Expert Problem Solving.

Too often, education researchers and practitioners in the field fail to communicate with one another on how best to improve education for children. In Expert Problem Solving, Kenneth Leithwood and Rosanne Steinbach have synthesized a series of independent journal articles on educational administration, based on evidence gathered from expert administrative thinkers and problem solvers.

The authors surveyed principals, administrators, and others and have included in their narratives a series of data tables that elaborate upon the responses of field administrators. Because much of their material was originally written for journals, the writers have for the most part edited out "excessive redundancy." Even so, administrators will find the reading process time-consuming as they search for problem-solving situations.

While the authors deserve credit for their field research designed to help administrators who are not "steeped in background knowledge about cognitive science" the authors themselves do not appear to have delved into the art of political survival for today's public school administrators.

Problem-solving tables will help an administrator very little when a new school board majority arrives with a mandate from the voters for change. Little of their research addresses the powerful role of school boards, for example, in determining how long superintendents and principals can remain on the job, no matter their expertise in understanding problem solving.

(Expert Problem Solving: Evidence from School and District Leaders, by Kenneth Leithwood and Rosanne Steinbach, State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y. 12246, 1995, 366 pp. with index, $21.95 hardcover)