Stuck Improving
Title | Stuck Improving PDF eBook |
Author | Decoteau Irby |
Publisher | Harvard Education Press |
Pages | 264 |
Release | 2021-09-14 |
Genre | |
ISBN | 9781682536575 |
An incisive case study of changemaking in action, Stuck Improving analyzes the complex process of racial equity reform within K-12 schools. Scholar Decoteau J. Irby emphasizes that racial equity is dynamic, shifting both as our emerging racial consciousness evolves and as racism asserts itself anew. Those who accept the challenge of reform find themselves "stuck improving," caught in a perpetual dilemma of both making progress and finding ever more progress to be made. Rather than dismissing stuckness as failure, Irby embraces it as an inextricable part of the improvement process. Irby brings readers into a large suburban high school as school leaders strive to redress racial inequities among the school's increasingly diverse student population. Over a five-year period, he witnesses both progress and setbacks in the leaders' attempts to provide an educational environment that is intellectually, socio-emotionally, and culturally affirming. Looking beyond this single school, Irby pinpoints the factors that are essential to the work of equity reform in education. He argues that lasting transformation relies most urgently on the cultivation of organizational conditions that render structural racism impossible to preserve. Irby emphasizes how schools must strengthen and leverage personal, relational, and organizational capacities in order to sustain meaningful change. Stuck Improving offers a clear-eyed accounting of school-improvement practices, including data-driven instructional approaches, teacher cultural competency, and inquiry-based leadership strategies. This timely work contributes both to the practical efforts of equity-minded school leaders and to a deeper understanding of what the work of racial equity improvement truly entails.
Stuck Improving
Title | Stuck Improving PDF eBook |
Author | Decoteau Irby |
Publisher | Harvard Education Press |
Pages | 293 |
Release | 2022-10-18 |
Genre | Education |
ISBN | 1682536599 |
An incisive case study of changemaking in action, Stuck Improving analyzes the complex process of racial equity reform within K–12 schools. Scholar Decoteau J. Irby emphasizes that racial equity is dynamic, shifting as our emerging racial consciousness evolves and as racism asserts itself anew. Those who accept the challenge of reform find themselves “stuck improving,” caught in a perpetual dilemma of both making progress and finding ever more progress to be made. Rather than dismissing stuckness as failure, Irby embraces it as an inextricable part of the improvement process. Irby brings readers into a large suburban high school as school leaders strive to redress racial inequities among the school’s increasingly diverse student population. Over a five-year period, he witnesses both progress and setbacks in the leaders’ attempts to provide an educational environment that is intellectually, socioemotionally, and culturally affirming. Looking beyond this single school, Irby pinpoints the factors that are essential to the work of equity reform in education. He argues that lasting transformation relies most urgently on the cultivation of organizational conditions that render structural racism impossible to preserve. Irby emphasizes how schools must strengthen and leverage personal, relational, and organizational capacities in order to sustain meaningful change. Stuck Improving offers a clear-eyed accounting of school-improvement practices, including data-driven instructional approaches, teacher cultural competency, and inquiry-based leadership strategies. This timely work contributes both to the practical efforts of equity-minded school leaders and to a deeper understanding of what the work of racial equity improvement truly entails.
School Leadership through the Seasons
Title | School Leadership through the Seasons PDF eBook |
Author | Ann T. Mausbach |
Publisher | Routledge |
Pages | 214 |
Release | 2016-04-14 |
Genre | Education |
ISBN | 1317331990 |
This book offers key tools and tactics that help school leaders navigate the complex and busy work of improving a school, allowing them to maintain success during the full calendar year. Through practical guidance and "Have to Do" strategies, School Leadership through the Seasons breaks down the challenges of leading a school into manageable steps that align with the seasons of the year. After reading this book, you’ll be able to: implement school improvement processes at high levels, build a culture and climate that promotes safety and learning, and respond to student and staff needs.
The Education Mayor
Title | The Education Mayor PDF eBook |
Author | Kenneth K. Wong |
Publisher | Georgetown University Press |
Pages | 271 |
Release | 2007 |
Genre | Education |
ISBN | 1589011791 |
In 2002 the No Child Left Behind Act rocked America's schools with new initiatives for results-based accountability. But years before NCLB was signed, a new movement was already under way by mayors to take control of city schools from school boards and integrate the management of public education with the overall governing of the city. The Education Mayor is a critical look at mayoral control of urban school districts, beginning with Boston's schools in 1992 and examining more than 100 school districts in 40 states. The authors seek to answer four central questions: * What does school governance look like under mayoral leadership? * How does mayoral control affect school and student performance? * What are the key factors for success or failure of integrated governance? * How does mayoral control effect practical changes in schools and classrooms? The results of their examination indicate that, although mayoral control of schools may not be appropriate for every district, it can successfully emphasize accountability across the education system, providing more leverage for each school district to strengthen its educational infrastructure and improve student performance. Based on extensive quantitative data as well as case studies, this analytical study provides a balanced look at America's education reform. As the first multidistrict empirical examination and most comprehensive overall evaluation of mayoral school reform, The Education Mayor is a must-read for academics, policymakers, educational administrators, and civic and political leaders concerned about public education.
Strengthening Anti-Racist Educational Leaders
Title | Strengthening Anti-Racist Educational Leaders PDF eBook |
Author | Anjalé D. Welton |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
Pages | 281 |
Release | 2021-10-21 |
Genre | Education |
ISBN | 1350167835 |
This edited volume expands on the existent research on anti-racist educational leadership by identifying what type of capacity building is needed for school administrators to facilitate anti-racist change in their schools. Racial inequities in education persist in part because the solutions that districts and schools choose to employ largely ignore why and how institutional and structural racism is the root cause of inequities in education. Yet, racial inequities in schooling can be redressed if districts and schools have leaders who are deeply committed to combatting racism in their daily practice and structures of schooling. This book underscores why we need more educational leaders who adopt an anti-racist stance in how they lead and are prepared to work toward racial justice and equity in a society so entrenched in racism. Through diverse perspectives and voices, including scholars in the field of educational leadership, sociologists of education, school and district administrators, and grassroots community members and activist groups, this book addresses issues related to anti-racist educational leadership at various levels.
Leading Continuous Improvement in Schools
Title | Leading Continuous Improvement in Schools PDF eBook |
Author | Erin Anderson |
Publisher | Taylor & Francis |
Pages | 326 |
Release | 2023-10-31 |
Genre | Education |
ISBN | 1000985105 |
• Aligns improvement efforts with two sets of standards, NELP and PSEL – no other books in the field do this. • To help ground the main points in this volume, each chapter features a case that presents a leader who is simultaneously leading a school while also learning about improvement science in their graduate class. • To help instructors use this book in their courses, each chapter includes teaching notes and an action inventory aligned to the case examples and chapters. • Uses Improvement Science as a method of continuous change and equity as a values framework—this book centers equity in every improvement effort • This book helps to reframe the conversation about how data can be used by leaders for improvement -- it emphasizes creating a data culture that allows for experimentation and learning from failure and does not limit emphasis on lagging accountability data. • This book is comprehensive with attention to foundational theory and research on continuous improvement, practical methods of continuous improvement, and the leadership of continuous improvement
Continuous Improvement
Title | Continuous Improvement PDF eBook |
Author | Erin Anderson |
Publisher | IAP |
Pages | 483 |
Release | 2023-09-01 |
Genre | Education |
ISBN |
Through this book, we seek to describe improvement science in action for educators, schools, districts, universities, and communities. This book is a venue for improvement research in education focused on the application of improvement science in educational settings. Improvement science requires extensive engagement in rigorous work to implement sustainable change at a systemic level. As the editors of this volume for the Leadership in School Improvement SIG book series, we hope that these chapters, written by researchers, practitioners, and leaders engaged in improvement science will help others begin their own improvement processes to achieve desired, equitable, and sustainable results for student success. ENDORSEMENTS: "Continuous Improvement: A Leadership Process for School Improvement brings together an impressive group of fieldleading improvement scholars, with deep connections to educational practice, to provide a powerful vision for what equity-centered improvement science looks like in action. The stories of improvement, partnership, and critical enabling conditions provide theoretically sound and practically useful guidance for anyone seeking to transform education organizations in service of more equitable learning opportunities for students." — Jennifer Lin Russell, Vanderbilt Peabody College "This is a moment of empowerment in education, with movements for social justice and continuous improvement providing motivations and methods to interrogate, disrupt, and rebuild education systems to support the holistic development of all students. This essential book provides compelling accounts of what it looks like -- and what is possible -- when educational professionals, researchers, and other stakeholders come together to seize this moment." — Donald Peurach, University of Michigan’s School of Education and Carnegie Foundation