In Cultures Built to Last: Systemic PLCs at Work, two of North America's most prominent educational thinkers team up to examine how to improve education. Combining Richard DuFour's extensive knowledge on what PLCs look like, how to create them, and their benefit for students and teachers with Michael Fullan's best-practice research for meaningful change in schools, districts, and whole systems, this book takes PLCs to the next level.

DuFour and Fullan believe it is time for PLCs to go big, and in this book, they present a roadmap for the journey to systemwide implementation to systemic PLCs. Many individual schools have implemented the PLC process successfully, with great results for student achievement. However, some schools find it difficult to sustain the process unless the larger system provides a more positive and supportive context. In systemic PLCs, every person is an instrument in cultural change; there is no waiting for others to make the necessary chan

For many years, coauthors Rick DuFour and Bob Marzano have been co-travelers on the journey to help educators improve their schools. As Rick has focused on bringing the professional learning community process to life in schools, he has relied heavily on Bob's vast research on effective teaching and effective leadership. Bob has come to the conclusion that the best environment for great teaching and leading is a powerful PLC. In Leaders of Learning: How District, School, and Classroom Leaders Improve Student Achievement, the authors have combined their passions into one book to articulate how effective leaders foster continuous improvement at the district, school, and classroom levels.

Rick and Bob argue that no single person has all the knowledge, skills, and talent to lead a district, improve a school, or meet all the needs of every child in his or her classroom. They assert that it will take a collaborative effort and widely dispersed leadership to meet the challenges confronting schools. Leaders of Learning focuses on district leadership, principal leadership, and team leadership, as well as addressing how individual teachers can be most effective in leading their students by learning with their colleagues how to implement the most promising pedagogy in their classrooms.

The first part of the book focuses on how district and school leaders create the conditions to support the collaborative culture of a professional learning community. In the second part, the authors turn their attention to the specific work that teachers undertake as members of PLCs. They discuss:

The district's role in supporting the PLC process and five characteristics of effective district leaders

The principal's role in leading a PLC, including fostering shared leadership, training team leaders, and building capacity

How to create collaborative culture and collective capacity, specifically by fostering reciprocol accountability through meaningful teaming, time for collaboration, supportive structures for teaming, clarifying work, monitoring and providing direction and support to teams, avoiding shortcuts, and celebrating success and confronting those who do not contribute

How leaders in a PLC develop a guaranteed and viable curriculum, from identifying objectives to designing proficiency scales, and then montitor student learning in an ongoing way with specific guidance for designing and scoring assessments and reporting grades

How teams of instructors design and deliver lessons that maximize the probability that all students will acquire the intended knowledge and skills

How leaders and the system respond when students do not learn

Discover how to close the knowing-doing gap and transform your school or district into a high-performing PLC. The powerful third edition of this comprehensive action guide updates and expands on new and significant PLC topics. Explore fresh strategies, models, and tips for hiring and retaining new staff, creating team-developed common formative assessments, implementing systematic interventions, and more. Benefits Build a shared knowledge of critical vocabulary and the concepts underlying key PLC terms. Equip yourself with the knowledge and tools necessary to model effective reciprocal accountability. Make honest assessments of your school by examining conventional practices from a fresh, critical perspective. Take immediate and specific steps to close the knowing-doing gap. Move beyond planning, and start doing. Contents Introduction to the Third Edition 1 A Guide to Action for Professional Learning Communities at Work(TM) 2 A Clear and Compelling Purpose 3 Building the Collaborative Culture of a Professional Learning Community 4 Creating a Results Orientation in a Professional Learning Community 5 Creating a Focus on Learning 6 Creating Team-Developed Common Formative Assessments 7 Responding When Some Students Don't Learn 8 Hiring, Orienting, and Retaining New Staff 9 Resolving Conflict and Celebrating in a Professional Learning Community 10 Implementing the PLC Process Districtwide

How do educators build High Reliability Schools (HRS) and boost academic achievement? By implementing interdependent systems of operation and performance assessment for student-centered learning. A critical commitment to becoming an HRS is the PLC at Work(TM) process of collaborative learning and teaching. This user-friendly teaching resource focuses on: (1) a safe and collaborative culture, (2) effective teaching in every classroom, (3) a guaranteed and viable curriculum, (4) standards-referenced reporting of student progress (standards-based grading), and (5) a competency-based system. Marzano, Warrick, Rains, and DuFour will help you: Increase school effectiveness through a focus on student-centered learning and the implementation of research-based leading indicators of operation. Monitor effective practices through the use of lagging indicators and quick data sources. Explore the three big ideas associated with the PLC at Work(TM) process to implement student-centered learning, collaborative teaching strategies, and data-driven instruction. Engage in periodic reflection on effective school leadership and instructional coaching practices. Understand how to balance and achieve school and district goals using data to improve students' academic achievement and college- and career-readiness skills. Contents: Foreword Introduction Chapter 1: High Reliability Organizations and School Leadership Chapter 2: Safe and Collaborative Culture Chapter 3: Effective Teaching in Every Classroom Chapter 4: Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum Chapter 5: Standards-Referenced Reporting Chapter 6: Competency-Based Education Chapter 7: District Leadership in High Reliability Schools Appendix References and Resources Index