Leadership
Editor’s Note
Changing roles, mounting expectations, multiple agendas, and rapid transitions are among the many pressures today’s educators face as they strive to improve the quality of learning and teaching in their schools and districts. This section features articles that document how school leaders grapple with key challenges such as nurturing teacher collaboration, working constructively with unions, and creating support for reform at every level.—N.W.
Improving Student Learning Through Collective Bargaining
In his last speech to the convention of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) in 1997, the legendary AFT president and education statesman Albert Shanker urged that collective bargaining be used to preserve and strengthen public education. Nearly 15 years later, more and more union leaders are heeding his call.
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The Virtues of Experience
A conversation with Thomas Fowler-Finn on replacing principals of underperforming schools
Many states and districts receiving federal School Improvement Grants are choosing the “transformation” model for school turnarounds that requires them to replace the principals of chronically underperforming schools. Thomas Fowler-Finn, a former superintendent and founder of Instructional Rounds Plus, a consulting firm in Medford, Mass., has trained school principals across the United States and Australia. He talked to Harvard Education Letter editor Nancy Walser about what it takes to become an instructional leader. Continue
“I Used to Think . . . and Now I Think . . .”
Reflections on the work of school reform
At the end of a course or a professional development session, I frequently ask the learners I work with to reflect on how their thinking has changed as a consequence of our work together. This reflection takes the form of a simple two-column exercise. Continue
