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Guiding schools through significant change is one of the toughest challenges educational leaders face, but learning from the examples of those who have succeeded can make it less daunting. In Leading Change in Your School, distinguished author and researcher Douglas B. Reeves offers lessons learned through his work with educators in thousands of schools around the world and presents real-life examples of leaders who have met the challenge of change head-on–with impressive results for their schools and districts. Readers will also find practical resources for engaging their colleagues in change initiatives. Expanding on a number of his columns in the journal Educational Leadership, Reeves offers insights and recommendations in four areas: * Creating conditions for change, including assessments to determine personal and organizational readiness for change; * Planning change, including cautionary notes about strategic planning; * Implementing change, including the importance of moving from rhetoric to day-to-day reality; and * Sustaining change, including the need to reorient priorities and values so that individual convenience gives way to a shared sense of the greater good. The change leaders–both teachers and administrators–whose stories Reeves tells come from varied districts, but they share a passion for creating schools that work for all students. They are, Reeves says, «people like you, sharing similar challenges but perhaps with different results.»

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“We can’t do that in our school district.” “I don’t have time to add that to my curriculum.” “We’re fighting against impossible odds with these students.”
Effective school leadership does not have to be a losing battle. In The Learning Leader: How to Focus School Improvement for Better Results, Douglas B. Reeves helps leadership teams go beyond excuses to capitalize on their strengths and reduce their weaknesses. He introduces the Leadership for Learning Framework, which challenges readers to consider that student achievement is more than a set of test scores. Reeves asserts that when leaders focus exclusively on results, they fail to measure and understand the importance of their own actions. Instead, he encourages leaders to use the Leadership for Learning Framework to look deeper into their results. The framework helps leaders distinguish between “Lucky” educators, who achieve high results but don’t understand their actions, and “Leading” educators, who achieve high results and understand how their actions influence their success. From conducting strategic planning to evaluating projects to organizing leadership teams, The Learning Leader will help leaders reconceptualize their leadership role and motivate their colleagues. Reeves urges teachers and administrators to become more efficient and focused leaders, but most important, he charges them to be better educators for their students.

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How can we create and sustain professional learning programs that actually lead to improved student achievement? In this thoughtful and informative guide for teachers, administrators, and policymakers, Douglas Reeves provides answers. First he casts a critical eye on professional learning that is inconsistent, unfocused, and ultimately ineffective, and explains why elaborate planning documents and “brand-name” programs are not enough to achieve desired outcomes. Then he outlines how educators at all levels can improve this situation by * Taking specific steps to move from vision to implementation; * Focusing on four essentials: teaching, curriculum, assessment, and leadership; * Making action research work; * Moving beyond the “train the trainer” model; and * Using performance assessment systems for teachers and administrators. If you're tired of professional development that takes up too much time and delivers too little, read Transforming Professional Development into Student Results and discover how to move toward a system that gives educators the learning experiences they need to make a measurable difference for their schools and their students.

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