Leadership Through Collaboration

School Administrator, Oct, 1997 by William G. Keane

Effective leadership nurtures the environment in which all people--students, teachers, parents, everyone--can grow together, suggest the authors of Leadership Through Collaboration. Michael Koehler and Jeanne C. Baxter examine 14 myths or near-myths (truths that are often professed but not acted upon) that mislead educators into thinking that their institutions are making progress when actually they are only moving in place.

Koehler and Baxter are well equipped to lead readers through an examination of the destructive force of these myths. Koehler has been a teacher, supervisor and full-time consultant. Baxter, a former teacher, principal and assistant superintendent, teaches at Northeastern Illinois University.

They argue that without "substantive changes in our philosophical predispositions as administrators and in the planning activities we use to promote change, schools will continue to stand curbside as the 'parade of exciting ... ideas marches into obscurity."' These ideas keep getting reborn in each new generation under new names.

The authors present arguments that, while not entirely new, seem fresh because they come dressed in clear prose. They point out, for example, that teacher evaluation is basically a waste of time, that principals and other school leaders too often have become more skillful in their control mechanisms, rather than more collaborative, and that teachers have ultimate control of schools since they decide whether a principal will be allowed to lead.

Every concept raised in the book is supported by references to specific school models in operation.

(Leadership Through Collaboration, by Michael Koehler and Jeanne C. Baxter, Eye on Education, 6 Depot Way West, Suite 106, Larchmont, N.Y. 10538, 1997, 212 pp., $34.9 hardcover)