About the Book
"In Why Can′t We Get It Right? Second Edition, Marsha Speck and Caroll Knipe provide a thorough overview of what is known about the nature of professional development that produces high levels of learning and performance for teachers and their students. They admirably achieve their goal of showing how well-designed professional development with a clear focus on improved student learning can make a difference in teaching and student success."
—From the Foreword by Dennis Sparks, Executive Director
National Staff Development Council
How can we use professional development to provide the best teaching and learning opportunities for all students?
To increase student achievement and prepare all students to meet standards, educators must be well prepared. Teachers who know their content and strategies can open a virtual toolbox and take out what they need to help all students become successful. This thoroughly revised and updated edition of Why Can′t We Get It Right? explains how educational leaders can design, deliver, and evaluate collaborative standards-based professional development.
In this unique and indispensable guide, Marsha Speck and Caroll Knipe provide professional development designs, challenging teachers to make a difference for students and resulting in dramatically improved schools. This excellent resource contains:
Essential questions about high-quality professional development
Information on creating the culture for a learning community
Conditions and processes for professional development
Suggestions on designing your own model
Tools for evaluating and rethinking professional development and learning
Strategies for deepening a leader′s impact on a standards-based system
If we are to improve learning and achievement in our schools, we must also nourish the growth of educators and foster a learner-centered environment!
Table of Contents:
Foreword - Dennis Sparks
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
1. Essential Questions About High-Quality Professional Development
2. Creating the Culture for a Learning Community
3. Conditions and Processes for Professional Development
4. Designing Your Own Model
5. Evaluating Professional Development
6. Rethinking Professional Learning
Resource: Recommended Readings and Web Sites
References
Index
About the Author :
Marsha Speck is a leader in school reform, educational leadership and professional development issues. Her professional interests include building leadership capacity among teachers, administrators, and the community to improve schooling and achievement for all students and developing school/university partnerships that model these practices. She is currently Professor of Educational Leadership at San José State University. Marsha is the Director of the Urban High School Leadership Program, which is an innovative leadership development program linked as a partnership with regional school districts for teacher leaders and administrators to rethink the American high school and how it meets the needs of students and the community. She has diverse experiences as a teacher, high school principal, assistant superintendent of instruction, and professor, where she has worked collaboratively on school change efforts. She believes in a continued partnership linkage between the university and the school community, which is exemplified in her work. Creating school learning communities has been a central focus of her work with schools. She has published widely, including Why Can’t We Get It Right? Professional Development for Our Schools (Corwin best seller); The Essential Questions and Practices in Professional Development; The Principalship: Building a Learning Community (for Prentice Hall); and The Handbook for Implementing Year-Round Education in the High School (for the National Association for Year-Round Education). Currently, Marsha is the president of the National Association for Year-Round Education and serves on the Leadership Council of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. San José State University recognized her as a Teacher Scholar (1996–1997) in recognition of contributions toward promoting the scholarship of teaching, especially in education leadership. Her Fulbright Scholarship includes study in India, Nigeria, and Israel. She received a BA from the University of California, Davis; an MA from California State University, Stanislaus; and EdD from the University of the Pacific. Traveling, tennis, and reading are a few of Marsha’s passions when she is not working on leadership issues. She can be reached at San José State University, One Washington Square, San Jose, CA 95192-0072 or via e-mail at mslvtennis@aol.com. Caroll Knipe, MEd, recognized leader and educational planner, is committed to school change for student suc-cess. As veteran teacher, site administrator, leadership consultant, journal contributor, published author (Why Can’t We Get It Right? Professional Development in Our Schools), university adjunct staff, academy director, speaker, coach, strategic positioner, and director of personnel, communications, and curriculum, Caroll has invested 40 years in public education. For fourteen years as executive director of the California School Leadership Academy in the Silicon Valley, Caroll facilitated premier leadership development programs recognized nationally and internationally. As president of the 15,000-member Association of California School Administrators (ACSA), she helped to set the state’s educational direction. Her presentations include nationwide television seminars by Apple Computers; instructional television series, with roles as moderator and panelist; radio talk shows in Washington, DC, Los Angeles, and San Francisco; and facilitation at conferences for ACSA, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, California and National Staff Development Councils, and the California School Board Association. Recognized for outstanding leadership by state and national associations, she holds a bachelor’s degree from Lock Haven State University in Pennsylvania and a master’s degree from Western Washington State University. She can be reached at knilodge@garlic.com.
Review :
“In Why Can′t We Get It Right? Second Edition, Marsha Speck and Caroll Knipe provide a thorough overview of what is known about the nature of professional development that produces high levels of learning and performance for teachers and their students. They admirably achieve their goal of showing how well-designed professional development with a clear focus on improved student learning can make a difference in teaching and student success.”
"This is indeed a caring and pioneering book. Seldom have I seen or read such a thorough, comprehensive, and theoretically sound text on professional development. I challenge teachers, parents, principals, superintendents, district office personnel, board members, and professors to add this book to (their) professional library, to use it as a text, and to share it with others."
"Speck and Knipe′s book is unique in that it does justice to both the complexity and the central role staff development must play in raising student achievement. The authors discuss professional development in a way that does not sacrifice depth for breadth, sound research for practical application, or comprehensiveness for expediency."
Praise for the First Edition:
"As a proponent of whole-system change and as a professor of change leaderhip in education, I highly recommend Marsha Speck and Caroll Knipe′s book as a valuable guide for improving student, faculty, staff, and whole system learning. Professional development leaders concerned with whole-system improvement will want to have a copy of this book on their shelves."
"From an amazingly true-to-life perspective, this book explains how educational leaders can design, develop, and evaluate truly collaborative professional development . . . This second edition is intended to give supervisors and edge in the ′race for personal efficacy and collective power focused on student achievement.′"
