What can today’s educational leaders do to create schools that are purposeful, moral, and successful? In this book, Glickman and Mette provide a powerful set of guidelines that will lead to true school renewal. Using a practical framework for school, district, and community leaders, their roadmap replaces dependence on top-down state and federal regulations, focusing instead on the creation of locally guided initiatives to address local goals. Filled with real-world examples, charts, and illustrations, the text gives teachers, principals, students, parents, central office personnel, school boards, and community members exactly what is needed to remake their schools. Building on Glickman’s highly acclaimed classic, Renewing America’s Schools (1993), this resource is must-reading for anyone involved with school change in today’s divisive and complex times. “My life would have been a whole lot easier if this book had been written when I was in the principal’s office.” —George Wood, former principal and superintendent, Stuart Ohio “This timely and critical book demonstrates how teaching and learning, and a democratic school community, are the key assets to solving our problems. It is not just the future of our schools that is at stake, but democracy itself.” —William Mathis, National Education Policy Center

Harold Kwalwasser has put together a call to action for education reform that makes a clear case for what has to be done in order to educate all children to their full potential. He visited forty high-performing and transforming school districts, charters, parochial, and private schools to understand why they have succeeded where others have failed. The analysis in Renewal: Remaking America's Schools for the Twenty-First Century brings together all of the necessary changes in one dynamic strategy. Many schools, even though facing seemingly impossible odds, have succeeded brilliantly. But their histories also reflect that there are neither silver bullets or demons. The heart of successful reform is systemic change, which requires the patience, understanding, and commitment of every adult who has a role in the process, from parents and taxpayers, to the school board members, superintendents, and teachers, and on to state legislators and members of Congress. Renewal offers a clear picture of how to move away from the mass-production style of education that most schools offered throughout the twentieth century to a new, more innovative, and flexible model that can meet this country's promise of truly educating every child and preparing each of them for the challenges ahead.

The author's purpose "is to engender debate on what practices and aims reformers might pursue to stimulate educational quality"--Preface.

From David Osborne, the author of Reinventing Government--a biting analysis of the failure of America's public schools and a comprehensive plan for revitalizing American education. In Reinventing America's Schools, David Osborne, one of the world's foremost experts on public sector reform, offers a comprehensive analysis of the charter school movements and presents a theory that will do for American schools what his New York Times bestseller Reinventing Government did for public governance in 1992. In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the city got an unexpected opportunity to recreate their school system from scratch. The state's Recovery School District (RSD), created to turn around failing schools, gradually transformed all of its New Orleans schools into charter schools, and the results are shaking the very foundations of American education. Test scores, school performance scores, graduation and dropout rates, ACT scores, college-going rates, and independent studies all tell the same story: the city's RSD schools have tripled their effectiveness in eight years. Now other cities are following suit, with state governments reinventing failing schools in Newark, Camden, Memphis, Denver, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Oakland. In this book, Osborne uses compelling stories from cities like New Orleans and lays out the history and possible future of public education. Ultimately, he uses his extensive research to argue that in today's world, we should treat every public school like a charter school and grant them autonomy, accountability, diversity of school designs, and parental choice.

An esteemed veteran of numerous school reform efforts tackles education's most urgent questions. Educator Carl D. Glickman shows how to narrow the gap between democratic aspirations and practice and what schools must do, day-to-day, to teach and carry out the ideals of Jeffersonian democracy.

In this volume the eleven members of the Koret Task Force on K–12 Education provide a broad overview of the American education system—pulling together basic facts about its structure and operation, identifying key problems that hinder its performance, and offering perspectives on the requirements of genuine reform.

NEW IN PAPERPBACK An excellent 'how-to-do-it book' for educators in schools and school districts who are involved in or about to begin major school-based reforms. ?Thomas W. Payzant, superintAndent of schools, San Diego, California Renewing America's Schools raises the most fundamental questions about the purpose of public education, the role of schools, and the needed school-based application to fulfill the promise of education in a democratic society. This is a book that shows teachers, principals, students, parents, central office personnel, school boards, and community members exactly what they need to do to create schools that are purposeful, moral, and successful places. A down-to-earth and provocative look at the school reform movement, Renewing America's Schools keeps the focus of renewal squarely on teaching and learning concerns. It is an invaluable resource for anyone involved with school change. Contents 1. Introduction: Recapturing the Essence of Schools Part One: A Framework for Renewing Schools 2. The Covenant: Establishing Common Principles of Teaching and Learning 3. The Charter: Understanding How Decisions Are Made 4. The Critical Study Process: Making the Most of Important Information Part Two: The Work of School Renewal 5. Educational Tasks and Organizational Readiness 6. Becoming an Educative Community 7. Dealing with Tough Questions of Practice 8. Supporting School Renewal: The District's Role 9. Common Dilemmas of Good Schools 10. Conclusion: Staying the Course Carl D. Glickman is professor of educational leadership and executive director of the Program for School Improvement at the University of Georgia.