"All Together Now Vol. 1” provides a different perspective on school leadership preparation and practice. Analysis of 40+ years of research reveals that all the tools needed to improve the quality of school leaders are readily available, but a change of how these tools are viewed is needed.
The ability to transform the school culture, guide the instructional program, and share the leadership responsibilities are what qualify the central leadership figure. These qualifications are cumbersome and complex, and the actual practices needed to perform each of the qualifying tasks, while existent, have yet to be effectively synthesized, categorized, or made palpable for the everyday practitioner.
In order to create the most effective learning environments, PLCs, school leaders need tangible means of implementing proven practices. "All Together Now Vol. 1” examines a new perspective of school leadership preparation and suggests means by which school leaders can begin structuring PLCs.
Dr. Charles A. Guilford, III is a 20+ year practitioner that has served in various capacities and roles within multiple school districts. His personal and professional experiences have fostered his desire to enhance education practices and approaches. He has served as an educator at the k-12, undergraduate and graduate levels, with a concentration on secondary education.
PLCs have existed, effectively, might I add, for decades. The problem is the leaders of these early PLCs were erroneously identified as something called "instructional leadership"......SMH.
Book Excerpt
All Together Now
Yes, the same schools that reportedly birthed the “instructional leadership model” were actually professional learning communities, based on the full identification and analysis of principals’ practices.14 An examination of multiple studies of these urban schools reveals that the schools were ultimately PLCs, as many of the relational aspects of the leaders’ practices were omitted from the large body of research initially reported; it was also due to the fact that many of the schools, though desegregation had been outlawed, still operated in a segregated urban setting, which retained the community-based school environment common in minority schools prior to desegregation.
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