School Turnarounds

The Essential Role of Districts

Heather Zavadsky, foreword by Steven J. Adamowski

The inspiration for this book was a crucial observation: that if the school turnaround movement is to have widespread and lasting consequences, it will need to incorporate meaningful district involvement in its efforts.

Collaborative School Improvement

Eight Practices for District-School Partnerships to Transform Teaching and Learning

Trent E. Kaufman, Emily Dolci Grimm, and Allison E. Miller, foreword by Kathryn Parker Boudett

How can districts bring instructional improvement to scale within and across schools?

The authors of Collaborative School Improvement argue that districts can play a powerful part in helping schools build the capacity to engage in inquiry-based reform—but that this effort requires a shift in districts’ traditional role as a professional development provider.

Education Reform in New York City

Ambitious Change in the Nation’s Most Complex School System

Edited by Jennifer A. O’Day, Catherine S. Bitter, and Louis M. Gomez

Written in an accessible style by highly respected scholars, the papers in this volume document and analyze particular components of the Children First reforms, including governance, community engagement, finance, accountability, and instruction.

School Choice and School Improvement

Edited by Mark Berends, Marisa Cannata, and Ellen B. Goldring

School Choice and School Improvement brings together a collection of exemplary, policy-relevant papers that examine how communities, districts, and states use choice as a strategy for improving schools and student learning.

Between Public and Private

Politics, Governance, and the New Portfolio Models for Urban School Reform

Edited by Katrina E. Bulkley, Jeffrey R. Henig, and Henry M. Levin, foreword by Larry Cuban

Between Public and Private examines an innovative approach to school district managment that has been adopted by a number of uban disctricts in recent years: a portfolio management model, in which “a central office oversees a portfolio of schools offering diverse organizational and curricular themes, including traditional public schools, private organizations, and charter schools.”

Against the Odds

Insights from One District's Small School Reform

Larry Cuban, Gary Lichtenstein, Arthur Evenchik, Martin Tombari, and Kristen Pozzoboni

Against the Odds offers an in-depth look at the Mapleton, Colorado, school district’s transformation of two traditional high schools into seven small schools, each enrolling fewer than four hundred students.

Bringing School Reform to Scale

Five Award-Winning Urban Districts

Heather Zavadsky, foreword by Thomas Payzant

Bringing School Reform to Scale looks in detail at five school districts that have been honored in recent years by The Broad Foundation, whose annual award is granted “each year to the urban school districts that demonstrate the greatest overall performance and improvement in student achievement while reducing achievement gaps among poor and minority students.”

Leading for Equity

The Pursuit of Excellence in the Montgomery County Public Schools

Stacey M. Childress, Denis P. Doyle, and David A. Thomas, with a foreword by David Gergen

Leading for Equity tells the compelling story of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools and its transformation—in less than a decade—into a system committed to breaking the links between race and class and academic achievement.

Instructional Rounds in Education

A Network Approach to Improving Teaching and Learning

Elizabeth A. City, Richard F. Elmore, Sarah E. Fiarman, and Lee Teitel, foreword by Andrew Lachman

Instructional Rounds in Education is intended to help education leaders and practitioners develop a shared understanding of what high-quality instruction looks like and what schools and districts need to do to support it.

Learning from L.A.

Institutional Change in American Public Education

Charles Taylor Kerchner, David J. Menefee-Libey, Laura Steen Mulfinger, and Stephanie E. Clayton

Drawing on a four-year study of the last 40 years of education reform in Los Angeles, Learning from L.A. captures the sweeping change in American education. It puts forth a provocative argument: while school reformers and education historians have tended to focus on the success or failure of individual initiatives, they have overlooked the fact that, over the past several decades, the institution of public education itself has been transformed.

Outstanding Academic Title, Choice

“Districts in Research and Reform” Publication Award, American Educational Research Association