This book provides practical, hands-on advice for school district superintendents. It is designed to provide needed but rarely taught ideas, insights, and information that superintendents can use to incorporate effective practices into their own school districts.
Rather than being preoccupied with developing a static structure of policies to distinguish the board's role from the superintendent's, the book describes how the board and superintendent can creatively work together in making decisions about such critical governing "products" as values, vision, mission, and strategic change initiatives."--Jacket.
Covers how to become a superintendent and be successful at it and presents a personal view of the superintendency. This down-to-earth book is intended for use in graduate education classes on the superintendency. Both practicing and aspiring superintendents should find it useful.
Building a High-Impact Board-Superintendent Partnership will consist of 11 brief chapters, each covering a critical question that practitioners need to answer in building the board-superintendent partnership
Provides detailed, hands-on guidance for building and managing a board-superintendent partnership that is close, positive, productive, and enduring. Eadie describes how the superintendent can wear the 'Chief Partnership Officer' hat, leading and managing a 'Board-Superintendent Partnership Program.'
"The goals and challenges for district leaders are constantly changing. Leadership and governance are only parts of the puzzle when other elements such as the NCLB legislation, budgets, standards and assessment, changing demographics, and public engagement are brought into the picture. Today's superintendent needs an effective tool to help steer the school district to success. Drawing on the experiences of nearly 200 superintendents over the past ten years, The Superintendent's Fieldbook offers guidance that can be referenced again and again. Written for current and future superintendents, principals, school board members and teachers, this valuable guide is divided into nine sections--each offering ideas to implement, practical lessons, exercises, and questions for reflective practice. The authors identify seven key "commonplaces" of the successful modern superintendent including: Leading within a governance structure; Understanding and addressing standards and assessment; Considering race, class, and the achievement gap; Developing your schools' principals from building managers to leaders of learning; Exploring collaborations with agencies of government and organizational allies; Engaging your community to construct a shared vision of the future. Vignettes describing real events and situations will help you connect lessons learned to your own district experiences, and help you and your district thrive in the rapidly changing world of education." -- Publisher.
Doug Eadie’s Governing at the Top: Building a Board-Superintendent Strategic Governing Team is both a powerful addition to the K-12 governance literature and a practical guidebook for school board members, superintendents, and senior administrators. Opening with a crystal-clear, eminently practical definition of the work of governing that goes well-beyond the outdated notion of “policy making,” this exciting new book then takes a close look at the key elements involved in building the kind of rock-solid board-superintendent governing partnership that these changing, challenging times demand. After describing the critical role of a “board-savvy” superintendent in the governing partnership, Doug examines in detail how board-superintendent teams can go about developing the board’s governing “architecture” (the board’s governing role, its members, and its committee structure), mapping out processes for active board member engagement in governing work, and keeping the board-superintendent working relationship healthy.
This book seeks to identify key policy and practice recommendations that create a resourceful toolbox for school boards and superintendents to consider when developing methodologies for the evaluation of the superintendent of schools.
The School Superintendent: Theory, Practice, and Cases is the essential guide to succeeding as a superintendent or as an administrator in another district-level position. Comprehensive in both theory and practice, this textbook and reference guide examines the role and responsibilities of school district administration in professional, social, philosophical, and political frames, while balancing perspectives of rewards and challenges commonly expressed by school superintendents. Important topics covered include the emerging role of superintendent as communicator, the changing conditions in districts and schools, inadequate funding for public schools, and the treatment of policy administration, leadership roles, and community involvement. Fully updated, the Third Edition provides: greater emphasis on the challenges facing novice superintendents; new material on strategic planning and visioning; new and expanded coverage of contemporary issues such as inadequate district funding and social challenges; additional figures, tables, key terms, and other helpful learning tools; and more.
What is (R)Evolutionary Leadership? Why Does it Matter? How can contemporary school district administrators, specifically superintendents, contend with so many difficult, and almost impossible competing commitments? Building on the definitions of revolution, revolutionary, evolution, and evolutionary, the notion of (R)Evolutionary Leadership emerged while discussing the need for school district leaders to push back against the status quo while improving teacher and leadership practices, improving student learning outcomes, engaging with the community, and ensuring decision making processes that include check and balance systems that are just, fair, and equitable for all. The chapters in this book introduce superintendents or research on superintendents in which these tenants were practiced; both in their ability to enact radical change by “overthrowing” the status quo – as well as evolutionary in their deliberate approach to viewing change as a process they can control over time. These leaders were willing to confront and defy practices and policies that were counter to student well-being and achievement while concurrently knowing how to reach their desired results. The chapters chosen for inclusion in this volume are those that offered a glimpse of these revolutionary tenants in practice. We ask that you consider this emerging concept as you explore the chapters of our book. You will find the (R)evolutionary Leaders you meet in the chapters know how to evolve, not just to stay alive, but to ensure the organization (school) remains relevant and vital to society. These leaders use their positional power, social capital, and expertise to advocate for policies and practices that are in the best interest of the school community and they innovate in ways that challenge the status quo. You will also find practices that are (R)Evolutionary and provide ways for leaders to innovate, collaborate, and simply take care of themselves and those around them. Our description does not seek to support or define or delineate the characteristics of a (R)Evolutionary Leader or how one might enact (R)Evolutionary Leadership–but serves as a way to (re)think the way we view the vastly complex work of school district administrators, specifically the superintendent. (R)Evolutionary leadership may change our ways of thinking about the significant advocacy role a superintendent can play in influencing both practice and policy to enact the change necessary to move forward issues of justice, equity, and quality in PK-12 schools and further to improve educational and social outcomes for those served.
An impossible job? That's what many have called the superintendency. With its growing and completing demands, it is a profession that can baffle even the most knowledgeable and well prepared. Public education resources have become more limited. There are new national and state testing requirements. Social issues are pulled into the schools and want more control over their operation. Add in politics and bureaucracy, and the end result is quite an unmanageable scenario. Unfortunately, more superintendents seem to be leaving the profession. Whether it is because of the demands superintendents face, the quality of preparation programs or a combination of both, the trend is a growing concern. Many superintendents are unprepared to deal with what they may encounter in running a school district. Yet the office is not all doom and gloom. Offering opportunities that are unavailable in many other careers, the superintendency is a position in which you will be taken seriously by others. And it is a profession in which one person, through skilled leadership, can make a difference by getting everyone to pull together and create a better environment for students. Surveys actually have shown that most superintendents would become superintendents again if they had the chance.
This CHOICE award-winning author has teamed up with national school district experts to write a comprehensive book on the role of the superintendent as an instructional leader. Everything you need to know about superintendent core competencies, instructional leadership, policy and politics, professional development, accountability and evaluation, standards, building capacity, managing finances and resources, and creating an environment for professional growth are covered. The book starts with the role of the superintendent and then presents original research on superintendent core competencies, strategies for effective instructional leadership, benchmarking school district performance, and how get results. Benefits and Features of Book: A comprehensive book covering all aspects of the superintendent position. Chapter objectives are aligned with the new ELCC and ISLLC, for accreditation and learning. Original research on superintendent core competencies. Each chapter contains a comprehensive case study and exercises for practical application. Provides a blend of academic, theory and practical perspectives on how the job of the superintendent and how to get results. Several handy resources are included in the appendices.
