School reform is a top priority for governments today. This timely and challenging book, edited by leading international researchers, Kathryn Riley and Karen Seashore Louis, offers a rich comparative perspective on leadership for change and school reform. Contributors form North America, Europe and Australia demonstrate how school leadership is influenced by global pressures, differing national and state contexts and local concerns. They illustrate the limitations of reform initiatives which focus on school leaders tot he exclusion of the many other organisations which affect school, such as...

Improving education is a key priority for governments around the world. While many suggestions on how best to achieve this are currently under debate, years of academic research have already revealed more about how to encourage change than is sometimes assumed.

This volume brings together for the first time some of the most significant work of Karen Seashore Louis, one of the foremost thinkers and researchers in the field. Organizing for School Change presents a unique variety of research-based results from studies conducted over the past twenty-five years. What emerges is...

This volume examines how the work of principals is being reshaped by transformational reform measures, as well as how the principals themselves are shaping initiatives. The authors explore the challenges and possiblities for principals in restructuring schools, and analyze nine case studies which highlight the changing role of the principal.

School-based professional community is a concept that portrays teachers as working together towards a set of shared goals of improved professionalism for themselves and increased learning opportunities for students. Attempts to put this into practice in urban schools in the United States have met with varying degrees of success. Using case studies, the contributors to this book examine the reasons for this inconsistency, focusing on the structural, social and human relations conditions of schooling.

The authors offer a practical approach to creating a reorganized, fully-integrated student support community that contributes to increasing academic success.

The authors offer a practical approach to creating a reorganized, fully-integrated student support community that contributes to increasing academic success.

This volume presents the view that what matters most are learning processes in organizations and ways of enhancing the sophistication and power of these processes. Each contributor, therefore, explicitly addresses the meaning(s) of organizational learning which they have adopted themselves.

Administrators will learn to diagnose and shape school culture, rethink organizational structures and decision-making processes, and promote organizational learning to improve teaching and learning.

Administrators will learn to diagnose and shape school culture, rethink organizational structures and decision-making processes, and promote organizational learning to improve teaching and learning.

Drawing from a wealth of research and experience, this book shows educators how to use the transformative power of professional learning in community to raise the professional stature of educators. The authors, experts in their field, provide clear steps and real-school examples with a focus on collaborative adult learning for student gains, community respect, professional satisfaction, and collegial support. They examine pitfalls and distractions, and show clear images of what empowered Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) look like for teachers, administrators, and leaders at the school...