Transforming Schools: Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement
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About
How can a school become a place where all members of the staff are learning, growing, and working to increase student achievement? The answer lies in systems thinking and a focus on continuous improvement, two concepts that can transform staff development from something that people merely tolerate to something that they actively pursue to create lasting improvements in teaching and learning.
Table of contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Making Staff Development a Worthwhile Endeavor
Systems Thinking As the Door to Continuous Improvement
Envisioning the Desired Results
Defining Reality Through Data
About the authors
Robert Kuklis is a retired public school administrator who currently teaches a graduate course on curriculum at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut. He also supervises administrative interns at Pace University in White Plains, New York, and student teachers at Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York City. He served as a public school teacher for 18 years, the last 9 as a social studies department chairperson. During his years as a teacher, he piloted units and wrote a unit for the Committee on the Study of History, a group promoting inquiry in the classroom. Kuklis was a high school administrator for 13 years and finished his public school administrative career by serving as an assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction in Newtown, Connecticut, for six and one-half years. While a principal in the 1980s, he worked as a lead facilitator for the Principals Academy, Syracuse University/New York State Consortium for School Improvement; and in the 1990s, he served as a principal of a high school being researched by the Coalition of Essential Schools, the research resulting in the book Kids and School Reform. As assistant superintendent in Newtown, Kuklis provided the leadership for developing and implementing standards-based curriculum throughout the district. Kuklis currently resides in New Rochelle, New York, and can be reached by phone at (914) 235-4840 or by e-mail at bobkuklis@optonline.net.
Everett Kline is a member of the ASCD faculty of consultants. Before joining ASCD he worked as a senior staff associate for the Center for Learning, Assessment and School Structure. He began his work in education as a history teacher in the school district of South Orange and Maplewood, New Jersey. During this time, Princeton University honored Kline as a master teacher. In the South Orange/Maplewood district he also served as chair of the high school social studies department and Director of Secondary Education. When he left that district to consult, he was Assistant Superintendent for Instruction and Learning. His work on change in that district was chronicled in an article he was asked to write for Primary Voices, a journal of the National Council of Teachers of English. Kline lives in Princeton, New Jersey. As director of his own consulting firm, Understanding<SUPSCRPT>4</SUPSCRPT>, he remains active in the field, thriving on the intellectual challenge of working with teachers, administrators, and educational theorists throughout the United States and around the world. He can be contacted at (609) 279-1321 or by e-mail at
Everett@understanding4.com.