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Leading Good Schools to Greatness

Mastering What Great Principals Do Well
By: Susan P. Gray, William A. Streshly

Foreword by George Manthey

Using case studies, strategies, and activities, this book shows how to acquire the powerful personal leadership characteristics that the best principals use to lead their schools to greatness.

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Product Details
  • Grade Level: K-12
  • ISBN: 9781412979788
  • Published By: Corwin
  • Year: 2010
  • Page Count: 208
  • Publication date: June 11, 2012

Price: $42.95

Price: $42.95
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Description

Description

"This book is right on target with its thought-provoking ideas and concepts on the characteristics of successful educational leaders."
—Thomas F. Leahy, Consultant, Executive Search Department, Illinois Association of School Boards

"Our best teachers obtain great results by building positive relationships with their students. Gray and Streshly show how our best principals do the same thing and how these behaviors can be learned and practiced."
—Kevin Singer, Superintendent, Topeka Public Schools, KS

Build your capacity to lead your school to greatness!

Great leaders are made, not born. Written by the authors of From Good Schools to Great Schools, this sequel shows how great school leaders can be developed and how leaders can acquire the powerful personal leadership characteristics that the best administrators use to lead their schools to greatness.

Based on sound strategies and the work of Jim Collins, Susan Penny Gray and William A. Streshly tackle how to build relationships, communicate effectively, exercise your personal will with humility, face brutal facts, get faculty on board, and build a school culture of self-discipline. Chapters include:

  • Case studies that provide an ongoing context for professional learning
  • Self-assessments that reveal your inherent leadership dispositions
  • Interviews and tips from exceptional principals in the field
  • Strategies for developing specific leadership qualities
  • Application exercises that reinforce how to put the strategies into action
  • Reflection activities that encourage professional growth

Appropriate for both individual and group professional development, Leading Good Schools to Greatness reveals how leadership skills can be learned and used to take your school to the next level.


Key features

Real school scenarios are presented. As the reader moves to focusing on each characteristic and behavior of effective school leadership, new problems and challenges are presented as the scenarios continue to unfold. A variety of strategies and activities will be introduced to foster principal leadership that promotes positive shared results.
Author(s)

Author(s)

Susan P. Gray photo

Susan P. Gray

Susan Penny Gray, PhD has been an educator for more than 40 years in Indiana and California, including 15 years as Director of Curriculum Services for the San Marcos Unified School District in San Marcos, California and 7 years as a member of the Educational Leadership faculty at San Diego State University. During her tenure as Director of Curriculum Services she was responsible for the development, implementation, and maintenance of exemplary programs recognized throughout California in Reading/Language Arts, Mathematics, History-Social Science, and Science for grades K through 12. She was also responsible for effective teacher and principal support strategies that during the years under her direction evolved into a powerful system of coaches and facilitators of staff development. Dr. Gray has “walked the talk” in helping principals become truly effective instructional leaders. Her insights give down to earth, practical meaning to the research discussed in this book.

Dr. Gray serves on the San Diego State University (SDSU) Educational Administration Preparation Programs Advisory Committee. In her capacity on this committee and as a current member of the faculty of the Educational Leadership Department in the School of Education at SDSU, she has assisted in implementing changes in that school’s administration preparation program. She has designed and currently teaches an administrative course on instructional improvement through evaluation and supervision. In this course students participate in a walk-through supervision practicum, formal evaluation exercises, and the design of teacher and administrator evaluation systems. In addition, Dr. Gray teaches and coordinates the advanced administrator credentialing program at SDSU and supervises the fieldwork for administrative credential candidates at all levels.

In addition to her involvement with the faculty of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University, Dr. Gray serves as an officer on the Board of Directors of California Curriculum Management Systems, Incorporated (CalCMSi). She is certified to train administrators and teachers in Conducting Walk-Throughs for Higher Student Achievement and has implemented this training in several states across the country. She has also served as an external evaluator of schools and is a certified School Assistance Intervention Team leader for the State of California. She received curriculum management audit training from the California Curriculum Management Audit Center in Burlingame, California, in 1998. Since then she has served on school district audits in California, Washington, Texas, Ohio, Arizona, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania. She has also served on academic achievement teams conducting comprehensive on-site assessments of the educational operations of school and community college districts in California.

Dr. Gray earned her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her master’s degree from San Diego State University. In 2006, she received a doctoral degree in educational leadership through the Claremont Graduate University/San Diego State University Joint Doctoral Program.

William A. Streshly photo

William A. Streshly

William A. Streshly is Emeritus Professor of Educational Leadership in the College of Education at San Diego State University (SDSU). Prior to coming to SDSU in 1990, he spent 25 years in public school administration, including five years as principal of a large suburban high school and 15 years as superintendent of several California school districts varying in size from 2,500 to 25,000 students.

In addition to his numerous publications in the professional journals, Dr. Streshly is author or co-author of five practical books for school leaders, The Top Ten Myths in Education, Avoiding Legal Hassles (two editions), Teacher Unions and Quality Education, Preventing and Managing Teacher Strikes, and From Good Schools to Great Schools: What Their Principals Do Well.

Currently, Professor Streshly is a Senior Lead Auditor for Curriculum Management Systems, Inc., an affiliate of Phi Delta Kappa International. He has audited the instructional operations of more than 40 school districts in 16 states. His intense interest in the role of effective school leadership stems from his own extensive experience as well as his in-depth observation of the work of hundreds of practicing school principals across the country.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables


Foreword by George Manthey


Preface


Acknowledgments


About the Authors


1. The Skills for Leading Good Schools to Greatness Can Be Learned

Applying Good to Great Research to School Principals

Conversations With Highly Successful Principals

Administrator Preparation Program Reform

Reflection

2. First, Build Relationships

Reflection

Assess Your Leadership Capacity

A Behavior Different From That of Effective Private Sector Executives

The Three Key Elements Needed to Build Relationships

Constructing Your Personal Profile of a Highly Effective Principal

Part I: Building Trust

Part II: Engaging in Effective Interpersonal Communication

Part III: Encouraging Constructive Conflict Around Ideas

Ask an Effective Principal

Reflection

3. How to Exercise Your Professional Will With Humility

Reflection

Assess Your Leadership Capacity

Research on the Risks of Charismatic Leadership For Schools

Distinguishing Personal Humility Is Not So Easy

What Highly Successful Principals Say Conveying a Duality of Professional Will and Personal Humility

Strategies for Exhibiting Professional Will While Remaining Humble

Practical Application of Strategies for Exhibiting a Duality of Professional Will and Personal Humility

Ask an Effective Principal

Reflection

4. How to Face the Brutal Facts…Then Do Something about Them

Reflection

Assess Your Leadership Capacity

The Research on Confronting the Brutal Facts and Unwavering Resolve

What Highly Successful Principals Say About Confronting the Brutal Facts

Strategies for Confronting the Brutal Facts and Then Doing Something About Them

Ask an Effective Principal

Reflection

5. How to Get the Right Faculty on Board

Reflection

Assess Your Leadership Capacity

The Research on Getting the Right People

What the Right Place for the Right People Is

The Wrong People for the School

What Highly Successful Principals Say about Getting the Right People

Strategies for Getting (and Keeping) the Right People

Practical Application of Strategies for Getting the Right Faculty on Board

Ask an Effective Principal

Reflection

6. How to Find and Promote the Hedgehog Concept in Your School

Reflection

Educators Differ from CEOs

Assess Your Leadership Capacity

Research on the Hedgehog Concept

Highly Successful Principals Exhibit the Hedgehog Concept

Strategies for Understanding and Executing the Hedgehog Concept in Schools

One School’s Process for Developing New Mission and Vision Statements

Practical Application of Strategies for Finding and Promoting the Hedgehog Concept

Ask an Effective Principal

Reflection

7. How to Build a School-Wide Culture of Self-Discipline

Reflection

Assess Your Leadership Capacity

The Research on a Culture of Self-Discipline

What Highly Successful Principals Do to Build a School-Wide Culture of Self-Discipline

Practical Application of Strategies for Building a Culture of Self-Discipline

Ask an Effective Principal

Reflection

8. The Road Ahead

Research on Leadership Preparation

What to Look for in a Principal Preparation Program

Tips to Help New Principals Succeed

A Final Word

Resource A: Research Methodology


Resource B: Interview Participant Selection


Resource C: Principal Interview Questions Derived From Collins’ (2001) CEO Interview Questions and Demographic Questionnaire


References


Suggested Readings


Index


Reviews

Reviews


Other Titles in: Principalship | Leadership

Price: $42.95
Volume Discounts applied in Shopping Cart

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