Karin Chenoweth

In Districts That Succeed, long-time education writer Karin Chenoweth turns her attention from effective schools to effective districts. Leveraging new, cutting-edge national research on district performance as well as in-depth reporting, Chenoweth profiles five districts that have successfully broken the correlation between race, poverty, and achievement. Focusing on high performing or rapidly improving districts that serve children of color and children from low-income backgrounds, the book explores the common elements that have led to the districts’ successes, including leadership, processes, and systems. Districts That Succeed reveals that helping more students achieve is not a matter of adopting a program or practice. Rather, it requires developing a district-wide culture where all adults feel responsible for the academic well-being of students and adopt systems and processes that support that culture. Chenoweth explores how districts, from urban Chicago, Illinois to suburban Seaford, Delaware, have organized themselves to look at data to guide improvement. Her research highlights the essential role of districts in closing achievement gaps and illustrates how successful outliers can serve as resources for other districts. With important lessons for district leaders and policy makers alike, Chenoweth offers the hard-won wisdom of educators who understand the power of schools to, as one superintendent says, “change the path of poverty.”

In Districts That Succeed, long-time education writer Karin Chenoweth turns her attention from effective schools to effective districts. Leveraging new, cutting-edge national research on district performance as well as in-depth reporting, Chenoweth profiles five districts that have successfully broken the correlation between race, poverty, and achievement. Focusing on high performing or rapidly improving districts that serve children of color and children from low-income backgrounds, the book explores the common elements that have led to the districts’ successes, including leadership, processes, and systems. Districts That Succeed reveals that helping more students achieve is not a matter of adopting a program or practice. Rather, it requires developing a district-wide culture where all adults feel responsible for the academic well-being of students and adopt systems and processes that support that culture. Chenoweth explores how districts, from urban Chicago, Illinois to suburban Seaford, Delaware, have organized themselves to look at data to guide improvement. Her research highlights the essential role of districts in closing achievement gaps and illustrates how successful outliers can serve as resources for other districts. With important lessons for district leaders and policy makers alike, Chenoweth offers the hard-won wisdom of educators who understand the power of schools to, as one superintendent says, “change the path of poverty.”

Informed by years of research and on-the-ground reporting, Schools That Succeed is Karin Chenoweth’s most inspiring and compelling book yet—an essential read for educators who seek to break the stubborn connection between academic achievement and socioeconomic status.Chenoweth draws on her decade-long journey into neighborhood schools where low-income students and students of color are learning at unexpectedly high levels to reveal a key ingredient to their success: in one way or another, their leaders have confronted the traditional ways that schools are organized and adopted new systems, all focused on improvement. In vivid profiles of once-embattled schools, Chenoweth shows how school leaders doggedly and patiently reorganized internal systems in order to prioritize teaching and learning, resulting in improved outcomes that in many cases exceeded statewide averages.From how they use time to how they use money, schools that succeed combine a deep belief in the capacity of their students to achieve with deliberate systems focused on student needs. As a result, they create vibrant places “where teachers want to teach and students want to learn.”

Informed by years of research and on-the-ground reporting, Schools That Succeed is Karin Chenoweth’s most inspiring and compelling book yet—an essential read for educators who seek to break the stubborn connection between academic achievement and socioeconomic status.Chenoweth draws on her decade-long journey into neighborhood schools where low-income students and students of color are learning at unexpectedly high levels to reveal a key ingredient to their success: in one way or another, their leaders have confronted the traditional ways that schools are organized and adopted new systems, all focused on improvement. In vivid profiles of once-embattled schools, Chenoweth shows how school leaders doggedly and patiently reorganized internal systems in order to prioritize teaching and learning, resulting in improved outcomes that in many cases exceeded statewide averages.From how they use time to how they use money, schools that succeed combine a deep belief in the capacity of their students to achieve with deliberate systems focused on student needs. As a result, they create vibrant places “where teachers want to teach and students want to learn.”

Getting It Done describes in clear and helpful detail what leaders of successful high-poverty and high-minority schools have done to promote and sustain student achievement.It follows two celebrated books by Karin Chenoweth: “It’s Being Done,” which established that the work of educating all children is possible, and How It’s Being Done, which examined the structures and processes necessary to support academic success. Getting It Done turns to the crucial issue of school leadership, exploring how school leaders have promoted unprecedented levels of school and student achievement. A book that focuses on real leaders—and on the knowledge and skills that they have employed on behalf of heightened achievement—Getting It Done will be essential reading for school leaders, and for all who believe that a successful education can be attained by all students.

Getting It Done describes in clear and helpful detail what leaders of successful high-poverty and high-minority schools have done to promote and sustain student achievement. It follows two celebrated books by Karin Chenoweth: It’s Being Done, which established that the work of educating all children is possible, and How It’s Being Done, which examined the structures and processes necessary to support academic success. Getting It Done turns to the crucial issue of school leadership, exploring how school leaders have promoted unprecedented levels of school and student achievement. A book that focuses on real leaders—and on the knowledge and skills that they have employed on behalf of heightened achievement—Getting It Done will be essential reading for school leaders, and for all who believe that a successful education can be attained by all students.

The quest for school improvement is old. The demand for dramatic, immediate school improvement is new. Even as President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan commit $4.3 billion to making 5,000 of the nation’s worst-performing schools better now, few people know what that really looks like—or how it actually works. How do school and district leaders enact rapid and meaningful reform that truly transforms the lives and learning of their students? Inside School Turnarounds uses on-the-ground reporting and up-to-the-minute research to provide a compelling and insightful exploration of the work of school turnarounds. Veteran education journalist Laura Pappano gathers stories, ideas, emerging practices, and honest admissions about what has worked and what hasn’t for schools and districts caught in midstream as they navigate this uncertain journey. In the voices of administrators, teachers, children, and parents, Pappano’s book captures the joys and frustrations, passions and challenges of those responding to the unprecedented demands being placed on—and embraced by—turnaround schools.

The quest for school improvement is old. The demand for dramatic, immediate school improvement is new. Even as President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan commit $4.3 billion to making 5,000 of the nation’s worst-performing schools better now, few people know what that really looks like—or how it actually works. How do school and district leaders enact rapid and meaningful reform that truly transforms the lives and learning of their students? Inside School Turnarounds uses on-the-ground reporting and up-to-the-minute research to provide a compelling and insightful exploration of the work of school turnarounds. Veteran education journalist Laura Pappano gathers stories, ideas, emerging practices, and honest admissions about what has worked and what hasn’t for schools and districts caught in midstream as they navigate this uncertain journey. In the voices of administrators, teachers, children, and parents, Pappano’s book captures the joys and frustrations, passions and challenges of those responding to the unprecedented demands being placed on—and embraced by—turnaround schools.

How It’s Being Done offers much-needed help to educators, providing detailed accounts of the ways in which unexpected schools—those with high-poverty and high-minority student populations—have dramatically boosted student achievement and diminished (and often eliminated) achievement gaps. How It’s Being Done builds on Karin Chenoweth’s widely hailed earlier volume, It’s Being Done, providing specific information about how such schools have exceeded expectations and met with unprecedented levels of success.