Reading & Resources
School Administrator, April 2016


Book Reviews


Cyberbullying in Social Media within Educational Institutions: Featuring Student, Employee and Parent Information
by Merle Horowitz and Dorothy M. Bollinger, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Md., 2014, 212 pp. with index, $35 hardcover

The form of aggression known as cyberbullying needs to be understood by everyone within an educational institution. The use of electronic communication to bully a person by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature is most often conducted through computers, cell phones, websites or online chat rooms.

In Cyberbullying in Social Media within Educational Institutions, Merle Horowitz, a superintendent with 20 years of experience studying and implementing programs for bully prevention, and Dorothy Bollinger, a former superintendent and attorney specializing in electronic communication, explore recent legal cases within the education arena.

The text is broken into three parts consisting of issues with students, employees and parents. The number of school cyberbullying cases is exploding and the outcomes are not always predictable. This text can help educators better prepare to address legal issues and reduce potential tragedies. It includes a table of state bullying and cyberbullying laws, an appendix of cyberbullying in social media cases, references, centers and resources, as well as ideas for staff development.

The text is well-suited for in-service training, basic school law courses, and principal and superintendent association meetings. As educators, we want to do all we can to prevent tragedies and remove ourselves, as best we can, from legal entanglements.

Reviewed by Jerry Horgen, retired superintendent and adjunct professor, Capella University, Minneapolis, Minn.



Dumb Ideas Won’t Create Smart Kids: Straight Talk About Bad School Reform, Good Teaching, and Better Learning
by Eric M. Haas, Gustavo E. Fischman and Joe Brewer, Teachers College Press, New York, N.Y., 2014, 160 pp. with index, $34.95 softcover

Occasionally, a good idea comes along to make education more effective. However, according to the authors of Dumb Ideas Won’t Create Smart Kids, many of the proposed and implemented fads and trends in recent decades have been dumb ideas that have failed to create smart kids.

In addition to their criticism of today’s schools, Eric Haas, an education researcher and educator; Gustavo Fischman, professor at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University; and Joe Brewer, co-founder and research director of Culture2 Inc., offer better ways to teach by explaining pedagogical alternatives to the current dumbing-down of schooling.

Successful public, charter and private schools exist and they tend to have common features. These schools focus on learning, expert teachers, good working conditions, quality learning times and spaces, and systems of assessment. The case is made for the assistance of other agencies and social intervention.

The material in this book is for teachers, administrators and community leaders who want to commit to doing something to improve their schools. The writing is straight to the point and does not waste the reader’s time.

This book is directed toward those educators who want to see smart students learn while avoiding the time-consuming, resource-wasting dumb ideas that appear from time to time.

Reviewed by Darroll Hargraves, retired superintendent and consultant, School and Community Resources, Wasilla, Alaska



Good to Great to Innovate: Recalculating the Route to Career Readiness, K-12+
by Lyn Sharratt and Gale Harild, Corwin, Thousand Oaks, Calif., 2015, 312 pp., $27.95 softcover  

Employers and universities seek students who have soft skills and are innovative to be their future workers and students. In Good to Great to Innovate, Lyn Sharratt and Gale Harild, both education consultants and former Canadian school administrators, define innovation as something new that can be applied in a useful way.

Innovation builds on the notion of doing something different rather than just doing the same things better, as we see in improvement planning. The book examines students’ ability to realize their potential and have a voice in their pathway to becoming the literate graduates that they have the right to become.

The authors outline the need to map pathways to career readiness by guiding educators to build on time-tested practices with new innovative approaches. Students need to find the right course and proceed in the right direction on their individual pathway. Having a structured and collaboratively planned approach requires educators, employers and community partners to become familiar with each other.

This book could be used in coursework for individuals working towards a curriculum and instruction certificate or a vocational director certification. At the end of each chapter, the authors ask external parties to provide feedback. The core argument is that innovation is not just about introducing a new thought or idea, but also about applying it in practice. Dazzling creativity comes to nothing without grit and determination to move the idea forward. Innovations are like babies. It is one thing to bring them into this world; it’s another thing altogether to bring them up in it.

Reviewed by William A. Clark, superintendent, Warren County School District, Warren, Pa.



Job-Embedded Professional Development: Support, Collaboration, and Learning in Schools
by Sally J. Zepeda, Routledge, New York, N.Y., 2015, 2015, 184 pp. with index, $34.95 softcover

In a typical school day, there is rarely time for anyone to pause and reflect. Students, teachers and administrators are all busy preparing for the next deadline, the next testing, the next IEP meeting.

Similarly, as I was reminded at a recent superintendents meeting, system leaders are so consumed with managing the duties of the schooling that it is difficult to find time to consider the art of leading. When  school leaders do find time to reflect on the important work to which they are assigned, they want that time to be rich in content and full of applicable knowledge. In her book Job-Embedded Professional Development, Sally Zepeda, professor of education administration and policy at the University of Georgia, offers instructional leaders an efficient and applicable resource to move teachers and leaders to new levels of professional practice.

Although there are many important aspects to this work, I am particularly drawn to the author’s commitment to job-embedded learning. Through case studies and other learning activities, the author confronts the reader with real-life situations often written by practitioners. As such, the reader may immediately recognize the scenario as painfully familiar and notably applicable. The result, I would suggest, is an opportunity for leaders and teachers to work collaboratively to resolve the challenges in the case study and begin to address issues awaiting resolution in their own schools and classrooms.

Another important consideration is the collaborative nature of effective teaching. Certainly we know that teaching and leading can be solitary ventures and we also recognize that the loneliness can invite teachers and administrators to quit the profession. Zepeda’s work acknowledges that possibility and confronts it straight on by challenging teachers and leaders to collaborate with their colleagues, to find solutions to shared burdens and to be researchers in their classrooms through collaborative action research.

The author has framed the book efficiently around topics such as peer coaching, authentic action research, peer observation and teachers as change agents. Each chapter offers a coherent, self-contained professional development opportunity easily situated in the brief moments we claim for shared learning in an otherwise noisy day.

Zepeda’s writing is meaningful and applicable, while at the same time grounded in scholarship and research. Although she has authored enough scholarship to support her own positions, she is intellectually fair in that she offers competing scholarship that ultimately helps to amplify or augment her discussions about effective teaching and leading. I appreciate the confidence and clarity of her writing and I suspect our very busy teachers and leaders will likewise appreciate her efficiency and applicability. We are rushing all the time, it would seem, but when we pause to reflect I would recommend that Zepeda’s work be a part of that reflection.

Effective teaching and leading are too complicated to do alone. Zepeda helps us find a way to collaborate and at the end of the day the children will appreciate our doing so.

Reviewed by Zach Kelehear, dean, College of Education, Augusta University, Augusta, Ga.



School Shooters: Understanding High School, College, and Adult Perpetrators
by Peter Langman, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Md., 2015, 298 pp. with index, $36 hardcover

School shootings have permeated the American consciousness. National media attention has stereotyped both shooters and their motives. For superintendents, it is imperative to determine what, if anything, can be done to reduce the risk of a school shooting. School Shooters provides an in-depth look at school shootings and examines the causes and dispels the myths associated with school shootings.
    
Author Peter Langman, a psychologist, identifies three populations of school shooters: secondary school shooters, college shooters and adult shooters. Within these populations, the author identifies the the perpetrator’s mindset, meaning whether the shooter experienced some sort of trauma or was psychotic or psychopathic.
    
Traumatized shooters are those who were chronically abused as children and grew up in violent, dysfunctional homes. Psychotic shooters are those who suffer from a mental disorder. Psychopathic shooters are more narcissistic, lack empathy and feel justified in their actions.
    
While most superintendents will focus on the chapters dealing with secondary school shooters, the other topic areas are valuable, most notably the chapters dealing with adult shooters. While it might be unlikely for a school administrator to pre-identify an adult shooter, school staff can learn to identify the behavior of someone scoping out a school before an attack.
    
With a few exceptions, the author does not describe the shootings in graphic detail. The value of this book is Langman’s examination of the personality of the shooters and possible motivations behind their attacks. Educators want to know what motivates individuals to murder children and why.
    
The author exposes the inaccuracy of two common school shooter stereotypes: the loner and the victim of bullying. Instead, through careful examination, the author identifies characteristics that are common among school shooters. Physical deficiencies, sibling rivalry and various educational failures are common among secondary shooters, while military failures are common among the other two kinds of shooters. None of these are sole indicators, but instead seem to be the building blocks of some individual pathology or trauma.
      
The final three chapters offer the most insight on school safety for school leaders. Langman examines patterns among school shooters in one chapter, offers preventative measures in another and presents his key findings in the final chapter.

In summary, it is more effective to attempt to identify a school shooter by appearance than by behavior. Establishing an arsenal, creating a list of people to kill and drawing plans of the school are activities that reveal someone with possible violent intent.

School Shooters is a text recommended for any school administrator who wants to know why and what can be done to prevent, if not eliminate, such acts of murder.

Reviewed by Marc Space, superintendent,  Grants-Cibola County Schools, Grants, N.M.



What Schools Don’t Teach: 20 Ways to Help Students Excel in School and Life
by Brad Johnson and Julie Sessions, Routledge, New York, N.Y., 2014, 204 pp., $34.95 softcover

If students are going to succeed in the world beyond school, they need to be learning more than just academics. The authors of What Schools Don’t Teach believe that essential life skills are being ignored in today’s classrooms in favor of conformity and rote learning. This larger set of skills will not only benefit students in the future, but also will help them excel in their classrooms today.

This book is essentially a handbook for teachers who want to review their classroom approach to instruction to incorporate skills into their lessons that students can transfer to their life beyond school; skills that will help them become productive members of society. Each chapter of the book is organized into four sections, with some research and the authors’ thoughts on the topic followed by personal stories, ideas for classroom activities and key points to remember. The chapters can be read in any order that appeals to the reader, as teachers will no doubt find some topics more compelling than others. The implementation suggestions are well worth reviewing for teachers who want to enhance their students’ learning experience.

Authors Brad Johnson and Julie Sessions bring more than 40 years of experience in education to their writing. Johnson is an international speaker on education who has been a teacher, curriculum director, athletic coach and administrator. Sessions is currently a teacher and curriculum coordinator at Porter-Gaud School in Charleston, S.C.

Among the topics they cover are leadership, competition, meaningful engagement, student accountability and responsibility, and perseverance while learning from failure. The chapter about instructing the individual should be read by every teacher as a reminder of the importance of reaching each child.

While not a book that will interest most administrators, teaching staff will find many ideas worth discussing and implementing.

Reviewed by John C. Fagan, retired superintendent, Oak Park, Ill.


Why I Wrote this Book …
“Board-superintendent interactions have a tremendous effect on student learning, staff morale and a community’s perception of its schools. We wrote this book to provide practical ideas to support growth and increase the productivity of the board-superintendent relationship, based on years of experience studying, observing and engaging with boards of education and superintendents.”

Thomas F. Evert, retired superintendent, Janesville, Wis., and AASA member since 1995 on co-authoring The Board and Superintendent Handbook: Current Issues and Resources (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015)

ABSTRACT

Links to Longevity
A recent dissertation for the Ed.D. at University of Southern California explored the link between student success and the length of superintendent tenure.
Phillip Chen’s research, based on school districts in California, found a pervasive lack of readiness of incoming superintendents to handle aspects of the job in the resource management domain.
When data were combined with interviewees’ comments about which traits and skills took longest to attain, the study pointed to a paradox at the heart of superintendent tenure. Often there is a poor match between the time it takes a superintendent to acquire the skills to maintain tenure and the below-average time they are given to develop these traits and skills.
Copies of “Traits, Skills and Competencies Contributing to Superintendent Longevity” are available from ProQuest at 800-521-0600 or disspub@proquest.com.

BITS & PIECES

Teacher Development
The National Center on Education and the Economy’s Center on International Education Benchmarking has released two reports on teacher professional learning and training.
The studies show how education systems in Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong and British Columbia facilitate the continuous improvement and retention of highly professional teachers.
Learn more at http://bit.ly/global-teacher-development.

Principals and Achievement
The Florida Department of Education partnered with REL Southeast to conduct a systematic review of the relationship between principal characteristics and student achievement.
Several principal behaviors were shown to be associated with improved student achievement, including protecting instructional time, supporting teacher professional development and using data to make decisions.
The report is at http://bit.ly/principal--characteristics.

Parent Guides
Guides to help parents understand state-level school report cards have been created by the Louisiana Department of Education.
The guides help parents determine how their child’s performance compares to the school average, to previous years and to other districts, and how different populations of students are performing at their school.
Find the guides at http://bit.ly/report-card-guides.

Practical Communication
The National School Public Relations Association has released Making Communications Work for You and Your Schools, which carries advice from school communication experts.
Topics address communicating with diverse audiences, engaging the public, navigating a crisis and communicating with the board.
Order a copy at www.nspra.org.

Voucher Schools
The National Bureau of Economic Research has released a working paper on first-year evidence from a Louisiana school voucher plan for disadvantaged students to attend private schools.
The research shows that participation in the program reduced student academic achievement, likely due to the quality of the schools involved.
Download the paper at http://bit.ly/school-vouchers.

Predicting Impact
Research from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and the American Institutes for Research shows that evaluations based on observing teachers in the classroom often fail to meaningfully assess teacher performance.
The study found prior academic achievement is a significant predictor of teacher success in high-stakes evaluation.
Find the study at http://bit.ly/predicting-impact.

Member Bloggers
The AASA website maintains a directory of members who manage a regularly updated blog. Members whose blog link is not included on the site can contact Deanna Atkins at datkins@aasa.org.
In addition, School Administrator magazine runs a “Best of the Blogs” section in each issue to publish short excerpts from thoughtful blog posts by AASA members on an aspect of their leadership work.

Legislative Corps Newsletter
Interested in education policy at the federal level? AASA’s Legislative Corps newsletter, available for free to all members, is the best source for up-to-date news from Capitol Hill and beyond. Published weekly whenever Congress is in session, it includes updates on Congress, the Department of Education and the White House.
To be added to the mailing list, contact Leslie Finnan at lfinnan@aasa.org.

Back Issues
Misplaced a previous issue of School Administrator that might now enrich the discussion with board members, colleagues or doctoral students? To order back issues from the past two years, visit www.aasa.org for past themes. Contact Kristin Hubing at 703-875-0772.