Quality Middle School Leadership

Quality Middle School Leadership: Eleven Central Skills Areas - Second Edition, is designed to assist middle school principals in their efforts to reform middle school education through practical application of the effective schools research and the quality management principles of W. Edwards Deming. The author has worked with middle school principals as a consultant in assisting them to reform and restructure their schools. His interest focused on three questions: (1) What are the essential skills needed for effective middle school leadership? (2) What are the essential components of quality-producing middle schools? (3) What should a book contain to provide maximum assistance to new middle school principals in becoming effective leaders while implementing the most essential components of the middle school concept? Arranged to provide the reader with theory and research first, this book also provides specific examples for how this research can be applied in actual practice. All too often, theory and research findings are merely presented in a "this is what works in this situation, now you go try it and good luck" format. The research in that kind of setting is often sterile, is sometimes complicated, and is sometimes viewed with suspicion by the practitioner. Research presented in such a manner often makes practical applications difficult to visualize and, therefore, become a reality in practice. This sometimes causes one to question the reason for the inclusion of such information. The attempt to fuse theory, research, and practice is to go beyond the customary standard. Quality Middle School Leadership will provide real meaning to the knowledge and skills presented within this text. New to this second edition: Updated references, Trends that reflect research and practice in leadership in the modern middle school movement. The previous edition of Quality Middle School Leadership [0-8108-4292-0] was published in 1999.

Weller (educational leadership, University of Georgia) assists middle school principals in their efforts to reform education through the use of the effective schools research and quality management principles of W. Edward Deming. He discusses theory and research first, then provides specific examples of how this research can be applied. New to this edition are updated references and discussion of trends that reflect research and practice in leadership in the modern middle school movement. The book is distributed by Rowman & Littlefield. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

L. David Weller, Jr. is a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at The University of Georgia. He serves as a consultant to public and private schools and universities in the areas of organizational development and Total Quality Management. He has been a high school teacher, a middle school principal, a marketing representative for Xerox Corporation, Department Head of Middle School Education at The University of GeHe, and a visiting lecturer at several British universities teaching in the areas of leadership theory and Total Quality Management.