Becoming Better Leaders: The Challenge of Improving Student Learning.

School improvement efforts focus on improved student learning, often including leadership as one factor in the process. In Becoming Better Leaders: The Challenge of Improving Student Learning, Gordon A. Donaldson Jr. and George F. Marnik trace the development of leadership skills of participants in the Maine Academy for School Leaders.

Leadership is identified as the fundamental factor in improving student learning. Their reporting provides a model for large-scale leadership development projects and insights for superintendents and educational administration professors who work with emerging school leaders. Individuals who have found themselves stuck in school improvement planning or questioning their own leadership efficacy also will find this work useful.

The authors base their examination and development of leadership in three domains: cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. That leadership is based in context is often overlooked. We study and emulate the characteristics of successful school leaders without examining the specific leadership needs of our particular school organization. Leadership traits of each domain that are successful in one context may not be the characteristics that will support the growth of the organization in another context.

(Becoming Better Leaders: The Challenge of Improving Student Learning, by Gordon A. Donaldson Jr., and George F. Marnik, Corwin Press, 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, Calif. 91320, 1995, 160 pp., $18 softcover)