Adventures of Charter School Creators: Leading from the Ground Up(Leading Systemic School Improvement)

Adventures of Charter School Creators takes the reader inside the world of individual educational entrepreneurs who have created charter schools from scratch and lived to tell about it. Drawn from examples across the country, individuals (and a few teams) tell their stories of the victories they enjoyed and the defeats they overcame to create their schools. They include an Episcopal priest working in the Pico-Union community of Los Angeles, a corporate attorney in Miami, a manpower training specialist in East Saint Louis, the chief financial officer of a major African American church in New York City, a retired military officer in North Carolina, as well as experienced school teachers and administrators. From these stories Deal and Hentschke extract and examine the issues of school leadership that are peculiar to those school leaders who have chosen to create schools from scratch. This book: Examines entrepreneurial leadership as a concrete manifestation of school leadership. Sheds light on the concrete differences between leadership in relatively autonomous start-up charters and the relatively dependent traditional schools. Anchors charter school leadership within the context of general (non-education) leadership and distinguishes it from what is typically associated with school leadership today. It describes: The general forces in society which are pushing public K-12 education into market-based initiatives. The general leadership issues of any break-away or start-up enterprise. Will be of interest to all educators.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Acknowledgments Part 2 Introduction Part 3 PART I: A BIRD'S EYE VIEW Chapter 4 1. New Issues in an Old Industry Chapter 5 2. Muddling through Enduring Issues Part 6 PART II: A WORM'S EYE VIEW Chapter 7 3. Guarding the Mission Chapter 8 4. Growing Grass Roots Chapter 9 5. New Kids on the Block Chapter 10 6. A Company School Chapter 11 7. Clawing Your Way Chapter 12 8. A Fast Track in Harlem Chapter 13 9. A District School Chapter 14 10. Building on the Dream Chapter 15 11. The Phoenix Chapter 16 12. Planting Life Practices Chapter 17 13. Owning Wobegon Chapter 18 14. No Cats Chapter 19 15. Darkness Before Dawn Part 20 PART III: A FUTURE VIEW Chapter 21 16. A Call for Leaders of New Jobs Part 22 References Part 23 Index Part 24 About the Authors and Contributors

About the Author :
Terrence E. Deal, currently a free agent, has served on the faculties of Stanford, Harvard, and Vanderbilt Universities and was most recently named Irving R. Melbo Scholar at USC's Rossier School of Education. Prior to his academic career, he taught high school in Pomona and was a teacher and school principal in Pacific Grove, California. In addition to his public school experience, he was the director of the Athenian School Urban Center in San Francisco. He is author of many books and articles on educational leadership. Guilbert C. Hentschke is the Richard T. and Mary Catherine Cooper Chair in Public School Administration and former dean at the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education. In addition to teaching and writing, he serves on the boards of several U.S. K-12 education organizations. He served as faculty member and education dean at the University of Rochester, and prior to that was on the faculty at Columbia University Teachers College. He taught high school in San Jose, California, and was a school administrator in the Chicago public schools.

Review :
...a seminal work in the areas of comparative education, educational reform, and academic leadership....Here are stories of failure and success, victories and defeats. ...an impressive work of considered scholarship and a highly recommended contribution to the on-going national dialogue over the advantages and disadvantages of charter schools within private and public education reform movements.