Democratic Learning and Leading: Creating Collaborative School Governance

by Ronald J. Newell, Irving H. Buchen

Overview

Here, authors Ronald Newell and Irving Buchen continue the dialogue begun by Roland Barth, Linda Lambert, Carl Glickman and others pertaining to democratic, teacher-led schools. Teachers are capable of managing schools, without designated principals and/or superintendents. A number of practitioners have taken up the gauntlet and have created collaborative cultures in order to fulfill the need for creating teacher-controlled environments. These environments are necessary to carry out the as-of-yet unfulfilled reform of practices that benefit students at the most elemental level of education-the relationship of teacher and learner. In teacher-managed schools, teachers have control of budgets, management, personnel, and all other decision-making.

It is not enough for teachers to be willing to democratically control schools. The culture of schooling is not inherently democratic, and a collaborative culture must be cultivated by creating the community, the collective, the consensual, the consultative, and the coaching commitment. Newell and Buchen show how the experience of a group of practitioners has lighted the way for continual development of the elements of the collaborative culture by living them. They also discuss the problems and promises of creating and living this collaborative, democratic culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781578861293
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/21/2004
Pages:	112
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.23(d)

About the Author

Ronald J. Newell spent 27 years as a high school history teacher and coach, 4 years in teacher preparation programs at the university level, helped begin the Minnesota New Country School, and now works with the Gates-EdVisions Project replicating the project-based model. He is also the author of Passion for Learning (ScarecrowEducation, 2003).

Irving H. Buchen is Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs and Director of International Programs for IMPAC University, a member of the doctoral business faculty of Capella University, a Senior Principal of Canis Learning Systems, and training editor of The Futurist, the official publication of the World Future Society.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Foreword
Chapter 2 Introduction
Chapter 3 1. The Future of School Governance
Chapter 4 2. The Teacher Culture of the Past and Present
Chapter 5 3. The Past Creates the Future: Democratic Schools
Chapter 6 4. The Future in the Present: The Visions of EdVisions
Chapter 7 5. Educational Collaboratives: The Five Facets of Mastery
Chapter 8 6. Obstacles and Opportunities: Feedback from Practitioners
Chapter 9 7. Creating the Culture of Collaborative Governance
Chapter 10 Appendix A: Practitioner Responses to the Five Aspects of Collaboration
Chapter 11 Appendix B: Practitioner Responses to the Four Statements
Chapter 12 References
Chapter 13 Index
Chapter 14 About the Authors

Editorial Reviews

Truly, this is a book whose time has come. The wave of major transformation for school systems has finally begun to crest and can no longer be ignored by the observers on the old traditional shore. Irving Buchen and Ron Newell bring insight, knowledge and, most importantly, experience about the conditions pushed forth in this upswell of change. Schools need to pull students forward into the future, not tie them down in the past. Schools can no longer mirror the Command and Control models of the old Industrial Age. The Knowledge Work era has arrived and requires both schools and organizations in the larger economy become much more democratic and collaborative to survive. The key players in the future success of American schools are those who are most oftenoverlooked, undervalued and ignored in the present educational system-teachers, parents and students. This book distributes leadership roles to all. A globalized economy is re-writing the rules for American business organizations. The source for the future workforce that will create a successful new American economy currently resides in the schools of today. To create a powerful future in the United States the changes need to happen in the present. Buchen and Newell bring this reality clearly into the

John F. Horne III

They hold that a collaborative culture in the schools improves the most important relationships within them, which are those of the teachers and students. They examine the history of school governance, the rise of the concept of the democratic school and the EdVisions Program, and the skills that program and others offer teachers to help build a democratic, "teacher-owned" school environment.

Reference and Research Book News

Read this book! Newell and Buchen probe the key ingredient to the future of education. The authors provide us with a profound and seminal insight into how education must be transformed through the creation of learning communities characterized by a collaborative culture and a democratic governance structure. The frosting on the cake is that they describe how it works in practice, the critical success factors, and the perceptions of teachers who are actively engaged in the transformation.

Edward J. Dirkswager

"Shared governance as a topic for educational texts has been around for at least two decades in one form or another. What makes Democratic Learning and Leading: Creative Collaborative School Governance by Ronald J. Newell and Irving H. Buchen different is its focus on democratic schools through the Ed Vision Cooperative."

School Administrator

They hold that a collaborative culture in the schools improves the most important relationships within them, which are those of the teachers and students. They examine the history of school governance, the rise of the concept of the democratic school and the EdVisions Program, and the skills that program and others offer teachers to help build a democratic, "teacher-owned" school environment.

August 2005 Reference and Research Book News

"Shared governance as a topic for educational texts has been around for at least two decades in one form or another. What makes Democratic Learning and Leading: Creative Collaborative School Governance by Ronald J. Newell and Irving H. Buchen different is its focus on democratic schools through the Ed Vision Cooperative."

School Administrator Magazine