District Leadership Book Club

Let's tap our collective intelligence to generate ideas that some school/district leaders might find useful if they were interested in starting up their own book club:

If you were going to start up a book club among a group of leaders in one school or in one school district for the 2008-2009 school year, what ONE book would you choose and why?

Comments

[Matt Hillmann]

Made to Stick by Dan and Chip Heath is great. They look at why certain ideas became accepted by a wide audience and why others fall by the wayside. Easy, entertaining read that also has a blog for continuous follow-up and discussion.

[Fred Deutsch]

Failure is NOT an option: Six Principles that Guide Student Achievement in High-Performing Schools, by Alan Blankstein. This book addresses the vital elements that are necessary for enduring educational reform. The first chapter is more philosophical, dealing with "courageous leadership", but the bulk of the book deals with concrete "how-to" steps a school district can take to improve student achievement. It's my top recommendation.

[Melissa]

I would use Daniel Pink's book, A Whole New Mind. Not everyone on our team has read it, and our Board of Ed is reading it. I think it is an easy read that makes a WHOLE lot of sense and will push our thinking when we think about curriculum, instruction and assessment in our schools. I also think that all of our adminsitrators would benefit from this knowledge regardless of principalships or directors or supervisors.

[SkipOlsen]

I've found Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns by Clayton M. Christensen fascinating because it is a different look at learning & learning institutions. It goes beyond school and looks at learning in a world that recognizes multiple intelligence, student strengths, different learning styles and different paces of learning. It's one of the best books I've read because it looks at how an attractive, efficient and diverse learning systems might look.

I wish the school board where I live would start a chartered school program with many different kinds of schools instead of doing the same old tired stuff.

[Jack Lorenz]

I would suggest "Better-a Surgeon's Notes on Performance. This is a thought provoking book and the ideas are easily transferable to education. Powerful and well-written.

[Tracy Rosen]

From Good to Great by Jim Collins.
Focusing on, obviously, how to make the jump from good to great.
Here is a powerpoint presentation I found connecting the ideas in from good to great to schools:
www.iu1.k12.pa.us/headlines/good_to_great/Good_to_Great-summary.pps

[Mike Falick]

As a school board trustee (and regular education blogger (http://mikefalick.blogs.com), I agree that Good to Great (and G to G for the Social Sector) and Disrupting Class are excellent books, I would recommend Code of the Street by sociologist Elijah Anderson as a book that will help leaders in urban districts understand the challenges faced by students who come from very different backgrounds than those of most if not all educators and district leaders.

[Mike Falick]

As a school board trustee (and regular education blogger (http://mikefalick.blogs.com), I agree that Good to Great (and G to G for the Social Sector) and Disrupting Class are excellent books, I would recommend Code of the Street by sociologist Elijah Anderson as a book that will help leaders in urban districts understand the challenges faced by students who come from very different backgrounds than those of most if not all educators and district leaders.