Curing Student Underachievement

Clinical Practice for School Leaders

By (author) Philip Esbrandt, Bruce Hayes

Not available to order

Publication date:

17 November 2011

Length of book:

206 pages

Publisher

R&L Education

ISBN-13: 9781610485388

Cure Student Underachievement is the culmination of the authors' research, practice, and experience as principals, superintendents, graduate professors, and consultants in efforts to improve school performance and increase student achievement. Searching for the real causes of underperformance, the authors explored problem-solving strategies in several fields.

The authors find that clinical practice identifies the root causes rather than the symptoms of problems, focusing valuable time, resource, and energy on prescriptions with greater promise for improved performance health. The concepts of diagnosis, prescription, and prognosis establish a foundation for improved planning and problem solving. This book introduces practicing leaders and leaders-in-training to the protocols of clinical practice by taking the reader through the twelve steps of the clinical cycle with specific strategies and exercises to provide practice in the application, use, and assessment of the model.
Curing Student Underachievement challenges the basic assumptions about school reform and can transform efforts to improve both school and student performance. The authors have established a framework to guide school leaders and teachers in discovering the real root causes of underperformance and to identify the remedies that will improve outcomes while avoiding the “silver bullets” that fail to deliver on promises.

The clinical practice model provides analogous fundamental and systematic steps and procedures that educators can relate to the unnecessarily complex and often overlapping tasks and responsibilities of each participant in the school system.Beginning with the basic anatomy of the organization chart, the authors build a complete view of the organization systems that can be monitored like the organic systems of the human body using vital signs. Vital signs, individually and in clusters, identify the unique circumstances of underperformance that lead to the development of remedies that can succeed.

The implications for leadership are significant. Clinical processes and protocols lead to new understanding of underlying performance issues, build mutual support for improvement efforts among administrators and teachers, and increase professional confidence in successful solutions while leading away from the “patent medicines” that are designed and sold to treat all failures but seem to solve none of them.