Leading And Transforming Education Systems

This book explores the ongoing transformation processes in various education systems, including those in Asia. Drawing on research, policy and practice in a diverse range of contexts to illuminate the process of system transformation and improvement, it provides a rich comparative basis for considering large-scale reform and offers contemporary reflections and insights into the process of school and system improvement. The book features informed critique, as well as descriptions, analyses and assessments of system reform in all its facets. Accordingly, it offers unique perspectives on the change processes, and reveals how numerous countries in Asia and elsewhere are tackling the challenge of transforming their schools and education systems.

The evidence is clear - school leaders make a difference to the learning of the pupils they serve. And yet, not all leaders have the same degree of impact. What are the factors that make the difference to student learning? Why are some leaders able to raise student achievement in schools in the most challenging circumstances whilst other leaders struggle to simply maintain the status quo? Drawing from international case study research over many years, from the experience of hundreds of school leaders serving widely diverse communities, Judy Halbert and Linda Kaser argue that there are six distinct mindsets that characterize the way successful, learning-oriented leaders operate and make sense of their professional world. These leaders are: motivated by intense moral purpose knowledgeable about current models of learning consistently inquiry-oriented able to build trusting relationships evidence-informed able to move to wise action. This book outlines an alternative way of thinking about school leadership. It examines research evidence that leaders will find most useful and suggests how they might use this evidence to maximise their learning and the learning of their students. Leadership Mindsets has been written specifically for aspiring to newly-appointed school leaders who are determined and motivated to create quality and equality for learners in the schools they serve, through networks of inquiry, learning and support.

This book provides an analysis of the impact of disruptive environments on education and closely examines national and international research-based literature on how educational systems in a number of countries are successfully transforming educational delivery processes to better prepare students for an increasingly disrupted world.

Leading for Learning Written by acclaimed school reform advocate Phillip C. Schlechty, Leading for Learning offers educators the framework, tools, and processes they need to transform their schools from bureaucracies into dynamic learning organizations. Schlechty explains how to move beyond some of the deeply ingrained and negative conceptions of schooling that guide so much of their practice. He shows educators how they can take advantage of new learning technologies by increasing their organization's capacity to support continuous innovation. "Clearly not for the fainthearted, Schlechty's engrossing appraisal of American education calls for a bold, truly fundamental transformation of how we run our public schools. Some books are thought-provoking; this one is action-provoking." W. JAMES POPHAM, professor emeritus, UCLA "Dr. Schlechty has once again written an insightful book that educational leaders can use as a road map in transforming our schools into learning organizations designed to serve twenty-first century students." DR. RANDY BRIDGES, superintendent, Alamance-Burlington School System, NC "Because education is ultimately a community responsibility, Schlechty's proposal to shift school systems from bureaucracies to learning organizations can open doors to citizens who are frustrated by the bureaucracy in their efforts to reclaim their role in education. This book is as much for them as it is for professional educators." DAVID MATHEWS, president, Kettering Foundation "Anyone in a school leadership position from the board room to the classroom should read this engaging and thought-provoking book. It's a must-read for all immersed in or contemplating the transformation of public education." CLAUDIA MANSFIELD SUTTON, chief communications and marketing officer, American Association of School Administrators

Praise for the First Edition: Sparks rejects simplistic solutions to school improvement, and honors the practical knowledge and expertise of educators." —Richard DuFour, Educational Author and Consultant "Dennis Sparks has given us a practical, original, and tough-minded book about what schools need now. An excellent book—but even more, a book to act on." —Mike Schmoker, Consultant and Author "In this inventive ′self-help′′handbook for educators, Dennis Sparks challenges and helps us—not to do something but to be something different." —Roland S. Barth, Author, Lessons Learned Improve teaching and learning in your school by fostering personal and organizational change! Authentic or transformational leadership flows from self-awareness regarding intentions, values, and feelings and its influence is reflected in a leader′s actions. Leading for Results, Second Edition, focuses on the educational leader′s role in actualizing human potential and unleashing individual and organizational energy, while promoting extraordinary performance in "ordinary" people by first changing within oneself. In this updated edition featuring 18 new thought-provoking essays, Dennis Sparks shows how school leaders can promote extraordinary changes, be accountable, and achieve meaningful results for schools, districts, and their personal lives. Using bold theories about education, leadership, teaching, and student learning, you′ll learn how to make change happen, create usable strategies, commit to action, and achieve goals by Examining your assumptions and producing results-oriented thoughts, words, and actions Deepening your understanding of important issues related to the interpersonal challenges of change Engaging in next-action thinking and applying what you′ve learned This powerful resource helps leaders to recognize their capacity for making a tremendous difference in their organizations, ensuring ultimate success!

Transforming Education challenges the current global orthodoxy that ‘educational transformation’ can be achieved through a step-by-step implementation of centralised, performance-based strategies for school improvement. Complex responsive processes theory is utilised in an original way to critique leadership myths and explore the alternative, deeper meanings of educational transformation. The theory opens up new forms of understanding about how ordinary practitioners negotiate the meanings of ‘improvement’ in their everyday practice. It is in the gap between the emergence of these local interactions and the predetermined designs of policy-makers that educational transformation can be lost or found. This book is an essential read for education professionals and students interested in the fields of complexity, education policy, leadership and management.

As the once-in-a-lifetime stimulus of a pandemic creates the opportunity for change, this ground-breaking and timely edited text is a must-have springboard for the re-imagination of education system leadership. How can education stakeholders act in collaboration to lead us into a new and different age?

Dream! Create! Sustain! is written for courageous, passionate, and visionary change leaders working in school systems throughout the world. It provides those change leaders with essential concepts, principles, strategies, and tactics for how to create and sustain whole-system change in their school systems. The information provided by Duffy is based on years of research on and real-world experience with systemic change, learning organizations, systems thinking, and organization-wide change. This book includes a description of a transformational change methodology and set of tools specifically designed to create and sustain whole-system change.

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.

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.