Managers Make the Difference: Managing vs. Leading in Our Schools

Has your school survived a major initiative only to be ambushed by another theory that demands that you rush full speed in the opposite direction? Have you been told that the fate of education depends on "the search for excellence," "equality", or assessment? Is your dream of the day that the consultants will go away and let you get back to work? The irony is that some of the management ideas and prescriptions really can reverse or renovate your school. The key is to determine which ideas belong in your hot file and which in your circular file. In Managers Make the Difference , author Darlene Leiding acknowledges that enormous problems outside schools do not mean that educators inside schools cannot do a better job at managing the learning environment. She designed the book to inform and assist those who wish to redefine problems so they can be solved. You will learn how to use creative problem solving to move from a challenge to creative action. Management can help schools learn how to minimize duplication and increase accountability. With this book, Leiding delivers practical methods you can immediately apply to help you become more creative and to nurture the creativity in the people who work for you. Issues include: Energy savings, The new accountability, Good board/bad board, Standards for school leaders, Staying afloat, Angry parents, Who is teaching our children, and The monster media. In today's educational world we need to achieve significant results at a much faster pace than at any other time in history. Managers, as well as parents, teachers, and students must come together to make a difference.

Management can help schools learn how to minimize duplication and increase accountability. Managers Make the Difference will show you how to use creative problem solving to move from a challenge to creative action. With this book, Leiding delivers practical methods you can immediately apply to help you become more creative and to nurture the creativity in the people who work for you.

Darlene Leiding is principal and director of Special Education at Heart of the Earth Center for Indian Education Charter School, Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has been involved in the field of education for over 30 years, active in the charter school movement since its beginning and has special expertise in the realm of alternative education programs. Darlene is the author of The Won't Learners: An Answer to Their Cry (ScarecrowEducation, 2003), 2003 Honorable Mention, Delta Kappa Gamma International Honor Society.