Transforming Turnaround Schools in China


Book Description

This book provides a holistic picture of how Chinese turnaround schools have been remarkably improved over the years and to arouse further discussion in this regard. It contributes to the understanding of school improvement from a Chinese cultural perspective, solidifies the knowledge basis of school change theories, and expands the understanding of educational administration and policies in China.




Educational Leadership and Asian Culture


Book Description

Providing a window on educational leadership from an Asian cultural perspective, Liu and Thien’s edited collection describes how educational leadership is linked with national culture in the context of different Asian countries. While much of the scholarship on this topic has been built on Western paradigms, this book examines the measurement of school leadership from a diverse lens by taking cultural context into account while examining educational leadership. Drawing on cross-cultural perspectives, the authors investigate the relationship between leadership for learning and societal culture, in addition to the relationship between leadership style and culture. The text provides a theoretical basis for understanding leadership in the context of Asian countries, and offers practical suggestions for identifying effective, and culturally sensitive leadership practices in similar cultural contexts. An excellent resource for graduate students, researchers in comparative education, educational practitioners looking to improve their education practices, and anyone interested in cultural leadership practices.




International Perspectives on Leading Low-Performing Schools


Book Description

Research is clear: School leadership quality matters. However, our knowledge of effective school leadership remains limited in at least three substantial ways. First, our understanding of school leadership effectiveness generally and school principal effectiveness specifically is limited to Western contexts, primarily North America and western European ones. Second, even in the confines of Western research and context, there has been relatively little specific focus on effectively leading low-performing schools. Third, even the conceptualization of leadership—do we mean the school principal, an administrative team, or a broader school leadership team—is a key factor in how we define and respond to the challenge of leading in low-performing schools. This book advances discussion and disseminates knowledge and global perspectives on what school leadership looks like, how it is enacted and under what circumstances, and when or where lessons might be portable. We anticipate this book having wide appeal for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners considering school leadership and how to support it effectively. The chapters suggest a noticeable level of convergence globally on how to lead low-performing schools effectively. Yet, there are clear political and culture differences that add significant gradation to how school leaders might enact best practice locally or inform policymakers and systems leaders about how to set up school leaders for success and subsequently support them. This book is one of the first that prioritizes the universality and nuance of leading low-performing schools globally.




Leadership Approaches to Negotiate Challenges in a Changing Education Landscape


Book Description

The argumentative point of departure of this scholarly book is the common conviction of specialists in the field of education in South Africa that the national education system is not at a satisfactory level – in both the academic and the public discourse. Such allegations are made and, frequently, stronger adjectives than ‘non-satisfactory’ are used. Results of international test series in which South Africa has participated, such as the 2015 TIMSS tests, confirm the negative verdicts found in the (public and scholarly) discourse. This book aims to argue that although the lack of performance could be attributed to a multiplicity of factors, one factor that can make a difference in the achievement levels obtained by learners in schools is leadership. The book demonstrates that a particular problem of both the scholarly and the public discourse on education in South Africa is an overtone of defeatism or resignation, blaming all ills in the education system and educational institutions on historical legacies and/or contextual factors (such as socio-economic deprivation in the catchment areas of schools) or poor resources and infrastructure. This collected work was inspired by a recently published spate of articles on top-performing schools (including top-performing schools in rural communities), in which it was demonstrated that good leadership can overcome such contextual and other challenges. The book unpacks the issue of leadership in South African schools from a variety of perspectives, thus contributing to the development of the scholarly discourse on Educational Leadership in South Africa. The target audience of the book is scholars of Educational Leadership. The research reported in the chapters draw on a wide range of methodologies, including empirical (survey) research (questionnaires and interviews), critical literature surveys, and the comparative method.




Education for Economic and Social Transformation in Rural China


Book Description

Liu and Cowan offer a unique in-depth study of educational development and social transformation in rural China. It foregrounds identifiable settings and personalities, engaging readers with the voices and experiences of people who are involved with the education system. This book explores the link between educational transformation and local economic regeneration. The research covers important phases of the educational development programme outlined by the County’s tow five-year education plans. It records a wide range of perspectives on Chinese rural education from stakeholders engaged with the education service. It reveals the contingent and different factors that lie behind the complex pattern of the educational development process. This research also illustrates how education policy is administered and driven forward through the local officers working closely with school leaders. This intriguing look at rural Chinese educational development will interest academics and students specializing in the study of education and international development, Chinese education and society, education policy studies and modern China studies




The Self-Transforming School


Book Description

The Self-Transforming School combines an insightful meta-analysis of factors contributing to the success of schools, and an examination of powerful mega-trends that are shaping developments in education, to offer the first mega-analysis in education policy and practice. The book spans fifty years, beginning with Caldwell and Spinks’ ground-breaking work The Self-Managing School which advocated innovative approaches that are now accepted as preferred practice, before offering a prognosis and plan for the future. The book argues that all schools in all settings can secure success for all students in an era where society and the economy are changing constantly and dramatically. Although schools find some support in local and global networks, externally designed re-structuring, re-staffing, or command-and-control direction isn’t sufficient to achieve transformation. Instead of replicating particular approaches to achieve modest improvement, leadership of the highest quality needs to be deeply embedded in schools and their systems. Caldwell and Spinks propose three important points that need to be taken into consideration: -schools are often at different stages of self-transformation -self-transformation requires a high level of professionalism, and must include teacher education and on-going professional development -funding is critically important, and efforts to build a capacity for self-transformation are constrained by what is available. The book gives particular attention to developments in Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, Finland, Hong Kong, India, New Zealand, Shanghai, Singapore and the United States. It will be of key interest to school leaders, policy makers, and academics and postgraduate students engaged in research on equity, student performance in highly disadvantaged settings and education policy.




Empowered Educators in China


Book Description

BEST PRACTICES FROM CHINA'S HIGH-PERFORMING SCHOOL SYSTEM Empowered Educators in China is one volume in a series that explores how high-performing educational systems from around the world achieve strong results. The anchor book, Empowered Educators: How High-Performing Systems Shape Teaching Quality Around the World, is written by Linda Darling-Hammond and colleagues, with contributions from the author of this volume. Empowered Educators in China describes the nation's policy reforms that built the modern Chinese educational system and the educational practices that are considered typical in China. The book spotlights Shanghai's system which is distinctive and superior. Shanghai offers a clear illustration of an educational system that continually invests in educating a diverse student population and, by measures of international comparison tests, is achieving outstanding results. Many factors contribute to the Shanghai system's ongoing success, including the students' motivation toward strong performance, the parental support for education that is culturally ingrained throughout the country, the focus that teachers place on high expectations for students, and the individual tutoring they provide. The author argues that these factors are only a partial explanation of Shanghai's success and then closely describes educational policies that support teachers' preparation, hiring, ongoing development, and opportunities for awards and leadership. These policies are based on the assumption that teachers are key to the nation's future and must be appropriately supported in order to contribute to student performance and achievement, an assumption that is also explicitly stated within Chinese law. This volume offers specific descriptions of how these national policies are translated, adapted, and enacted in Shanghai.




Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China


Book Description

Winner of the Lionel Gelber Prize National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist An Economist Best Book of the Year | A Financial Times Book of the Year | A Wall Street Journal Book of the Year | A Washington Post Book of the Year | A Bloomberg News Book of the Year | An Esquire China Book of the Year | A Gates Notes Top Read of the Year Perhaps no one in the twentieth century had a greater long-term impact on world history than Deng Xiaoping. And no scholar of contemporary East Asian history and culture is better qualified than Ezra Vogel to disentangle the many contradictions embodied in the life and legacy of China’s boldest strategist. Once described by Mao Zedong as a “needle inside a ball of cotton,” Deng was the pragmatic yet disciplined driving force behind China’s radical transformation in the late twentieth century. He confronted the damage wrought by the Cultural Revolution, dissolved Mao’s cult of personality, and loosened the economic and social policies that had stunted China’s growth. Obsessed with modernization and technology, Deng opened trade relations with the West, which lifted hundreds of millions of his countrymen out of poverty. Yet at the same time he answered to his authoritarian roots, most notably when he ordered the crackdown in June 1989 at Tiananmen Square. Deng’s youthful commitment to the Communist Party was cemented in Paris in the early 1920s, among a group of Chinese student-workers that also included Zhou Enlai. Deng returned home in 1927 to join the Chinese Revolution on the ground floor. In the fifty years of his tumultuous rise to power, he endured accusations, purges, and even exile before becoming China’s preeminent leader from 1978 to 1989 and again in 1992. When he reached the top, Deng saw an opportunity to creatively destroy much of the economic system he had helped build for five decades as a loyal follower of Mao—and he did not hesitate.




Changing Schools in an Era of Globalization


Book Description

Much has been written about globalization and the challenge of preparing young people for the new world of work and life in times of complexity and continuous change. However, few works have examined how globalization has and will continue to shape education in the East. This volume discusses education within the context of globalization and examines what is occurring in schools and systems of education in the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, Singapore, and Australia. Closer examination of recent developments and current trends reveal the same turbulence and a range of common issues in areas such as assessment, curriculum, leadership, management of change, pedagogy, policy, professional capacity and technology. This volume demonstrates the commonalities and differences and offers tremendous insight into the way things are done in places where student achievement is high but there is also a sense of urgency in continuing an agenda of change.




The TurnAround ToolKit


Book Description

Lynn Winters's and Joan Herman's The Turnaround Toolkit is written for school leaders who are focused on transforming instruction, and who may be working under significant time constraints to reverse declining student achievement or public perceptions of school failure. Based on the evidence that simply implementing “continuous improvement” is not enough to close the achievement gap, The Turnaround Toolkit provides a nine-step formative evaluation program designed to achieve an immediate and consistent focus on improving instruction in order to bolster student achievement. In a straightforward and accessible fashion, Herman and Winters explain three overarching “Turnaround Tasks” that frame these steps and the necessary-and sometimes drastic-actions that must be taken by school leaders as they use data to strategically choose, implement, monitor, and revise school interventions. A dedicated, online “toolkit” offers numerous worksheets and templates that support each stage of the process and help school leaders scaffold the work of educators to put an aggressive turnaround plan into action while a leadership guide at the end of the book provides guidance to turnaround teams and facilitators.