest in school districts, there are relatively few comprehensive resources available for graduate students in educational leadership programs. The Challenges of School District Leadership takes the position that the best way to prepare the next generation of school district leaders is to make certain that they are prepared to address the unending challenges that characterize public education today. Drawing on the latest research as well as actual examples, the book spotlights ten of the perennial challenges facing superintendents and school boards. Among the challenges discussed in detail are balancing equity and excellence, accommodating demographic change, coping with the increasing politicization of district leadership, deciding how to organize (or reorganize) a school system, and meeting the demands of educational accountability. This text is appropriate for graduate students in educational leadership, education policy, and the politics of education as well as school district leaders.
Download or read book The Challenge for School Leaders written by Ronald Warwick and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-11-28 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Challenge for School Leaders identifies essential systems and their elements that enhance the school leader’s knowledge and skill to continually improve the academic program through a faculty collaborative process. The critical systems addressed are system elements, communication, curriculum, instruction, assessment, and collaborative decision making to determine causes of nonproductive systems and solutions to remove and solve these issues. The text includes a pre- and post-school assessment survey process that involves the faculty and administrators in evaluating their school, and identifying critical areas that need improvement. This survey has been statistically affirmed for high reliability and validity with respect to academic system behaviors correlated with high academic student performance. The continual improvement philosophy is the foundation of this text and collaboration is the method by which this concept is achieved. The value of each person is critical, and everyone is needed to improve the academic systems to serve the needs of the students and the faculty. The communication linkage system as well as curriculum-instruction-assessment integration is addressed and is essential to the improvement process. The analysis and improvement of the instructional process is the key to enhancing student academic performance. The concepts and practical suggestions along with the knowledge and skills to build an effective academic system for students is the aim of this study.
Download or read book Becoming a Superintendent written by Carolyn Hughes Chapman and published by Prentice Hall. This book was released on 1997 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rather than asking students to memorize rote recipes for action, this new book enhances students' ability to encounter new situations, assess relevant factors and decide on effective courses of action on their own. It offers valuable vicarious experiences and insights by combining case studies of actual beginning superintendents with analyses by experienced, knowledgeable professors of educational administration.
Download or read book School District Leadership Matters written by Bruce Sheppard and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-03-08 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: School District Leadership Matters challenges policy makers, administrators, and academics in the field of educational leadership to reassess their traditional approaches to learning, working, and planning. The authors believe that government restructuring, standards-based reforms, and centrally imposed strategic planning have been painfully ineffective. As a consequence, student learning has become increasingly superficial and inauthentic. This book bridges the traditional divide between the generalizations of social science theory on the one hand and the world of educational practice on the other. It argues that a more promising approach to education reform is through effective school district leadership. Sheppard, Brown and Dibbon draw on their collective experience both as educational leaders and researchers of leadership, having spent five years researching and working in one school district. Here, they show how a district superintendent can successfully navigate the paradoxes and challenges of facilitating collaborative leadership in a school district with a traditionally hierarchical organizational structure. As a conclusion to their work, the authors highlight what they call five ‘recognitions’ that deepen readers’ understanding of school district leadership. They illuminate, too, ways that senior level practitioners can apply theory to practice in order to break down the traditional hierarchical bureaucracies that inhibit learning, and create professional learning communities. School District Leadership Matters urges researchers, graduate students, practitioners, and policymakers to focus on improving authentic learning for all students and argues that the best hope rests with effective school district leadership. This empirically-based yet practical book provides new insights and questions for academic researchers and will inspire policy makers and practitioners to imagine what could be and to work towards it.
Download or read book School and District Leadership in an Era of Accountability written by Bruce G. Barnett and published by IAP. This book was released on 2013-09-01 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our fourth book in the International Research on School Leadership series focuses on school leadership in an era of high stakes accountability. Fueled by sweeping federal education accountability reforms, such as the United States’ No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race to the Top (R2T) and Australia’s Performance Measurement and Reporting Taskforce, school systems around the world are being forced to increase academic standards, participate in high-stakes testing, and raise evaluation standards for teachers and principals. These results-driven reforms are intended to hold educators “accountable for student learning and accountable to the public” (Anderson, 2005, p. 2, emphasis in original). While policymakers and the public debate the merits of student achievement accountability measures, P-12 educational leaders do not have the luxury to wait for clear guidance and resources to improve their schools and operating systems. Instead, successful leaders must balance the need to create learning communities, manage the organizational climate, and encourage community involvement with the consequences testing has on teacher morale and public scrutiny. The chapters in this volume clearly indicate that as school leaders attend to these potentially competing forces, this affects their problem-solving strategies, ability to facilitate change, and encourage community involvement. We were delighted with the responses from colleagues around the world who were eager to share their research dealing with how leaders are functioning effectively within a high-accountability environment. The nine chapters in this volume provide empirical evidence of the strategies school leaders use to cope with problems and negotiate external demands while improving student performance. In particular, the voices and actions of principals, superintendents, and school board members are captured in a blend of quantitative and qualitative studies. The breadth of studies is impressive, ranging from case studies of individual principals to cross-district comparisons to national data from the National Center for Education Statistics. To highlight important findings, we have organized the book into five sections. The first section (Chapters 2, 3, and 4) highlights the problem-solving strategies used by principals and superintendents when pressured to turn around low-performing schools. In the second section (Chapters 5 and 6), attention is devoted to ways in which school leaders act as “buffers” by reducing the impact of external demands within their local school contexts. Next, Chapters 7 and 8 explore creative ways in which financial analyses can be used to assess the cost effectiveness of programs and services. Chapters 9 and 10 examine how principals enact their instructional leadership roles in managing curriculum reforms and evaluating teachers. Finally, in the last section (Chapter 11), Kenneth Leithwood synthesizes the major themes and ideas emerging across these chapters, paying particular attention to practical issues influencing school leaders in this era of school reform and accountability as well as promising areas for future research.
Download or read book District Leadership That Works written by Robert J. Marzano and published by Solution Tree Press. This book was released on 2009-11-01 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bridge the great divide between distanced administrative duties and daily classroom impact. This book introduces a top-down power mechanism called defined autonomy, a concept that focuses on district-defined, nonnegotiable, common goals and a system of accountability supported by assessment tools. Defined autonomy creates an effective balance of centralized direction and individualized empowerment that allows building-level staff the stylistic freedom to respond quickly and effectively to student failure.
Download or read book Leadership in America s Best Urban Schools written by Joseph F. Johnson, Jr. and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-02-03 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leadership in America’s Best Urban Schools describes and demystifies the qualities that successful leaders rely on to make a difference at all levels of urban school leadership. Grounded in research, this volume reveals the multiple challenges that real urban elementary, middle, and high schools face as well as the catalysts for improvement. This insightful resource explores the critical leadership characteristics found in high-performing urban schools and gives leaders the tools to move their schools to higher levels of achievement for all students—but especially for those who are low-income, English-language learners, and from various racial and ethnic backgrounds. In shining a light on the essential qualities for exceptional leadership at all levels of urban schools, this book is a valuable guide for all educators and administrators to nurture, influence, support, and sustain excellence and equity at their schools.
Download or read book Promises Kept written by Steven Jay Gross and published by ASCD. This book was released on 2004-10-15 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * What happens when a powerful school leader leaves? * What do innovating schools do to keep their learning agendas alive? * How can schools regroup when upheavals at the district, state, or federal level threaten to cripple their programs? In Sustaining Reform: A Guide for School and District Leaders, Steven J. Gross draws on his visits to schools in the midst of reform to answer these questions and discuss the triumphs and challenges that innovating schools face. Using examples from schools and districts throughout the United States, Gross shows teachers and school leaders how to sustain positive change and effective innovations, and he provides useful tools for evaluating challenges and progress. Gross addresses the critical challenges of leadership succession, power struggles at the district and state levels, federal requirements (including the No Child Left Behind Act), and shared governance and other democratic forums. If you're an educator who's been feeling increasingly frustrated and drained by what's happening in your school or district, you'll find in this book practical and inspiring strategies for refocusing your vision and transforming negative energy into positive change. Note: This product listing is for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of the book.
Download or read book 101 Tips for School District Leadership written by and published by iUniverse. This book was released on with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Effective School District Leadership written by Kenneth Leithwood and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1995-02-16 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: School districts in both Canada and the United States provide the sites for this research. Many of these districts were in the midst of reform or restructuring initiatives and these initiatives became an important context within which to understand the work of district leaders. The authors describe how effective superintendents work with their immediate staffs, elected trustees, and school-based administrators. Each chapter examines the meaning of effective district leadership from different perspectives. Common to almost all of the chapters is an appreciation of the exquisitely "political" nature of the superintendent's work. Contributors to the volume include Edward A. Holdaway and Anthony Genge; Derek J. Allison, Patricia A. Allison, and Helen A. McHenry; Kenneth Leithwood and Roseanne Steinbach; Frances Wills and Kent Peterson; Joseph Murphy; Richard G. Townsend; Donald Musella; Mark Holmes; Stephen B. Lawton, Joyce Scane, and Shihui Wang; and Kenneth Leithwood.
Download or read book The Challenges for New Principals in the 21st Century written by Bruce G. Barnett and published by IAP. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book series, International Research on School Leadership focuses on how present-day issues affect the theory and practice of school leadership. For this inaugural book, we focused on the challenges facing new principals and headteachers. Because the professional lives of school leaders have increasingly impinged on their personal well-being and resources have continued to shrink, it is important to understand how new principals or headteachers share and divide their energy, ideas, and time within the school day. It is also important to discover ways to provide professional development and support for new principals and headteachers as they strive to lead their schools in the 21st century. For these reasons, this book is dedicated to exploring the rarely-examined experiences of those who enter the role as new principals or headteachers. By giving voice to new principals and headteachers, we are able to determine what aspects of leadership preparation ring true and what aspects prove to be of little or no utility. Unlike leadership texts that have focused on conceptual considerations and personal narratives from the field, this book focuses on a collection of empirical efforts centered on the challenges and issues that new principals and headteachers experience during their initial and crucial years of induction. We solicited and accepted manuscripts that explore the multi-faceted dimensions of being a new principal or headteacher in the 21st century. Our goal was to create an edited book that examines the commonalities and differences that new principals and headteachers experience from an international perspective. This edited book is comprised of six chapters, each of which contributes a unique perspective on the responsibilities that new principals and headteachers are experiencing at the dawn of the 21st century.
Download or read book Challenges and Opportunities of Educational Leadership Research and Practice written by Alex J. Bowers and published by IAP. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the sixth volume in the International Research on School Leadership series, the contributing authors in this volume consider the history, challenges, and opportunities of the field of research and practice in educational leadership and administration in schools and districts. Ten years after the work of Firestone and Riehl (2005) and their contributing authors, our aim with the present volume was to summarize and update the work of the field, and provide a space to consider the multiple futures of educational leadership in schools and districts, as both challenges and opportunities. The first decade of the twenty?first century brought significant critiques, challenges, and competition to the research and practice of training leaders and administrators of schools and districts around the world. Congruently, the field experienced significant growth and change, as multiple new sub?domains flourished and were founded. Thus, in this volume we were delighted to included excellent chapters from multiple authors that considered the duality of the challenges and opportunities of: - The work of the field of educational leadership and administration research to date. - The opportunities and challenges of new visions of leadership in traditional and non?traditional schools. - The evolving state of research evidence in educational leadership and the increasing sophistication of multiple methodologies, including qualitative research, quantitative modeling, the ability to test theory, and the increasing opportunities brought on by the intersection of data, research, and practice. - The preparation of educational leaders. - And the emerging trends in the professional development of school leaders. The authors of the nine chapters in the present book volume took on this challenge of confronting the duality of not only including the past as we look to the future, but also the duality of the critique of the field in the midst of exciting and significant progress in our knowledge and understanding of leadership in schools. In the first section of the book (Chapters 2, 3 and 4), the authors examine the interplay of educational leadership research and theory as it relates to reform in schools, especially as it relates to serving historically underserved populations globally. In section 2 (Chapters 5 and 6), the authors highlight the importance of methodological considerations in school leadership research as a means to understand theory and practice as well as providing interesting avenues that point to multiple exciting future possibilities through rely ing on current innovations noted within the chapters. Section 3, (Chapters 7 and 8) examine the research and practice of school leadership preparation, especially as it relates to university?district partnerships and non?traditional school settings. And in the final chapter, (Chapter 9), our capstone contributor provides a means to link the present volume with the past writings on these topics, while also providing a lens to view the exciting possibilities and promises of the multiple futures of the field of educational leadership research and practice.
Download or read book The Leader in Me written by Stephen R. Covey and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-12-11 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Children in today's world are inundated with information about who to be, what to do and how to live. But what if there was a way to teach children how to manage priorities, focus on goals and be a positive influence on the world around them? The Leader in Meis that programme. It's based on a hugely successful initiative carried out at the A.B. Combs Elementary School in North Carolina. To hear the parents of A. B Combs talk about the school is to be amazed. In 1999, the school debuted a programme that taught The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Peopleto a pilot group of students. The parents reported an incredible change in their children, who blossomed under the programme. By the end of the following year the average end-of-grade scores had leapt from 84 to 94. This book will launch the message onto a much larger platform. Stephen R. Covey takes the 7 Habits, that have already changed the lives of millions of people, and shows how children can use them as they develop. Those habits -- be proactive, begin with the end in mind, put first things first, think win-win, seek to understand and then to be understood, synergize, and sharpen the saw -- are critical skills to learn at a young age and bring incredible results, proving that it's never too early to teach someone how to live well.
Download or read book Leaders of Learning written by Richard DuFour and published by Solution Tree Press. This book was released on 2011-07-26 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many years, the authors have been fellow travelers on the journey to help educators improve their schools. Their first coauthored book focuses on district leadership, principal leadership, and team leadership and addresses how individual teachers can be most effective in leading students—by learning with colleagues how to implement the most promising pedagogy in their classrooms
Download or read book Selecting Preparing And Developing The School District Superintendent written by David S.G. Carter and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Growing discontent with the performance of educational institutions is common in the USA today and little is being done to address the real problem - that of the need to reform and restructure the entire educational system. A key issue in this reform is the training and development of leaders in educational administration; as experienced "leaders" retire, so new professionals are called to assume the mantle of the "old hands" and vital new opportunities exist for those willing to take up the challenge.; This vitally practical text is about the selection, preparation and professional development of aspiring school leaders over the course of their careers, concentrating on ways to increase their overall effectiveness - particularly in changing times. It looks at changes that have been made and considers what can be adapted from existing systems in order to make radical improvements for those in leadership positions.; It is intended for use by postgraduate students in education, teacher trainings, heads of education faculties and teachers in leadership positions, school board members and aspirant superintendents.
Download or read book School Leadership That Works written by Robert J. Marzano and published by ASCD. This book was released on 2005 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This guide to the 21 leadership responsibilities that influence student achievement will help school leaders focus on changes that really make a difference.
