“Offers a set of extremely useful heuristics, mental models, and organizational checklists with which future and practicing school leaders can analyze leadership situations and take positive, focused action to improve school conditions. The author’s gift for narration brings the reader into the case studies and allows you to almost be sitting alongside experienced educational leaders as they ponder about and make decisions concerning critical educational issues. This is highly insightful and helpful for the reader just learning about the complexity of educational leadership and a critical gift for their own future decision making.”
—Dan W. Butin, Assistant Dean of Educational Leadership
Cambridge College

"The vignettes, cases, and stories provide insights into what an educational leader at the school level can face each day. These examples lend themselves to professional book study with practicing principals as well as those who aspire to take on that role."
—Michelle Gayle, Principal
Griffin Middle School, Tallahassee, FL

Diagnose your school’s critical challenges and apply specific differentiated leadership strategies for improvement!

Whether yours is an urban or a rural school, every setting faces unique types of challenges requiring an appropriate and differentiated response. This book introduces the qualities of differentiated leadership and stresses the importance of understanding that different schools can face very distinct sets of challenges. The author provides principals with an overview of “organizational diagnostics” with guidelines for identifying critical issues and demonstrates how to apply differentiated leadership to four high-level priorities:

• Preventing school decline
• Turning around a low-performing school
• Sustaining improvements
• Designing a new school