Who Will Save Our Schools?

Michelle Collay is a School Coach for the Bay Area Coalition for Equitable Schools (BayCES) in Oakland, California, a private non-profit organization supporting urban small school initiatives. She supports school leader development and coordinates classroom-based teacher inquiry for the purposes of improving student achievement. Previously, she worked as a faculty member and administrator in teacher preparation and graduate teacher education in public and private universities. Collay conducts seminars and workshops about professional learning communities, constructivist learning design, and portfolio development. Before completing doctoral studies in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Oregon, she taught music and mathematics in elementary and junior high school and continues to play the bassoon in local ensembles. She and her husband, George Gagnon, write, teach, and parent together and are parent leaders in their children's neighborhood school in Oakland. Anna Ershler Richert, Ph.D. is a professor of Education at Mills College where she co-directs the Teachers for Tomorrows Schools Credential Program. She came to Mills from Stanford University where she was Associate Director of the Stanford Teacher Education Program for three years. She is active in various school reform efforts both locally and nationally including the Coalition of Essential Schools and Bay Area School Reform Collaborative. Currently she is a teacher education scholar with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning and secretary of Division K of the American Education Research Association. Recent publications reflect her interest in narrative methodology for teacher education and teacher research. They include two book chapters: "Narratives that teach: Learning about teaching from the stories teachers tell," in Narrative Knowing in Teaching: Exemplars of Reflective Teaching, Research and Teacher Education (2002), Lyons, Nona and LaBoskey, Vicki, (Eds.) Teachers College Press; and "Narratives as Experience Texts: Writing Themselves Back In" (2001) in Teachers Caught in the Action: The Work of Professional Development, Lieberman, A. and Miller, L., (Eds.), Teachers College Press. Her research interests focus on teacher inquiry, teacher professional development, and the pedagogy of teacher education. Mary Dietz is an international consultant specializing in assisting educators in building capacity to establish and facilitate learning communities. She is also co-founder of LearnCity, an educational technology firm offering a web-based solution for designing, implementing, and assessing standards-based instruction, K-12. Her work is focused on coaching educational systems through the design and implementation of school reform efforts. Much of her work with educators has been in the areas of continuous improvement, professional development, coaching, and alternative performance assessments for educators. She established the Portfolio Network for the National Staff Development Council (NSDC), dedicated to promoting the portfolio process for professional learning. She has coached teachers, administrators, school boards, and communities in establishing the relationships necessary for systemic change. Most recently she served as designer and facilitator of an online Knowledge Management System for managing standards-based instruction in California.

A constructivist leader facilitates professional dialogue and inquiry to enable all teachers to make sense of their work together and to reconstruct the major purposes of schooling. Illustrating their work with vignettes of the activities of such leaders, the authors of this book create a clear picture of constructivist teaching and leadership. They also formulate strategies for altering the school culture to accommodate constructivist leadership.

Examining the Context and Promise of SchoolingThe Teacher as Constructivist LeaderChanging the System A Prerequisite to Saving Our SchoolsConstructing Understandings of Learning Communities Essential Structures and Processes for Teacher Leadership and Systemic ChangeTeaching as LeadingWho Sets the Learning Agenda Issues of Power, Authority, and ControlPreparing the Constructivist Teacher LeaderThe Future of Teaching, Leading, and Reform