Aligning Student Support with Achievement Goals: The Secondary Principal?s Guide

Fully integrate your school′s support community and watch achievement levels and morale soar!

Many principals feel they lack the personnel necessary to raise student achievement to mandated levels. Yet, as school leaders seek to improve educational outcomes, one of the most underutilized groups remains student support professionals-the counselors, social workers, and nurses already on site.

Karen Seashore Louis and Molly F. Gordon offer a practical approach to creating a fully integrated student support community that contributes to increasing achievement levels. Incorporating research and practical strategies into a broader paradigm of leadership, they offer directives for implementing reform initiatives and rigorously assessing their effectiveness. Bridging theory and practice, this book provides:

• An examination of emerging models linking student support programs and academic achievement 
• Guidelines and resources for overcoming barriers to reform
• Exercises and suggestions to help start the change process
• Case studies of principals who have successfully integrated their student support services
• An expanded comprehensive support model (CSP) that considers the multi-professional nature of student support activities

Reorganizing existing resources is the most efficient path to school reform. Rather than limiting the counselor or social worker′s role, use it to form a comprehensive support program to help improve school achievement!  

Karen Seashore Louis is the Rodney Wallace Professor of Educational Policy and Administration at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities. Her area of expertise includes improvement in K–12 leadership and policy over the last 30 years, particularly in urban secondary schools. Louis also conducts research on organizational changes within higher education, with particular attention to faculty roles, and on international comparative policy in educational reform. A past president of Division A of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), she is a widely published author in the field. Recent books include Organizing for School Change, Leadership for Change and School Improvement: International Perspectives, Handbook of Educational Administration, Second Edition, and Organizational Learning in Schools. Louis earned a bachelor′s degree in History from Swarthmore College and a doctorate in sociology from Columbia University.

Molly F. Gordon is a research fellow at the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement at the University of Minnesota. Her research has focused on issues of leadership in school reform. Gordon received a master′s degree in educational policy studies from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and a doctorate in educational policy at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities.