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.

Teachers and administrators who understand the "politics" in schools can operate more successfully to facilitate change. This text teaches educators to identify and influence common social patterns that affect their work in school organizations. It combines literature from educational leadership and foundations of education to provide a comprehensive introduction to organizational theories related to schooling. A particularly notable feature is that in addition to traditional bureaucratic and political approaches, there is a substantial focus on recent critical and feminist theories....

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.

By addressing the practice of school leaders as a first concern, this book focuses on the skills required for smart, effective problem solving.