Educational Administration - General & Miscellaneous, Academic Evaluation

Making Schools Smarter: Leading with Evidence

Name: Making Schools Smarter: Leading with Evidence
Author: Robert Aitken
ISBN: 9781412917629

by Robert Aitken, Kenneth A. Leithwood, Doris Jantzi

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Overview

Leithwood and Aitken have created a handbook for developing a system of collaborative assessment, strategic planning, and accountability in schools and districts. This book supplies not only the instruments to obtain data on how well schools and districts are achieving their purposes but also a means by which to establish achievable standards of expectation. The authors' research included studies of Canadian and American schools and involved the participation of district personnel, teachers, students, parents, and board members. The authors used a real school to help them develop their model of an "ideal school" for the year 2000. Using this experimental model as a basis, they describe specific features to be found in an ideal school and present ways to measure comparable features of existing schools and districts. They provide guidelines for using data generated in these assessments to help move schools toward the ideal. Making Schools Smarter presents a comprehensive process by which a district or a school can learn about its entire operation in order to initiate change based on solid data. Because the authors' ideal school is a "learning organization," movement toward the ideal helps schools "get smarter" and enhance their collective capacities to serve students better. This is an excellent resource for administrators and superintendents, as well as for students and teachers of educational leadership and school restructuring.

Synopsis

Achieve a workable model for effectively reshaping today's school districts for positive outcomes by addressing three of the most central challenges in district and school leadership.

About the Author, Robert Aitken

Dr. Leithwood is Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy at OISE/University of Toronto. His research and writing concerns school leadership, educational policy and organizational change. Dr. Leithwood has published more than 70 referred journal articles, and authored or edited more than thirty books. For example, he is the senior editor of both the first and second International Handbooks on Educational Leadership and Administration (Kluwer Publishers, 1996, 2003). His most recent books (all with Corwin Press) include Leadership With Teachers' Emotions In Mind (in press), Making Schools Smarter (3^rd edition, 2006) and Teaching for Deep Understanding (2006). Among his current research projects is a large, five-year, Wallace Foundation study, with colleagues, aimed at determining how state, district and school-level leadership influences student learning. Dr. Leithwood is the recent recipient of the University of Toronto's Impact on Public Policy award.