Michael Fullan, London: RoutledgeFalmer
2003
There has been much research on reforming schools but less on fixing the systems in which they're embedded. Michael Fullan, a Canadian educator who has worked extensively in his home country, the US and the UK, jumps into this opening with an investigation of what it takes to produce "sustainable system change." His book is informed by efforts at large-scale reform in the United Kingdom and in large American urban districts, such as San Diego and District 2 in New York City. Fullan says it can be done, that "over the last five or so years we have learned how to improve literacy and numeracy in large systems." But this is just the threshold to greater progress. To improve student performance more broadly, make it sustainable, and get teachers to buy into it requires, says Fullan, a shared moral purpose, the effective coordination of bottom-up and top-down reforms, and quality leadership at all levels. He also asserts that such change is too rapid and dynamic for any one person to control and manage; needed instead is "distributed leadership," which "requires people to operate in networks of shared and complementary expertise rather than in hierarchies." In short, if a system seeks sustainable reform, it must create an environment that identifies, nurtures and rewards leaders at every level from the classroom to the superintendency or ministry. This book offers some big ideas and is a worthy read for those interested in systemic reform. To order a copy, surf to http://www.routledgefalmer.com/.
