Managing School Districts for High Performance: Cases in Public Education Leadership

ISBN 10: 189179275X ISBN 13: 9781891792755

Publisher: Harvard Education Press, 2007

Synopsis

Managing School Districts for High Performance brings together more than twenty case studies and other readings that offer a powerful and transformative approach to advancing and sustaining the work of school improvement.

At the center of this work is the concept of organizational coherence: aligning organizational design, human capital management, resource allocation, and accountability and performance improvement systems to support an overarching strategy. This central idea provides a valuable conceptual framework for current and future school leaders.

The case studies presented in Managing School Districts for High Performance grow out of the Public Education Leadership Project (PELP), a unique partnership between the Harvard Business School, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a network of urban school districts. This rich array of cases explores the managerial challenges districts face as they seek to ensure rich learning opportunities and high achievement for all students across a system of schools.

About this title

About the Author:

Stacy Childress is a lecturer at Harvard Business School. Richard F. Elmore is the Gregory R. Anrig Professor of Educational Leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Allen S. Grossman is the MBA Class of 1957 Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School. Susan Moore Johnson is the Pforzheimer Professor of Teaching and Learning at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Review:

This volume is not a treatise about how schools and districts should work. Rather, it provides a deep immersion in the real dilemmas involved in advancing school district reform. Anyone who works through these cases cannot help but come away with a more informed vision for change, a more reflective orientation about the interrelationships among the multiple tasks involved, and a more prudent grasp of what it takes to educate all children to high academic standards. The course of study presented by Managing School Districts for High Performance should be required professional education for anyone charged with advancing a coherent agenda of school improvement in our diverse, demanding, and rapidly changing society. --Anthony S. Bryk, Spencer Professor of Organizational Studies, Stanford University

This set of case studies offers practitioners, policymakers, and scholars the opportunity to learn from the collective wisdom and real-life experiences of educational leaders involved in systemic transformation. Implementing coherent reform strategies designed to improve and sustain student performance often takes place in a vacuum. As a former urban superintendent, I believe that these selected educational case studies provide a compelling forum for shared experiential teaching and learning. --Arlene Ackerman, Christian A. Johnson Professor of Outstanding Educational Practice, Teachers College, Columbia University

This collaboration between the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Graduate School of Education provides a set of analytical tools to address the most complex and challenging issues facing urban public schools. The contemporary case studies document actual choices and constraints and point to patterns and similarities across organizations, from urban schools to corporate environments. --Carol Johnson, Superintendent, Boston Public Schools

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard Education Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 189179275X
• ISBN 13: 9781891792755
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 504
• Editor: Childress Stacey, Elmore Richard F., Grossman Allen, Johnson Susan Moore