Bringing Out the Best in Teachers: What Effective Principals Do, Edition 3
About this ebook
—Pam Newell Bradley, Principal
Irving Elementary School, Muskogee, OK
Teachers reveal how principals can empower them to perform their best!
What strategies do great principals use to influence teachers, students, and classroom instruction? This best-selling book by Joseph Blase and Peggy C. Kirby, now in its third edition, provides the answers from the teachers themselves.
New material in this revised edition compares the authors′ original research findings with recent literature on transformational leadership, school productivity, and adult learning, as well as the ISLLC and ELCC standards. Such comparisons underscore the continued timeliness and timelessness of this teacher′s-eye view of effective school leadership. The book offers strategies and related practices that allow leaders to
- Use the power of praise
- Influence others by using expectations and involvement
- Encourage professional autonomy
- Lead by standing behind
- Suggest rather than direct
- Use formal authority positively
Ideal for experienced or aspiring school principals, this enlightening and compact resource provides invaluable perspectives on how to motivate and inspire classroom teachers.
About the author
Joseph Blase is a professor of educational administration at the University of Georgia. Since receiving his Ph.D. in 1980 from Syracuse University, his research has focused on school reform, transformational leadership, the micropolitics of education, principal-teacher relationships, and the work lives of teachers. His work concentrating on school-level micropolitics received the 1988 Davis Memorial Award given by the University Council for Educational Administration, and his coauthored article published in the Journal of Educational Administration won the W. G. Walker 2000 Award for Excellence. In 1999 he was recognized as an elite scholar, one of the 50 Most Productive and Influential Scholars of Educational Administration in the world. Blase’s books include The Politics of Life in Schools: Power, Conflict, and Cooperation (winner of the 1994 Critic’s Choice Award sponsored by the American Education Studies Association), Bringing Out the Best in Teachers (1994, 2000, 2008); The Micropolitics of Educational Leadership (1995), Empowering Teachers (1994, 2000), Democratic Principals in Action (1995), The Fire Is Back (1997), Handbook of Instructional Leadership (1998, 2004), Breaking the Silence (2003), and Teachers Bringing Out the Best in Teachers (2006). His recent research (coauthored with Jo Blase and Du Fengning, 2008), a national study of principal mistreatment of teachers, appeared in The Journal of Educational Administration. Professor Blase has published over 120 academic articles, chapters, and books.
Peggy C. Kirby is a former professor of educational leadership and foundations, university research professor, and endowed professor for school improvement at the University of New Orleans, where she taught graduate courses in research and school leadership. She is a certified teacher and program evaluator in the state of Louisiana. Since receiving a PhD in educational administration in 1987, she has investigated school-level factors, particularly leadership and governance, that influence student and teacher outcomes. She co-founded the Jefferson Community School, Louisiana’s first charter school that serves middle school students at risk of failure due to chronic discipline problems. She co-authored, with Vincent Anfara, Jr., Voices from the Middle: Decrying What Is, Imploring What Could Be (1999). Her research publications have focused on alternative middle schools, shared leadership, ethics in educational administration, charter schools, and classroom processes related to effective schooling, and have appeared in journals such as the American Journal of Education, the Journal of Educational Administration, and the Middle School Journal. Kirby is now president of ed-cet, inc., an educational research, evaluation, and consulting firm based in New Orleans. Her clients include school districts in 12 states that received federal or state funds to improve instruction, leadership, and climate in their schools. She helped create the School Leadership Center of Greater New Orleans, which emphasizes cross-district collegiality, professionalism, and research-based school improvement. Through the center, she continues to assist school leaders in examining and implementing alternative forms of governance based on teacher empowerment.
