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Leverage

Using PLCs to Promote Lasting Improvement in Schools

By: Thomas W. Many, Susan K. Sparks-Many

Forward by Richard DuFour

This engaging leadership guide helps you leverage the “big ideas” of PLCs to foster lasting improvement in your school. Includes vignettes and planning templates.

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Product Details

Grade Level: PreK-12
ISBN: 9781452259574
Published By: Corwin
Year: 2014
Page Count: 168
Publication date: August 30, 2014

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Description

Discover high-impact leadership strategies for a thriving learning community!

Faced with the growing demands of leadership in today’s schools, how can principals and teacher leaders ensure their actions will impact teaching and learning in positive ways? This compelling new book by Thomas Many and Susan Sparks-Many provides straightforward solutions for the complex challenges school leaders face. Discover how implementing a few specific high-leverage strategies, grounded in the core beliefs of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), can promote lasting improvement in schools. This book’s concrete examples of high-leverage, evidence-based practices help you:

Understand the essential role principals and teacher leaders play in leading PLCs
Foster an understanding of how PLCs can support implementation of major instructional shifts such as the new Common Core State Standards
Apply high-leverage strategies across your own school and district to improve instruction and better serve the needs of all students

You’ll find invaluable self-assessment forms, templates, case studies, planning examples, and more. Use Leverage as your essential leadership tool to transform your school into a thriving learning community!

"In Leverage, the authors craft a coherent and compelling argument for doing less but going deeper in support of school reform. A thoughtful sense of the literature informs approaches that we all need help with—how to integrate and align our efforts in supporting student success and how to do that in sustainable ways."
—Peter Dillon, Superintendent
Berkshire Hills Regional School District, Stockbridge, MA

"If you are wondering which items should be at the top of your priority list, read this book, after which you will truly know what is important and how to implement sustainable change in your school that will result in better student achievement."
—Jim Anderson, Principal
Andersen Jr. High School, Chandler, AZ

"This book addresses PRECISELY the tension that so many of us feel. The whole concept of leverage crystallizes what we've been wrestling with in our building."
—Ryan Giegling, Second-Grade Teacher
Ganiard Elementary, Mt. Pleasant, MI

Key features

(1) Focuses on a finite number of high-leverage actions that, when taken by principals, result in improvements in teaching and, ultimately, student learning.

(2) Supports principals by providing concrete examples of research and evidence-based practices that promote higher levels of learning and specific ways to accelerate the successful implementation of those strategies that make a difference.

(3) Establishes a connection between leverage and the "big ideas" of Professional Learning Communities: (a) focus on learning; (b) collaborative culture; (c) results orientation.

(4) Explores the role of PLC in ensuring the success of major initiatives such as implementation of the Common Core State Standards

(5) Special features include short articles that can be used by principals as discussion launchers, self assessment forms and templates, examples of completed planning documents.

Author(s)

Thomas W. Many

Susan K. Sparks-Many

Table of Contents

Foreword by Richard DuFour

Preface

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Introduction

Section I: The Principal

1. Leadership Matters

Evidence of the Principal’s Impact on Student Learning

How Do Principals Impact Student Learning?

Different Forms of Leadership Impact Learning Differently

Leadership Matters, But the Right Kind of Leadership Matters More

2. Examining the Complex Role of the Principal

The Sheer Pandemonium of the Principalship

Trends Shaping the Current Reality of the Principalship

Creating a New Normal for Principals

3. Move the World: The Essence of Leverage

Creating an Operational Definition of Leverage

Where Can We Look for the Leverage Point?

4. Professional Learning Communities: The High-Leverage Strategy

An Overview of the PLC Model

Reflection Promotes Progress Toward Becoming a PLC: A Case Study

Identifying Leverage Points in a PLC

Section II: Practical Applications

5. The Secrete to Success: Leverage a Focus on Learning

What Matters Most

Creating an Operational Definition of What Is Essential

The Balanced and Coherent System of Assessment: Providing a Steady Stream of Information

The Need for SPEED: Criteria for Designing Effective Pyramids of Intervention

The Secret to Success

6. Take Away the Traning Wheels: Leverage a Collaborative Culture

A Rose by Any Other Name: What Is Important About Collaborative Teams?

The Elephant in the Room: Making Time for Collaboration

The Turning Point: Building Collective Capacity

Package Couriers, Meter Readers, and Copier Repairmen: Leveraging Opportunities to Share Best Practices

Take Away the Training Wheels: The Difference Between Monitoring and Micromanaging Teams

7. Reports From the Precinct Captains: Leverage a Results Orientation

The Right Interpretation of a Results Orientation

Three Rules for Using Data

Protocols: A Powerful Prescription for Professional Learning

It’s Not Pixie Dust; It’s Protocol

SOAP Notes: A Tool to Promote Reflective Dialogue About Student Learning

Reports From the Precinct Captains

Applying a Results Orientation in Schools

Tangible Benefits of Data Meetings

A Results-Oriented Practice Transforms School Culture

Section III: PLC Strategies

8. What’s on Your Refrigerator Door? Clear Away the Clutter to Clarify What’s Important in Your School

A Thousand Conversations: The Power of Consistent, Clear Messages About What Matters

Flying Kites: Understanding the Concept of Loose/Tight Leadership

9. Reboot the Principalship: Strategies to Rekindle, Reignite, Reenergize Your School

Get Off Your “Buts”: Responding to Resistors in Your School

Making Diamonds: Top-Down Pressure and Bottom-Up Support

Reboot the Principalship: Strategies to Rekindle, Reignite, Reenergize Your School

Bibliography

Additional Readings

Index

Reviews

"In Leverage, the author Thomas Many crafts a coherent and compelling argument for doing less and going deeper in support of school reform. A thoughtful sense of the literature informs approaches that we all need help with – how to integrate and align our efforts in supporting student success and how to do that in sustainable ways"

Peter Dillon, Ed.D., Superintendent of Schools
Berkshire Hills Regional School District

"It seems like with each passing year the expectations and requirements of a principal become greater and greater. If you are wondering which items should be at the top of your priority list read this book, after which you will truly know what is important and how to implement sustainable change in your school that will result in better student achievement."

Jim Anderson, Principal
Andersen Jr. High School

Other Titles in: Professional Learning Communities | Principalship | School Change, Reform, & Restructuring

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