Read more
The Superintendent's Fieldbook: A Guide for Leaders of Learning is the most comprehensive, complete handbook for the superintendency. It grew out of extensive funding and professional development from the highly-respected Danforth Foundation, and examines the role of the superintendent through field-based research with over 150 superintendents over ten years. Intended for urban, rural, and suburban superintendents, the book is designed to help these district leaders improve their effectiveness, learn from best practices, and fully understand the tenets of NCLB and other critical legislation. As a fieldbook, the book reflects stories, anecdotes, and vignettes from practicing superintendents and is truly a practitioner-friendly resource for school leaders.
List of contents
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
I. Orientation
1. Preface
2. Introduction: Leading Learning in New Times
3. The "Commonplaces" of School Leadership
II. Leading Your Schools
1. Orientation: Leadership Theory for the Theoretically Challenged
2. Thinking About Your Organization
3. Encouraging Adaptive Leadership
4. Creating Your Learning Organization
5. Reflective Practice
III. Coping With Governance Challenges
1. Orientation
2. It¿s Rough Out There
3. Working With Your Board
4. Dealing With Your Unions
5. General Rules of the Road
6. Reflective Practice
IV. Understanding Standards and Assessment
1. Orientation
2. Where We Are on Standards and Assessment
3. What the Data Tell You
4. Questions for Reflective Practice
V. Addressing Race and Class
1. Orientation: Why Race and Class?
2. Difficult Conversations
3. What¿s Going On Inside Schools
4. . . . And What¿s Going On Outside Them
5. Reflective Practice
VI. Developing Your Principals
1. Leading Student Learning
2. The Instructional Leader¿s Toolkit
3. Facilitating Change
4. Questions for Reflective Practice
VII. Collaborating With Your Allies
1. Orientation: What Is Collaboration?
2. What Does Collaboration Require?
3. Collaboration in the Field: Early Care and Education
4. Questions for Reflective Practice
VIII. Engaging Your Community
1. Orientation
2. Public Engagement
3. Working With Your News and Media Outlets
4. Communications Planning
5. Reflective Practice
IX. So What Does All This Mean?
1. Reconciling Commonplaces and Images
2. Four Leadership Styles
3. Questions for Reflective Practice
Appendices
Appendix A: The Forum for the American School Superintendent
Appendix B: Members of the Forum for the American School Superintendent
Appendix C: Contributors
Index
About the author
Nelda Cambron-McCabe is a professor, Department of Educational Leadership, Miami University, Ohio. She was an advisory board member and a coordinator of the Danforth Foundation Forum for the American School Superintendent. Her recent publications include co-author with McCarthy and Thomas,
Public School Law: Teachers' and Students' Rights 5th ed., (Needham, MA.; Allyn & Bacon, 2004) and co-author with Senge, Lucas, Smith, Dutton, and Kleiner,
Schools That Learn (New York: Doubleday, 2000).
Summary
Drawing from over 200 superintendents spanning the past decade, this guide provides a leadership framework for the modern, successful superintendent.
