Diagnosis and Design for School Improvement: Using a Distributed Perspective to Lead and Manage Change

This practical resource highlights the critical importance of diagnosis and design in the work of leading and managing for school improvement. The authors maintain that today’s school leaders and managers, under intense pressure to improve student learning, cannot simply adopt and implement pre-packaged reforms manufactured outside the school. Rather, to effect real reform, they must understand how leading and managing for instructional improvement gets done in their school and in turn use their diagnoses as the basis for mindful
design and redesign. This book is a must-read for school administrators, teachers, stakeholders, and reformers who seek a new way to improve teaching and learning.

James P. Spillane is the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Professor in Learning and Organizational Change and Chair of the graduate program in Human Development and Social Policy at Northwestern University. Amy Franz Coldren is an administrator and teacher at Frederick Community College in Frederick, Maryland.

May 2011/144 pp./PB $25.95, ISBN 978-0-8077-5215-9/HC $56.00, ISBN 978-0-8077-5126-6