Organizing for School Change

Improving education is a key priority for governments around the world. While many suggestions on how best to achieve this are currently under debate, years of academic research have already revealed more about how to encourage change than is sometimes assumed. This volume brings together for the first time some of the most significant work of Karen Seashore Louis, one of the foremost thinkers and researchers in the field.Organizing for School Changepresents a unique variety of research-based results from studies conducted over the past 25 years. What emerges is not a simple blueprint for change, but a realistic picture of what needs to be done if we want to make schools better. The book is organized into the following four sections, each of which has a different specific emphasis: The course of change: what we know about how to enact it. The central role of teachers as both innovators and keepers of a schools culture. How schools function as organizations, and theorganizational characteristics that need to be addressed as part of effective and lasting change. The gap between research and practice, and what needs to be addressed in order for effective policies to be developed and put into practice. Drawing on a wide and comprehensive list of sources, the ideas brought together in this collection will prove invaluable and insightful reading for practitioners of school change and academic researchers alike. Pulling together the themes that are threaded throughout Karen Seashore Louis' work will stimulate both newcomers and veterans of the field of school change and improvement to consider research and craft in new ways.

Karen Seashore Louis is the Rodney S. Wallace Professor of Teaching and Learning, Department of Educational Policy and Administration, at the University of Minnesota.