Dynamic Instructional Leadership to Support Student Learning and Development: The Field Guide to Comer Schools in Action

Meets "the highest standard of evidence" for comprehensive school reforms that improve student achievement.
Review of Educational Research, 2003

"This Field Guide to Comer Schools in Action provides exactly what its title offers: guidelines to curricula, instruction, and educational development necessary to implementing the Comer process. . . . This handbook will help enormously to keep alive what James Comer and his colleagues have so carefully crafted over the years."
John I. Goodlad, President
Institute for Educational Inquiry

The tried, tested, and true approach to instructional leadership and staff development that support academic achievement and life success!

Schools are the only universally accessible institutions where there are enough adults to provide continuous support for children′s growth, development, and success in life. Using the process pioneered by renowned child psychiatrist Dr. James P. Comer and his colleagues at the Yale School Development Program (SDP), this unique field guide offers school leaders, school staff, and teachers a comprehensive and effective framework for providing curriculum and instruction that help all children grow and develop along the pathways that support success both in school and in life.

Combining research; evidence-based best practices; essential tools for planning, data analysis, assessment, and program evaluation; and a generous collection of charts, tables, and graphics, Dynamic Instructional Leadership to Support Student Learning and Development offers educators a state-of-the-art guide to:

• Mobilizing all of the stakeholders in the learning community to support instructional excellence as a system responsibility
• Modeling of instructional excellence by school principals, district leaders, and university partners
• Aligning curriculum, instruction, and assessment with standards and research-based best practices
• Linking child development to challenging and rigorous classroom instruction based on respect, trust, and high expectations for all students
• Teaching essentials of literacy, math, and science that provide positive developmental experiences for all learners
• Teachers helping teachers for professional development and school improvement

Dynamic Instructional Leadership to Support Student Learning and Development is the first-ever published field guide to the tried, tested, and true methods used by the Comer Process to promote academic achievement and life success for all children.

Edward T. Joyner, Ed.D., is the Executive Director of the Yale School Development Program. He served as the SDP′s first director of training, was the original designer of the SDP Leadership Development Academies, and initiated university-public school partnerships to strengthen local school reform efforts. He is the architect of the SDP′s systemic initiative to coordinate the work of the school board, central office, building staff, and the larger school community to create an optimal environment for teaching and learning throughout each school district. He currently oversees all of the operations of the Yale School Development Program and serves as the lead implementation coordinator for New York.

Michael Ben-Avie directs the Impact Analysis and Strategies Group, which studies corporate, nonprofit, and government partnerships that promote youth development and student learning. He conducts national studies designed to evaluate the effectiveness of mentoring programs and psychological interventions on children′s lifepaths. He has co-edited books about the Yale School Development Program with James P. Comer and colleagues, and has published numerous book chapters, journal articles, and reports on educational change initiatives, high schools, parent involvement, and the relationship between youth development and student learning.

James P. Comer, M.D., is the founder and chairman of the Yale School Development Program, Maurice Falk Professor of Child Psychiatry at the Yale Child Study Center, and Associate Dean of the Yale University School of Medicine. He has been the recipient of the Grawemeyer Award in Education, the John and Mary Markle Scholar in Academic Medicine Award, the Rockefeller Public Service Award, the Harold W. McGraw, Jr., Prize in Education, the Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievement in Education, the Heinz Award for Service to Humanity, and  many other awards and honors, including 41 honorary degrees.