What School Boards Can Do: Reform Governance for Urban Schools.What School Boards Can Do: Reform Governance Governance makes decisions that define expectations, grant power, or verify performance. It consists either of a separate process or of a specific part of management or leadership processes. Sometimes people set up a government to administer these processes and systems. for Urban Schools. Donald McAdams (Teachers College Press). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Don McAdams, founder of the Center for Reform of School Systems, may be the nation's leading authority on school-board governance. In an earlier book, he detailed the travails and lessons of his 12 years on the Houston school board, a tenure in which he partnered with former U.S. secretary of education Rod Paige Roderick Raynor "Rod" Paige (born June 17, 1933), served as the 7th United States Secretary of Education from 2001 to 2005. Paige, who grew up in Mississippi, built a career on a belief that education equalizes opportunity, moving from college dean and school superintendent to be and others to drive an ambitious urban reform agenda. Since departing de·part v. de·part·ed, de·part·ing, de·parts v.intr. 1. To go away; leave. 2. To die. 3. from the Houston board in 2002, McAdams has worked with dozens of school boards and run institutes that train new and veteran board members to make a difference. In this book, McAdams sketches out his grand unified theory grand unified theory or grand unification theory (GUT) Theory that attempts to unify the electroweak force (see electroweak theory) with the strong force. The unification of all four fundamental interactions is sometimes called unified field theory. of "reform governance," explaining what school-board members should and should not do. McAdams teaches members how to develop a coherent theory of change, establish effective work routines, monitor performance outcomes, and translate their ideas into sensible policy. Drawing on his own experiences as a board member and consultant and on dozens of examples provided by his friends and colleagues across the nation, McAdams develops an essential text for those who believe school boards are not an anachronism a·nach·ro·nism n. 1. The representation of someone as existing or something as happening in other than chronological, proper, or historical order. 2. but a potentially valuable ally in the struggle to improve public schooling. |
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