A Guide to Renewing Your School Lessons from the League of Professional Schools

by Allen, Lew; Rogers, Dale; Hensley, Frances; Glanton, Maude; Livingston, Martha; Glickman, Carl D.

• ISBN13: 9780787946913
• ISBN10: 0787946915
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-03-22
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass

Summary

Sponsored by the League of Professional Schools "Understanding school reform is a daunting task. A Guide to Renewing Your School goes a long way in communicating essential information about reform in a clear-cut manner." --Childhood Education In Renewing America's Schools, Carl D. Glickman--founder of the League of Professional Schools--made the case for basing school improvement efforts on democratic values and principles. He proposed a three-part framework for reform that would enable schools and communities to create successful change in their schools and discussed how states and districts could support their efforts. In this companion volume, the authors provide detailed instructions on how Glickman's framework can be implemented at the school level. A Guide to Renewing Your School is based on years of practical experience, numerous case examples, and empirical studies from the League of Professional Schools, a reform network based in Georgia. This hands-on book guides school practitioners through the essential steps of a reform process: (1) designing a covenant to guide teaching and learning, (2) creating a shared governance process to promote democratic leadership and decision making, and (3) implementing action research to assess the reform process. The authors also address the challenges of change, such as how to create a school climate that will foster implementation of the framework and how to determine the type of facilitation and staff development needed to sustain this work. Filled with sample covenants, charters, mission statements, worksheets, forms, and other tools, A Guide to Renewing Your School presents not only a coherent framework, but useful strategies for promoting school-wide renewal and improvement.

Author Biography

LEW ALLEN, Maude Glanton, Frances Hensley, Martha Livingston, and Dale Rogers are codirectors of the League of Professional Schools, which is part of the College Education at The University of Georgia.

Table of Contents

List of Exhibits	xiii
Foreword	xv
Carl D. Glickman
Introduction	xvii
Overview of the Book	xviii
Looking Ahead	xix
Acknowledgments	xxi
The League of Professional Schools	xxiii
The Authors	xxv
Understanding the Framework for School Renewal	1	(16)
Why Is the Framework Necessary?	1	(2)
What Is the Framework?	3	(2)
How Do We Decide Whether to Proceed?	5	(1)
How Do We Begin to Define Our Beliefs?	6	(4)
What Are the Stages in Implementing the Framework?	10	(5)
Summary	15	(2)
Creating a Covenant for Teaching and Learning	17	(20)
What Should a Covenant of Teaching and Learning Cover?	18	(1)
How Do We Begin?	19	(1)
How Do We Get the Whole School Community Involved?	20	(6)
How Do We Focus the Covenant on Teaching and Learning?	26	(4)
How Do We Celebrate Completing Our Covenant?	30	(1)
How Do We Move from Beliefs to Action?	31	(2)
Review Questions	33	(1)
Summary	34	(3)
Designing a Charter for Shared Governance	37	(30)
What Is the Charter?	38	(1)
How Do We Begin?	39	(1)
What Kinds of Decisions Should Our School Community Consider?	39	(2)
Who Participates in the Shared Governance Process?	41	(3)
What Is Included in a Charter?	44	(12)
Is the Charter Development Process a Long One?	56	(2)
What Are the Roles of Participants?	58	(4)
How Do We Tell How We're Doing?	62	(1)
Summary	63	(4)
Using Action Research to Monitor Progress	67	(22)
What Is Action Research Used for?	69	(3)
What Have We Learned About Action Research?	72	(2)
How Do We Begin?	74	(2)
How Do We Go About Collecting Data?	76	(5)
How Do We Go About Analyzing Data?	81	(1)
How Do We Communicate Our Results?	82	(2)
What Do We Do Next?	84	(1)
Summary	85	(4)
Applying the Lessons of Change	89	(18)
What Elements Make for Lasting Change?	89	(6)
How Do We Build a Collegial School Community?	95	(6)
Where Can We Turn for Help?	101	(1)
What Are the Real Results?	102	(2)
Summary	104	(3)
Recommended Reading	107	(4)
Action Research and Assessment	107	(1)
Shared Governance and Collaboration	108	(1)
Democratic Education and School Reform	108	(1)
The League of Professional Schools	109	(2)
References	111