Leading Change in Your School: How to Conquer Myths, Build Commitment, and Get Results

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 ad 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."

Using real examples of elementary and secondary schools that have moved change from rhetoric to reality, a giant in the field of school leadership explains how teachers and administrators everywhere can make sure change efforts lead to better results. Whether your school needs to improve literacy, inspire great teaching, increase attendance, reduce dropout rates, reform grading, or reach any other accountability, let Douglas Reeves equip you with what you need to succeed.