Recommended Readings
Making the Mathematics Curriculum Count: A Guide for Middle and High School Principals
National Association of Secondary Principals
This handbook, released by NASSP in September 2007, makes a case for the urgency of mathematics literacy — or numeracy — across the curriculum and walks principals through the steps of getting buy-in from various stakeholders, creating numeracy teams, formulating the Numeracy Improvement Plan, identifying data to collect and analyzing it, implementing the plan, and monitoring the plan’s progress.
The Skillful Leader II: Confronting Conditions That Undermine Learning, Alexander D. Platt, Caroline E. Tripp, Robert G. Fraser, James R. Warnock, Rachel E. Curtis
This important new “Skillful Leader” book arms administrators and teacher leaders with step-by-step strategies to confront and raise the performance of teams and individuals who undermine student learning. The text includes methods of collecting data, strategies for intervention and tips for hiring and training. New individual and community profiles, together with legal notes, provide practical tools for busy leaders.
This book is available through Research for Better Teaching Publications
Rethinking Leadership, Thomas J. Sergiovanni
In the second edition of this revolutionary collection, school leaders are introduced to the craft of moral leadership. Thomas J. Sergiovanni, the leading authority on moral leadership, uncovers how successful leadership practices are often based in values and ideas rather than formal processes. Readers will learn an innovative approach to reframing leadership, while discovering how to build effective learning communities. Written by the best of the best, this groundbreaking work truly redefines school leadership!
Five Minds for the Future, Howard Gardner
We live in a time of vast changes. And those changes call for entirely new ways of learning and thinking. In "Five Minds for the Future," Howard Gardner defines the cognitive abilities that will command a premium in the years ahead: the Disciplinary mind — mastery of major schools of thought (including science, mathematics, and history) and of at least one professional craft; the Synthesizing mind — ability to integrate ideas from different disciplines or spheres into a coherent whole and to communicate that integration to others; the Creating mind — capacity to uncover and clarify new problems, questions, and phenomena; the Respectful mind — awareness of and appreciation for differences among human beings and human groups; and the Ethical mind — fulfillment of one's responsibilities as a worker and citizen. "Five Minds for the Future" will inspire lifelong learning in any reader and provide valuable insights for those charged with training and developing organizational leaders — both today and tomorrow.
Developing Educational Leaders: A Working Model: The Learning Community in Action, Cynthia Norris, Bruce Barnett, Margaret Basom, and Diane Yerkes
This book showcases groundbreaking work with learning communities in educational leadership preparation programs, resulting in a working model for leadership development. It bridges the gap between theory and application; contrasts the differences between appearance and reality; brings together the individual and the community benefits that result from the learning community setting; demonstrates how values-based leadership can be developed and implemented; and provides a conceptual framework.
Setting Leadership Priorities: What’s Necessary, What’s Nice and What’s Got to Go, Suzette Lovely.
This book helps school leaders dig out from under their desks to focus on what really matters. Conquering overload is a constant challenge for 21st century school administrators, and priority management is a crucial skill. The book shows busy professionals how to distinguish between information, activities, and situations that must be retained, those that might be refined, and many that should be relinquished. The end result is improving success on the job and creating a balance between daily life and the long-term professional library.
The Politically Intelligent Leader: Dealing with the Dilemmas of High Stakes Educational Environment, Patricia Clark White, Larry Kemper, and Tom Harvey
Today’s educational leaders are often caught in a world of rising expectations and diminishing resources — the political pressures are enormous. The book discusses the importance of raising your political IQ in order to be an effective leader, capable of delivering an organization’s vision and goals. Strategies designed to enhance a leader’s efficacy inside and outside of the organization are offered.
This book is available through Rowman and Littlefield Publishers
Talk Sense: Communicating to Lead and Learn, Barry Jentz
Using stories that illustrate both inept and skillful communication, Talk Sense will walk you through a transformational process of discovering discrepancies between your self-image and actual behavior; inventing a new mind set, a new skill set, and a new rationale for communication; and practicing in a "protected setting" through self-help exercises.
This book is available through Research for Better Teaching Publications
The Six Secrets of Change, Michael Fullan
Fullan manages to take something complex and make it still a worthwhile and inspiring read. He admits from the outset that the world is "too complex for any theory to have certainty." Still, his six "secrets" are worth learning ... and implementing.