This volume provides an analysis of what we know about turning around "failing" schools in the United States. It starts with an in-depth examination of the barriers that hinder action on turnaround work. The book analyses the reasons why some schools that find themselves in serious academic trouble fail in their efforts to turn themselves around. Beginning with a discussion of what may best be described as "lethal" reasons or the most powerful explanation for failed reform initiatives, which include an absence of attention to student care and support; a near absence of attention to curriculum and instruction; the firing of the wrong people. Covered in this volume are "critical" explanations for failed turnaround efforts such as failure to attend to issues of sustainability, and "significant" explanations for failed turnaround efforts such as the misuse of test data. The volume concludes by examining what can be done to overcome problems that cause failure for turnaround schools and reviewing ideas in the core technology of schooling: curriculum, instruction, and assessment. As well as exploring problems associated with the leadership and management of schools to see where improvement is possible and an analysis of opportunities found in relationships between schools and their external partners such as parents and community members.

"This book provides critical understandings on the causes of organizational decline, a comprehensive conception of the turnaround process, and powerful insights for transforming failing schools into the kind we all want for our children." -Kenneth Leithwood, Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Ontario Institute for Studies in Education "Murphy and Meyers do a first-rate job of mapping the territory of school turnarounds and identifying the options for educators to consider and researchers to investigate." -Daniel L. Duke, Professor of Educational Leadership and Research University of Virginia The guide to successfully restructuring schools in trouble! This insightful resource integrates research, strategies, and lessons from business, government, and not-for-profit organizations that have transformed their substandard performance into a proactive approach for renewal. The authors provide: A comprehensive overview of the literature on organizational deterioration An in-depth examination of the causes and symptoms of degeneration A two-part model for preventing educational collapse and crafting an effective turnaround A review of the efficacy of educational reform initiatives This indispensable text is ideal for district administrators, superintendents, policy makers, and individuals with an interest in organizational accountability and meaningful school reform.

Increase student learning by developing teacher leaders! Research over the years has consistently identified leadership as a critical component of school change and, as initiatives to reform the educational system have emerged, one significant line of work emphasizes teachers assuming greater leadership roles within their organizations. Connecting Teacher Leadership and School Improvement is the first book to synthesize theoretical, empirical, and practice-based literature in order to provide a comprehensive look at what is known about teacher leadership and what works to support it. The first part of the book explores the core concepts of teacher leadership, while the second part shows readers how to establish the context in their school or LEA to cultivate and support teacher leaders. A vital piece of equipment in the school improvement toolbox, this book covers such important topics as: - The headteacher's critical role in supporting teacher leadership - Cultivating teacher leadership through professional development - Overcoming organizational barriers that hinder teacher leadership - How teacher leadership can help advance school improvement efforts Presenting a comprehensive model of this successful change strategy, author Joseph Murphy examines the ideological and empirical basis of teacher leadership and offers strategies to help teachers and headteachers create productive relationships that will strengthen our nation's schools.

Lead your students to success through masterful reading programs!

The success of students almost always depends upon their mastery of literacy during the early years of school. This groundbreaking text demonstrates how the development of literacy during the crucial preK-3 years is fundamentally related to school leadership. Principals, administrators, policymakers, and instructors will all benefit from the 20 years? worth of research-based and tested information that Murphy compiles.

Leadership for Literacy features a comprehensive approach to studying the link between leadership and literary instruction. Four primary areas of scholarship?instructional leadership, quality instruction, school effectiveness, and successful reading programs?are examined.

This resource provides school leaders with the tools they need to:

· Achieve quality literacy programs through effective leadership

· Focus on the mastery of literacy among young children

· Influence the political decisions that affect literacy programs

· Prevent literacy problems in students before they lead to school failure

· Reach at-risk students and students of all levels and backgrounds

Leadership for Learning does more than just prove the connection between leadership and literacy instruction; it demonstrates how successful literacy programs can become a reality in all schools.

About the Author: Joseph Murphy is a professor of education at Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt University. He is also chair of the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC).

Understand the dynamics of change and the uniquely evolving role principals play in school reform.

In the book, Joseph Murphy and Lynn G Beck provide a clear understanding of the organizational form, operating characteristics and outcomes of School-Based Management (SBM) in the United States. Following an examination of the definitions, premises and types of SBM, the authors consider its historical perspective and then examine evidence of SBM in the current education reform era. The book concludes with a look at the effects of and lessons learned from the implementation of SBM.

The editors of this volume aim to help educators make better decisions about their efforts at restructuring by showing what has and has not worked in some of the most widely known experiments. Because the programmes examined have been in place for several years, the cases offer richness of detail and a wealth of ideas. This book's insights and practical detail will benefit educators both in schools and at district level, as well as students and academics in the field.

In recent years, students and practitioners of educational administration have expressed concern over the increasing number and complexity of ethical dilemmas confronting school leaders. The authors of this book examine various university programmes implemented by 42 educational administration departments, designed to discover how to equip students to deal with such challenges.

Ethics in Educational Leadership Programs will prove invaluable reading for those concerned with the nature of ethics and values in school administration.

This book examines the evolution of schooling from bureaucracy and hierarchy to post-industrial schools, and places teachers' leadership on center stage at the same time. That is, it asks teachers to deepen leadership in their classrooms and with other teachers. The book carries education and schooling from formal control to a social influence process and addresses the deeply rooted difficulty of focusing too much energy on content. It reveals the strong power of internal and external context and helps educators implant the idea of the school not as a fixed, immutable home, but as a relatively deep social process. It shows how co-leadership comes alive in schools. Communities of schooling is one of the three most critical developments in education in the last 140 years. When it is linked with the two other fundamental reorientations in schooling - "dispersed ownership" and "constructivist work" - it becomes the most powerful force in education since the 1700s. This book shows how communities of schooling replace the earlier pillars of "learning as telling," "hierarchy of control," and "non-democratic influence." The work also explains the meaning and understanding of school work as a social influence process where all school-based educators exert power, but at different levels. The idea of enhancing individual and collective capacity through interdependency, shared work, and collective responsibility is unpacked.

In this book, the author offers a new vision of the purpose of leadership preparation programmes, and a series of principles to guide the development of the knowledge base, instructional strategies and structures in defining future programmes.

The design presented is based on: lessons learned from an extensive review of training programmes over the last 100 years; an in-depth investigation into the problems currently plaguing preparation programmes, and an examination of the important changes likely to shape the future of education and educational leadership.

Principles and possibilities to inform and inspire caring in your leadership practices! Do you feel like something is missing in today's schools? Do you feel student success is too focused on academic accountability, test scores, and college readiness? Recalibrate your leadership with the help of this book to promote the practice of caring which, with academic rigor, is essential to effective schooling. Caring School Leadership is a research-based collection of ideas, principles, and values illustrated with numerous examples and stories that will inform, inspire, and guide you. Evaluate your current leadership practice and evolve to lead in the way to which you aspire. In addition to insights and lessons about caring from educators and human service professions like nursing and ministry, readers will be introduced to themes of * Caring in interpersonal relationships with students * Cultivating schools as caring environments * Fostering caring in families and communities

Focusing on an important emerging issue in United States' education - school reform via privatization - this book is designed to meet three major goals: to examine the foundations and the context of the privatization movement; to review the evidence on privatization in areas other than schooling; and to shape decisions about privatization in the school-reform arena.

Examines how well the educational administration reforms in Uniteed States as recommended by the National Commission in Educational Administration, have been implemented.

A valuable book for anyone involved in the educational administration process.

"This important book explores the fundamental reasons why our secondary schools look and work in the ways that they do, and synthesizes a substantial body of research in a highly readable form. It should be part of every secondary administrator?s bookshelf and every university?s preparation program."
Karen Seashore Louis, Professor and Director
Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement
College of Education and Human Development
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis

For too long, high school reform has been based on concepts and philosophies with no undergirding in solid research. Murphy and his colleagues have changed all that as they discuss how reform based on empirical evidence and a robust set of theories can create productive high schools for all students.

The authors focus on core technologies of learning and teaching, organizational systems, and the institutional linkages between schools and their environments. Using current research and case studies from successful schools, they show how to construct models of learning-driven school communities that encourage excellence. The analysis focuses on classroom dynamics of engaged learning and teaching and the necessary steps to create a personalized academic high school.

Key concepts cover:

• Defining the learning imperative
• Developing humanized and intellectual relationships for learning
• Laying the groundwork for dynamic, adaptive change
• Building linkages with home and family

The Productive High School offers a clear, concise understanding of what it will take to achieve meaningful learning. Practicing educators, parents, policymakers, researchers, and concerned citizens will find this a valuable and comprehensive resource of high school reform that works.

Building on research conducted for their previous book, School-Based Management as School Reform, the authors of volume report on their investigation of a site-based managed urban elementary school and its attempts to implement reform. On the basis of their findings, they propose four imperative' conditions for the school's success. The authors conclude with general thoughts on site-based management and school reform, and offer ideas on policies, structures and professional development that they believe could enhance positive educational change.

Real-life examples to inform and inspire caring in your leadership practices! The practice of caring is essential to effective schooling. Published as a companion to Caring School Leadership, this comprehensive resource of powerful, real-life stories will make clear the connection between caring leadership and student academic success and well-being. Stories of Caring School Leadership includes a guide for using the stories in self-directed reflection and learning, for educators practicing in schools and professional preparation programs. Readers will find stories that * will help aspiring and practicing leaders reflect upon and further develop caring as a quality of their leadership * affirm the importance of caring as a fundamental quality of school leadership * provide examples of caring school leadership in action that can be analyzed, reflected upon, and used to develop practice Stories have the power to inform and inspire. The stories in this book are evidence of what is possible when caring leadership is practiced in our schools.

Learn, reflect, and grow from 40 true stories of caring school leadership during times of crisis Each crisis brings its own issues and unique traumas, and when they happen, most leaders handle the moment by leaning into triage and logistics. This book suggests focusing on more-specifically, on the people they serve. Are you up to the task? These 40 real stories, from a wide range of schools and settings during many types of crises, show how caring school leadership adopted caring people-first strategies. This book will help you and your teams be inspired to prepare for, perhaps prevent, respond to, and recover from your own school crises. Within these pages, you will find: An introduction to what crisis and caring school leadership means Helpful lists to guide caring leadership practices A review of current crisis management literature Questions, reflection, and prompts to engage with story learnings Prepare now to be the concerned, caring, and constant leader your school will need when crises come as well as making your leadership and school more caring when those same crises subside.

Evidence increasingly points to a direct link between the curriculum leadership provided by educational leaders and the overall effectiveness of schools. Written by the primary architect of PSEL, educational leadership expert Joseph F. Murphy, this authoritative guide to understanding and applying the standards explores the new emphasis on leadership of learning, school culture and diversity, professional norms of educational leadership as well as teacher quality and caring support. Written for higher education faculty, professional development providers, and school and district leaders, this comprehensive manual will power the educational leadership profession through the challenges of the next decade and beyond.

This landmark book translates positive and asset-based understandings of organizations to develop a powerful model of school leadership that is grounded in both existing research and the complexities of life in schools. The authors-both senior scholars in educational leadership-apply insights from positive psychology to the role and function of educational leaders. The Positive School Leadership (PSL) model draws on the strengths of relationships among staff and the broader school community to communicate and instill shared values and a common mission. This book builds a compelling case for creating a more inclusive, less "mechanistic" approach to leadership. Designed to engage both the hearts and minds of readers, the text is organized around reflective questioning of educational practice and current assumptions about the purposes and goals of leadership in schools.

This book directs educators on how to experience new levels of engagement and growth by seeing things from a student perspective. It shows readers how to transform the learning environment into a challenging, cohesive, and satisfying model for growth and outcome, and how to build a culture of support, safety, and membership through academic excellence.

The seminal work on homeless students and our responsibility to educate them School-aged children in homeless families and independent homeless youth represent the fastest-growing population of homeless individuals in the United States. This volume brings the issue to light with substantial and far-reaching research that describes the plight of these children, the legal framework surrounding the issue, and educators' roles in teaching homeless children. Homelessness Comes to School also outlines effective intervention programs and provides specific guidelines for teaching homeless students. Topics covered include: - A history of homelessness, including its demographic patterns, causes, and impact on society - The various programs schools have implemented to address homeless children's needs - How schools, parents, and external community agencies can work together to educate homeless students Evaluating the scope of the problem and developing interventions for these students at risk must be a priority for service providers and policy makers. This resource will give all involved parties a well-grounded understanding of homelessness and guidelines for working together toward a solution.

'Beginning with a remarkably comprehensive and accessible analysis of the gap's causes, the book offers a refreshingly balanced, evidence-based, state-of-the-art outline of productive solutions that should inform the work of all educational stakeholders' - Ken Leithwood, Professor, OISE/University of Toronto 'No one is better positioned than Joseph Murphy to provide lessons for education leaders on this important topic' - Andrew Porter, George and Diane Weiss Professor of Education , University of Pennsylvania 'For too long, the achievement gap has been proclaimed, discussed, and then dismissed as a subject of despair. Seldom has it been systematically defined, placed in historical perspective, or positively addressed. Through thorough scholarship, comprehensive knowledge, and creativity, this book fills that void' - James W. Guthrie, Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Educational Leadership and Public Policy, Vanderbilt University 'While offering no simple pathway to progress, this book reminds us how much more we can do to close achievement gaps' - Michael S. Knapp, Director Center for the Study of Teaching & Policy, University of Washington Distinguished researcher Joseph F. Murphy has gathered and analyzed the most up-to-date research and data to help headteachers understand what the achievement gap is, why it persists, and what teachers can do about it. This comprehensive handbook: - Examines external factors that contribute to achievement gaps, such as socioeconomic status, family environment, racism, and individual differences - Covers internal factors such as instruction, school culture, and school support - Provides strategies for addressing both internal and external factors to make an impact.

"This book provides critical understandings on the causes of organizational decline, a comprehensive conception of the turnaround process, and powerful insights for transforming failing schools into the kind we all want for our children." -Kenneth Leithwood, Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Ontario Institute for Studies in Education "Murphy and Meyers do a first-rate job of mapping the territory of school turnarounds and identifying the options for educators to consider and researchers to investigate." -Daniel L. Duke, Professor of Educational Leadership and Research University of Virginia The guide to successfully restructuring schools in trouble! This insightful resource integrates research, strategies, and lessons from business, government, and not-for-profit organizations that have transformed their substandard performance into a proactive approach for renewal. The authors provide: A comprehensive overview of the literature on organizational deterioration An in-depth examination of the causes and symptoms of degeneration A two-part model for preventing educational collapse and crafting an effective turnaround A review of the efficacy of educational reform initiatives This indispensable text is ideal for district administrators, superintendents, policy makers, and individuals with an interest in organizational accountability and meaningful school reform.

Increase student learning by developing teacher leaders! Research over the years has consistently identified leadership as a critical component of school change and, as initiatives to reform the educational system have emerged, one significant line of work emphasizes teachers assuming greater leadership roles within their organizations. Connecting Teacher Leadership and School Improvement is the first book to synthesize theoretical, empirical, and practice-based literature in order to provide a comprehensive look at what is known about teacher leadership and what works to support it. The first part of the book explores the core concepts of teacher leadership, while the second part shows readers how to establish the context in their school or LEA to cultivate and support teacher leaders. A vital piece of equipment in the school improvement toolbox, this book covers such important topics as: - The headteacher's critical role in supporting teacher leadership - Cultivating teacher leadership through professional development - Overcoming organizational barriers that hinder teacher leadership - How teacher leadership can help advance school improvement efforts Presenting a comprehensive model of this successful change strategy, author Joseph Murphy examines the ideological and empirical basis of teacher leadership and offers strategies to help teachers and headteachers create productive relationships that will strengthen our nation's schools.

Lead your students to success through masterful reading programs!

The success of students almost always depends upon their mastery of literacy during the early years of school. This groundbreaking text demonstrates how the development of literacy during the crucial preK-3 years is fundamentally related to school leadership. Principals, administrators, policymakers, and instructors will all benefit from the 20 years? worth of research-based and tested information that Murphy compiles.

Leadership for Literacy features a comprehensive approach to studying the link between leadership and literary instruction. Four primary areas of scholarship?instructional leadership, quality instruction, school effectiveness, and successful reading programs?are examined.

This resource provides school leaders with the tools they need to:

· Achieve quality literacy programs through effective leadership

· Focus on the mastery of literacy among young children

· Influence the political decisions that affect literacy programs

· Prevent literacy problems in students before they lead to school failure

· Reach at-risk students and students of all levels and backgrounds

Leadership for Learning does more than just prove the connection between leadership and literacy instruction; it demonstrates how successful literacy programs can become a reality in all schools.

About the Author: Joseph Murphy is a professor of education at Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt University. He is also chair of the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC).