Repositioning Educational Leadership

This groundbreaking volume encourages today’s educational leaders to reposition the way they think about leadership and its challenges. Experienced school and district leaders reveal how they conceptualize their roles, how they learn by posing and solving problems of practice, and how they cope with increasing expectations and complexity in their work. This compilation of compelling narratives demonstrates the power and efficacy of what can happen when school, district, and other educational leaders position themselves as inquirers, bringing forth broader social justice and equity implications. Readers see how leadership can illuminate and improve many aspects of institutional life and create intellectually demanding and rich learning environments for both adults and children. At its heart, Repositioning Educational Leadership is an invitation to practitioners and scholars to make space for new critical questions and perspectives. This book nurtures an expanded discourse about leadership, generated by leaders themselves, and arising from some of the most vexing and often invisible aspects of their important work.

Book Features:

• Focuses on how taking an inquiry stance can shape the work of leaders as they address issues and challenges in day-to-day practice.
• Offers an evidence-based approach to knowledge generation that is not only productive for the specific educational institutions involved but for the field more broadly.
• Includes a range of compelling narratives that demonstrate the power and efficacy of repositioning educational leadership in a variety of roles and organizations.
• Shares the experiences of educational leaders working across sectors in a wide variety of public, independent, charter, and private settings.

James H. Lytle is a former urban school superintendent and practice professor of educational leadership at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (Penn GSE). Susan L. Lytle is professor emerita of education at Penn GSE. Michael C. Johanek is senior fellow at Penn GSE and directs their Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership. Kathy J. Rho is assistant director of the Mid-Career Program at Penn GSE.

“Repositioning Educational Leadership: Practitioners Leading from An Inquiry Stance is a timely addition to the leadership literature. It introduces a welcome disruption by constructively challenging the positionality of the leader. Through accounts of different leadership roles, the book builds a solid case for how inquiry fits into varied leadership functions.”

—Teachers College Record

“Strong leadership is the linchpin to a successful school district. To excel at any profession or vocation, the learning process, especially for leadership positions, should never stop. This book unpacks a smorgasbord of real-life work situations that will allow the reader to reflect on these experiences and extract the best practices of leadership. Any superintendent, district administrator, or building leader will find these narratives useful because they invite you to become, as explained in the book, ‘leaders of learning.’”
—Daniel A. Domenech, executive director, American Association of School Administrators (AASA)

“To meet the learning needs of every child and close opportunity gaps, schools and school systems must be able to continuously learn and improve. Leaders need to see themselves as the lead learners, and the practitioner-authors in this book provide invaluable insights into what this complex work of leading from an inquiry stance looks like in different contexts.”
—Irma Zardoya, president & CEO, NYC Leadership Academy

“This book is a key contribution to the reinvention of the field of educational leadership, and it is crucial for preparing future leaders.”
—Michael A. Copland, deputy superintendent, Bellingham (WA) Public Schools

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: An Educating Leadership
   Rationale for the Book
   Inquiry as Stance
   Genesis of the Book
   Lenses for Reading the Book
   Practitioner Inquiry in the Leadership Literature
   Revisiting the Concept of Leading from an Inquiry Stance
   Design of the Book

PART I: LEARNING FROM AND WITH STUDENTS

Chapter 1. Inquiring to Lead: Learning With, From, and About  International Students in Independent Schools
   Melinda Bihn

Chapter 2. Language and Third Spaces
   Ann Dealy

Chapter 3. Learning to Lead from the Middle: Students' Feedback on Feedback
   Martha A. Richmond

Chapter 4. "Leaders Can Be Anyone": Students and Teachers Sharing Inquiry
   Peter Horn

PART II: COLLABORATING WITH TEACHERS AND THE SCHOOL COMMUNITY

Chapter 5. Deepening Engagement in the Everyday: The Collective Responsibility for Seeing All Children
   Patricia Cruice 

Chapter 6. School as a Community of Inquiry
   Noah Tennant

Chapter 7. "Smart Like a Boy": The Experiences of Women in an All-Boys Jesuit School
   Kristin Ross Cully

PART III: LEADING SYSTEM-LEVEL INQUIRY

Chapter 8. Braking and Entering: A New Chief Financial Officer's Transition into a K–12 Urban School District
    David Trautenberg

Chapter 9. Using Inquiry to Drive System Change
   Amy Maisterra

Chapter 10. Life After the Zone
   Marquitta T. Speller

Chapter 11. Our Community, Our Schools, and Our Money
   Stephen Benson

Conclusion: Leading with Eyes Wide Open

Appendix A: Reading, Writing, and Talking About Leading from an Inquiry Stance

Appendix B: The Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational  Leadership

About the Editors

Index