You Can't Do It Alone

A Communications and Engagement Manual for School Leaders Committed to Reform

Jean Johnson

• Publisher: R&L Education
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9781610483025
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Administration

Experts and reformers have suggested many promising ideas for improving schools and ramping up student learning, but in too many cases, proposals for change run up against resistance, confusion, and anxiety from key stakeholders such as teachers, parents, students, and members of the broader public. To propel change—and to sustain it—school leaders need to understand what is driving these responses and develop more effective strategies for engaging these groups in the mission of reform.

You Can't Do It Alone provides school leaders with a crisp summary of opinion research among teachers, parents, and the public conducted by Public Agenda, Education Sector and other respected analysts. It offers tips on what leaders can do to more successfully engage these groups in areas such as reforming teacher evaluation, turning around low-performing schools, and building support for world-class standards. The book also introduces a theory of change and public learning developed by social scientist Daniel Yankelovich, along with some practical rules of the road for promoting the kind of dialogue that leads to consensus and action.

Table of contents

• Foreword by Daniel Yankelovich
• Chapter 1 It’s Enough to Make Your Head Spin
• Chapter 2 Mind the Gap
• Chapter 3 The Indispensable Compact—Why Engaging Teachers Is Job No. 1
• Chapter 4 Change the Rules and People Are Bound to Get Upset
• Chapter 5 Are Younger Teachers Different, and What Can School Leaders Do to Keep the Best Ones in the Classroom?
• Chapter 6 Being an Instructional Leader—Getting the Results the Kids Deserve
• Chapter 7 The Knowledge Sweepstakes
• Chapter 8 When Money Is Short
• Chapter 9 It Takes Two to Tango—Ensuring That Schools Have a Good Climate for Learning
• Chapter 10 The Big Turnaround
• Chapter 11 An Alternative Model of the Informed Public
• Chapter 12 Dialogue and Choicework—Two Ways to Help People Cope with Change
• Chapter 13 From Ideas to Action—School Leaders Use Dialogue and Choicework to Spur Change
• Chapter 14 Is It Time for School Leaders to Speak Up for Themselves—and Speak Out for the Rest of Us?
• Epilogue Reconnecting the American People with Their Schools
• Appendix So You Want to Do Some Engagement? Here’s Where to Start
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author