Failure Is Not an Option ─ 6 Principles That Advance Student Achievement in Highly Effective Schools

Blankstein, a former educator who heads a non-profit organization focused on building school leadership teams and who helped launch the professional learning communities movement, outlines six principles that will help educational leaders, staff developers, instructional coaches, educators, and administrators advance student achievement and create high-performing schools by improving current practice. He considers the overall purpose of sustaining success for all students, the mental framework of courageous leadership, factors that commonly derail change efforts, and principles for creating and sustaining a learning community: common mission, values, and goals; achievement for all students through prevention and intervention systems; collaborative teaming focusing on teaching for learning; data-based decisions for continuous improvement; active family and community engagement; and building sustainable leadership capacity. This edition has new sections on response to intervention implementation and how to build relational trust while addressing tough issues; new case studies on maintaining a collaborative culture in the face of new teacher evaluations and merit pay, and school and districtwide improvement efforts for twenty-first century education and project-based learning; new tools and processes for developing a higher-performing leadership team; new information on family and community engagement; new examples, tools, forms, and group questions; and videos on the companion website, with related questions. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)