Hardball Leadership
How to Achieve Student Academic Success in a Rural School District
By (author) Mark Forner
Publication date:
23 August 2016Length of book:
252 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9781475821604
How do you sufficiently progress beyond the status quo when an entire rural community views the status quo as sufficient progress? Educating children in poverty remains the most important educational challenge of our time. What few people know is this: the rate of child poverty in our nation’s rural communities is actually higher than it is in our country’s urban centers.
Hardball Leadership is a best practices guide for rural school leaders who are passionate about closing the achievement gap and committed to leading their districts to significant academic improvement. Based upon original research that examined the leadership practices of effective rural superintendents who led their districts to dramatic academic improvement, this book’s insights include:
This leadership handbook will help rural school leaders build an academic pathway that will lead their students towards a happy and prosperous life.
Hardball Leadership is a best practices guide for rural school leaders who are passionate about closing the achievement gap and committed to leading their districts to significant academic improvement. Based upon original research that examined the leadership practices of effective rural superintendents who led their districts to dramatic academic improvement, this book’s insights include:
- Establishing a strong academic culture where every student can and will be successful
- Developing a system for improving teacher instructional performance
- Fostering an academically-focused partnership with the board of education
- Managing school-based controversy in a productive way
- Building and sustaining a financially strong district
This leadership handbook will help rural school leaders build an academic pathway that will lead their students towards a happy and prosperous life.
Mark Forner has penned a readable, much-needed account of the superintendency in the nation’s small school districts. Where accounts of the superintendency have long focused on the nation’s big cities, Forner talks concretely and constructively about the distinctive challenges of small district leadership. This illuminating volume offers both important insights and useful advice for those focused on rural education and small school systems.