Full Description
"Sharratt and Fullan are an educational dream team! The combination of Sharratt's keen observations from her battle-tested district leadership experience and Fullan's astute perspectives on the essential challenges of systemic reform produce fresh insights into the most difficult, yet most central challenges facing local education reformers today. Together the authors generate important new knowledge of how to sustain and deepen districtwide instructional reform beyond the first generation."
—Jonathan Supovitz
Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Senior Researcher, Consortium for Policy Research in Education
A powerful approach to leading and sustaining districtwide change!
Districtwide performance improvement requires a focus on capacity building, empowering colleagues throughout the organization to move change forward. Written by an experienced administrator who accomplished districtwide improvement on the ground and an internationally recognized expert in large-scale education reform, this compelling book outlines a step-by-step approach to implementing lasting, positive change across an entire district.
This resource examines 13 research-based parameters for improving teacher and student performance, including advice on optimizing existing resources, and then introduces a 14th parameter—Realization—that goes beyond capacity building at the school and district level to systemwide change at the state level. Readers will find:
A wealth of school-specific strategies that support effective assessment and instructional practices to improve students' fundamental academic skills
"Do's" and "don'ts" from real districtwide school improvement programs
Guidance on implementing program assessment and establishing accountability
Help your district advance from vision to action to realization of student achievement!
Contents
List of Figures
Foreword by Kenneth Leithwood
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
1. Capacity Building: A Journey of Deepening Discovery
2. The Nitty-Gritty of Capacity Building
3. The Road to Realization
4. Interdependent Practice
5. The Devil Is in the Details: Beware of the Pitfalls!
6. The 14th Parameter
Resource A: A Tool for Assessing Implementation of the 14 Parameters: Selected Examples
Resource B: 10 District Supports That Evolved to Ensure Realization of All Parameters
References
Index
