Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Confronting Today's Issues: Opportunities and Challenges for School Administrators

This book examines some of the most important challenges facing administrators and other professionals in PreK-12 schools today: safety and security, hiring and evaluating members of the faculty and staff, dealing with students' academic and behavioral challenges, assessing student performance, responding to disengaged or overly engaged parents, and handling external pressures from the community. It also explores ideas for how to design the types of school our students will need in the future and cope with the realities of trying to develop these schools in a difficult educational environment. Preferring practical advice over unsupported hypotheses and adopting clear, instructive language rather than educational jargon, the authors draw upon their own experience as well as some of the best research currently being conducted in the field of educational leadership. The book is suitable for self-study, workshops, education courses, and in-serve programs. The target audience is current and prospective PreK-12 administrators, teachers, student teachers, and staff. Review As the authors note in their preface, "the current moment [is] a singularly critical point" in K-12 education in the US, with a number of seemingly intractable problems posing challenges to school leadership. They argue further that escalating and competing demands on principals, department heads, teachers, and staff often lead to self-defeating approaches to student academic growth and social development. The book offers a clear and thoughtful guide to help school leaders inspire and implement changes in their academic units. The authors first explain the value of developing a positive, shared "mission and culture" that can in turn influence how the school community addresses more specific issues. Common problem areas encountered include campus and building safety, teacher and staff hiring and evaluation, parent over- and under-engagement, student learning and behavior, and external pressures. Each is treated in a chapter that includes analysis, a succinct summary, pedagogical and related best practices, and a relevant case study. The volume as a whole and each of its problem-oriented chapters will be most effective if read and processed in groups by school leaders, particularly those learning new roles or adapting to new school settings. Summing Up: Recommended. Professionals.--CHOICE Creating a positive school culture is dependent on the leaders in a school and traversing those waters can be rocky. Employing an ethos of transparency, the authors of Confronting Today's Issues provide readers with a real-life, tangible exploration into the experiences of administrators by providing a clear guide for reflective thinking and solution-oriented dispositions that help schools thrive. The authors' honest approach is all together motivating, refreshing, and comforting for educators in leadership roles and for the teachers under their leadership! It is a must-read for education leaders who are ready to take their leadership to the next level!--Jemelleh Coes, Assistant Professor, University of Georgia, 2014 Georgia Teacher of the Year As an international education scholar and primary school teacher, this book sheds a critical light on issues that plague all education systems and provides comprehensive solutions to such problems.--Melanie M. Oates, International Educator, Kossuth Bilingual School Confronting Today's Issues is a refreshing, honest, and practical book that can and should be on every educator's shelf no matter how long they have been in the business! From the beginning, the authors explain that they are about to fly in the face of sometimes burdening instructional and managerial theory and tackle the real daily challenges of teachers and administrators full-on with suggestions based on their many collective years in the field. This is not to say that they ignore research and proven techniques, quite the contrary. This "guidebook" i