Realization : The Change Imperative for Building District-Wide Reform

"Sharratt and Fullan are an educational dream team! The combination of Sharratt′s keen observations from her battle-tested district leadership experience and Fullan′s astute perspectives on the essential challenges of systemic reform produce fresh insights into the most difficult, yet most central challenges facing local education reformers today. Together the authors generate important new knowledge of how to sustain and deepen districtwide instructional reform beyond the first generation."
―Jonathan Supovitz
Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Senior Researcher, Consortium for Policy Research in Education

A powerful approach to leading and sustaining districtwide change!

Districtwide performance improvement requires a focus on capacity building, empowering colleagues throughout the organization to move change forward. Written by an experienced administrator who accomplished districtwide improvement on the ground and an internationally recognized expert in large-scale education reform, this compelling book outlines a step-by-step approach to implementing lasting, positive change across an entire district.

This resource examines 13 research-based parameters for improving teacher and student performance, including advice on optimizing existing resources, and then introduces a 14th parameter―Realization―that goes beyond capacity building at the school and district level to systemwide change at the state level. Readers will find:

• A wealth of school-specific strategies that support effective assessment and instructional practices to improve students′ fundamental academic skills
• "Do′s" and "don′ts" from real districtwide school improvement programs
• Guidance on implementing program assessment and establishing accountability

Help your district advance from vision to action to realization of student achievement!

Lyn Sharratt is a professor at OISE/University of Toronto where she lectures and currently coordinates the 26-student Learning and Leadership EdD program. She is the former superintendent of curriculum & instruction services in York Region District School Board, a large Canadian school district where she and her staff curriculum team analyzed assessment data and developed a comprehensive literacy improvement program that they launched with the cooperation of senior leadership, principals, and over 8,800 teachers. The continuously improving 14-Parameter program resulted in increased achievement for a diverse, multi-cultural and multi-lingual population of over 115,000 students, and the district became the top performing district in Ontario, where teaching positions became among the most sought-after in the nation. Sharratt has been a curriculum consultant, administrator and has also taught all elementary grades and secondary-age students in inner-city and rural settings. Lyn has analyzed and commented on Public Policy for a provincial organization; has taught pre-service education at York University; and led in-service professional learning in a provincial teachers union head office. She is lead author, with Michael Fullan, of both “Realization: The Change Imperative for Increasing District-Wide Reform” (Corwin, 2009) and, “Putting FACES on the Data: What Great Leaders Do!” (Corwin, 2012). Currently, she consults internationally, working with districts, administrators, curriculum consultants and teachers in Chile, Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. 

An innovative thinker who is sought-after by institutions, publishers, and international think-tanks, Michael Fullan is special advisor on education to Dalton McGuinty, the premier of Ontario. He formerly served as dean and professor emeritus at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland and from Nipissing University in Canada.

Fullan served as dean of the faculty of education at the University of Toronto from 1988 to 2003, leading two major organizational transformations, including a merger of two large schools of education. He is currently working as adviser and consultant on several major education reform initiatives around the world.

He bases his work on research and practice on both the public and private sectors, finding an increasing convergence in this literature. He has written several bestsellers on leadership and change that have been translated into several languages. Four of his books have won book of the year awards, and his publications have been translated into several languages.