Why Can?t We Get It Right?: Professional Development in Our Schools

Educators have puzzled over why new concepts in professional development do not always translate into improved student learning. Now this pioneering and daring book by Speck and Knipe offers new practices to raise student achievement while strongly advocating for responsible changes in the policies, structures, and operations of schools. Key highlights: - Essential questions about professional development - Focusing professional development in a standards-based system - Creating the culture for a learning community - Addressing teacher work concerns through professional development - Promoting individual growth through professional learning - Challenging districts to sustain professional growth - Designing your own model - Tools for implementing a professional development design - Evaluating professional development - Revisiting past perspectives to underscore the need for change - Facing the emerging issues and challenges of professional learning Over the years, the focus of professional development has changed from what others "do to" educators to what educators "do with" their own inside and outside experiences. This is the book that brings that new focus into sharp relief, and makes it real through insight scenarios, quotations, and tools. The result: a new perspective that helps educators face the challenge of professional learning on a deeply personal level.

Marsha Speck is a leader in school reform, educational leadership and professional development issues. Her professional interests include building leadership capacity among teachers, administrators, and the community to improve schooling and achievement for all students and developing school/university partnerships that model these practices. She is currently Professor of Educational Leadership at San José State University. Marsha is the Director of the Urban High School Leadership Program, which is an innovative leadership development program linked as a partnership with regional school districts for teacher leaders and administrators to rethink the American high school and how it meets the needs of students and the community. She has diverse experiences as a teacher, high school principal, assistant superintendent of instruction, and professor, where she has worked collaboratively on school change efforts. She believes in a continued partnership linkage between the university and the school community, which is exemplified in her work. Creating school learning communities has been a central focus of her work with schools. She has published widely, including Why Can’t We Get It Right? Professional Development for Our Schools (Corwin best seller); The Essential Questions and Practices in Professional Development; The Principalship: Building a Learning Community (for Prentice Hall); and The Handbook for Implementing Year-Round Education in the High School (for the National Association for Year-Round Education). Currently, Marsha is the president of the National Association for Year-Round Education and serves on the Leadership Council of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. San José State University recognized her as a Teacher Scholar (1996–1997) in recognition of contributions toward promoting the scholarship of teaching, especially in education leadership. Her Fulbright Scholarship includes study in India, Nigeria, and Israel. She received a BA from the University of California, Davis; an MA from California State University, Stanislaus; and EdD from the University of the Pacific. Traveling, tennis, and reading are a few of Marsha’s passions when she is not working on leadership issues. She can be reached at San José State University, One Washington Square, San Jose, CA 95192-0072 or via e-mail at mslvtennis@aol.com.

Caroll Knipe, MEd, recognized leader and educational planner, is committed to school change for student suc-cess. As veteran teacher, site administrator, leadership consultant, journal contributor, published author (Why Can’t We Get It Right? Professional Development in Our Schools), university adjunct staff, academy director, speaker, coach, strategic positioner, and director of personnel, communications, and curriculum, Caroll has invested 40 years in public education. For fourteen years as executive director of the California School Leadership Academy in the Silicon Valley, Caroll facilitated premier leadership development programs recognized nationally and internationally. As president of the 15,000-member Association of California School Administrators (ACSA), she helped to set the state’s educational direction. Her presentations include nationwide television seminars by Apple Computers; instructional television series, with roles as moderator and panelist; radio talk shows in Washington, DC, Los Angeles, and San Francisco; and facilitation at conferences for ACSA, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, California and National Staff Development Councils, and the California School Board Association. Recognized for outstanding leadership by state and national associations, she holds a bachelor’s degree from Lock Haven State University in Pennsylvania and a master’s degree from Western Washington State University. She can be reached at knilodge@garlic.com.