Murphy, J. (Ed.). (2002). The educational leadership challenge: Redefining leadership for the 21st century. 101st Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education: Part I. Reviewed by Arnold B. Danzig & Trisha Fritz, Arizona State University

	Murphy, J. (Ed.). (2002). The educational leadership challenge: Redefining leadership for the 21st century. 101st Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education: Part I. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. pp. iv + 313 $39     ISBN: 0-226-60175-7 Reviewed by Arnold B. Danzig & Trisha Fritz Arizona State University October 7, 2004 The last NSSE Yearbook on the topic of educational leadership was Educational leadership and changing contexts in families, communities, and schools edited by Luvern Cunningham and Brad Mitchell (1990). Since the current Yearbook builds on some of the themes, major findings and leadership ideas from the 1990 volume, we have decided to begin this review by summarizing a few key chapters in order to see how the field has changed over the past decade. The opening chapter in the volume is by Cunningham (1990) who outlined contemporary developments in the field of educational leadership. He explored some of the reasons behind a renewed emphasis on recruitment, selection, and training of educational administrators. He recognized that the cultural changes of the 1980s were so rampant that attention to administrative functions such as budgeting, finance, school law, organizational theory, curriculum development, and supervision separated from an understanding of the many settings that shape children’s lives was too narrow a focus for school administration. Instead he urged schools to form linkages, formal and informal, that enhance the general well being of all children and youth. The chapters in the volume urged school reformers to recognize that children arrive at school very differently, in terms of family, language, ethnicity, social class, and local community. One chapter in the volume explored the nature of loss and belonging in public schools (Mitchell, 1990). He implored school leaders to reject the mindset that promotes efficiency and instead place priority on caring, and on the values required for building places (schools and systems) to meet the needs of children based on the individual differences children bring with them. A second chapter by Mitchell (1990) described some of these differences, and how policies might be crafted in order for schools to be more equitable for all children, with different needs. To serve children (and their families), multiple providers, from multiple agencies, with different training and occupational socialization would be required to cross organizational and institutional boundaries. A major requirement for education leaders would be to arbitrate and resolve disputes in which professionals from different settings, and with different occupational socialization, come together. Chapters by M. Kirst, W. Boyd, and others (1990) looked at education policy changes, which would be required in order to build schools as a hub for services for children, families, and communities. The focus on community explored the possibilities of closer home-school relationship, with parents as partners in education, as a way to increase student engagement and make schools better places for children to learn. A final set of chapters looked at the nature of the work of school administrators and how best to improve working conditions within the profession. Rallis (1990) focused on different models of the principalship and explained why school leader as “culture builder” was the model of the future. Guthrie (1990) suggested that school leaders will have to add new skills to their repertoire, fewer management skills (bureaucratic decision-making and enforcement) and more leadership skills (designer of settings, entrepreneurial skills, and instructional understanding). Dealing flexibly with ambiguity and paradox and forging inter-institutional connections, involves new skills abilities for school leaders, with implications for recruitment, selection, and training. The next to last chapter in the volume was by Joseph Murphy (1990), the editor of the current Yearbook under review, whose chapter was titled “Preparing School Administrators for the Twenty-first Century: The Reform Agenda.” Murphy suggested that reformers focus more on the internal structures inside schools rather than on political, social, and economic forces. One of his key recommendations to prepare administrators was for administrators to promote teaching and learning, a theme deepened and extended in the current Yearbook. For Murphy, the professionalism of administrators is based on professional and craft knowledge rather than a more classic model of graduate education in the social sciences. His view was that new training approaches should adopt reflective approaches to practice with more robust clinical experiences. Universities in particular were criticized for the lack of a coherent training program with boring courses and meaningless clinical experiences. Certification standards rather than professional competencies were seen as driving university preparation programs and candidates for administrative positions were selected based on goodness of fit with local standards rather than leadership, merit, or equity. This conversation continues in the current volume The Educational leadership challenge: redefining leadership for the 21st century (2002) edited by Joseph Murphy. Murphy argues that “the ways of thinking about school administration that we relied on for most of our history provided an inadequate platform for educational leadership in the 21st century” … and that “new foundations for the profession need to be built” (p. xi). This new foundation moves corporate ideology and behavioral sciences from the center stage of school administration and argues for rebuilding and reculturing of school administration based on “learning, justice, and community” (p. xii). The authors of the chapters in this newest Yearbook continue to articulate the reform agenda for educational administration. There are five sections to the current Yearbook. Section one describes some of the roots of educational administration and school leadership. Section two describes some of the new challenges faced by school and district leaders, and the forces which are causing school administration to change. In section three Murphy explains why and how the culture of educational administration must change in order to be effective in the 21st century with additional chapters focusing on professional learning and instruction, democratic community, and social justice. Section four explores new leadership roles for teachers, administrators, and parents. The book concludes with a section and chapters on the preparation and professional development of school leaders. Section One — Foundation for Understanding and Action The opening chapter of the book by E. Goldring and W. Greenfield looks at the concept of leadership in education and some of the recurring dilemmas faced by school administrators. The authors describe schools and districts as “socio-political and highly normative systems, (are) nested within larger social, cultural, economic and political environments containing other dynamic institutions” (p. 2). They describe some of the special conditions of the work that make administering and leading public schools difficult and different from other contexts. They also explore the forces, which shape the challenges of leadership in public education, and conclude with discussion of some of the dilemmas in administering and leading schools and districts. The answers they provide are quite complicated. The history of education points to a specifically moral basis for the work of school administrators. The authors stress the growing recognition of the moral dimension of administrative work and that managing moral dilemmas is a key part of administrative work. Dilemmas are not problems to be solved, nor issues to be faced. Instead dilemmas are found when competing values cannot be reconciled or fully satisfied. In the Handbook of Research in Educational Administration, Ogawa, Crowson, and Goldring (1999) observe that school organizations have features that lead in opposing directions. These opposing directions present enduring dilemmas that explain some of the paradox of well-intentioned reform initiatives that lead nowhere. Goldring and Greenfield explore a few of the dilemmas that are inherent in the efforts to reform school organizations and the problems that these dilemmas cause for school and district leaders. Dilemmas are like the tip of an iceberg, and the ways that administrators opt to deal with conflicting demands (i.e., parents as consumers, parents as advocates, parents as partners) hints at conflicts below the surface. Understanding the underlying organizational value conflicts requires administrators to recognize the contrary and oppositional forces that underlie the dynamics of organizational change. Effective leadership is partly seen as managing enduring dilemmas that are by definition irresolvable. This view of organizational uncertainty takes the forefront. The challenge for administrators is to first understand the basis of conflicting values and how to deal with them in a time of permanent uncertainty. Section Two — Understanding the Challenges of School and District Leadership Section two of the book is titled “Understanding the Challenges of School and District Leadership at the Dawn of a New Century.” The opening chapter by C. Lugg, K. Bulkley, W. Firestone, and C. Garner details multiple terrains facing education leaders (political, economic, financial, accountability, demographic, and staffing) with commentary on how educational leaders might navigate (or circumvent) the terrain. The keenness of the authors’ insights and clarity of writing explores the structural features of American education and how there are multiple influences (local, state, and national) shaping educational innovation and change in U.S. schools. Lugg et al. document not only national influences on educational policy, but how federal policy shifts (on standards, accountability, and testing) result in shifts in state education policy, and movement in local school district policy to meet the challenges. According to the authors, the growth of state funding after WWII leveled off in the 1980s with equal shares (approximately 42%) of the education budget coming from local and state sources, and the remainder coming from the federal government (NCES, 2000 cited by Lugg et al., p. 27). They report a shift away from equity based funding (equal share of the “pie”) to an “adequacy” formula, loosely defined to mean an emphasis on outcomes (as opposed to inputs) and recognition that to reach selected outcomes requires different inputs for different populations of students. In mapping the political terrain, the authors suggest we examine how local school leaders respond to national and state trends, in an era of increasing national and state influence and funding of education. In mapping the economic terrain, the authors document commonalities and uniquenesses across school districts. Education is defined as both a user and provider of resources, and the wealth of a community is in part related to the quality of the products of its education systems. The availability of jobs is related to the economics of a community and influences local educational leaders priorities and investments. The authors see fundamental changes in the nature of work – away from “muscle work” to “mind work” which bring new challenges for educational providers to provide an educational workforce based on symbolic-analytic jobs, in new workplaces. The message for school leaders is to develop relationships with community leaders and establish partnerships with business and higher education. These standards for administrators imply new skills and understandings based on schools and the local economy. The authors conclude, “educational leaders will need to pay particular attention to three dynamics “— the economy, state level policy, and accountability through testing— if they hope to successfully navigate the current educational terrain… (and) this chapter has provided a compass” (p. 38). However, even the best of compasses don’t determine the destination, only some of the roadblocks to getting there. Chapter 3 by Kenneth Leithwood and Nona Prestine examines challenges facing school leaders in highly accountable contexts and the nature of productive responses on their part. They identify four approaches to school reform and accountability: 1) market, 2) decentralized, 3) managerial, and 4) professional. Each approach is based on different (and sometimes conflicting) assumptions about what is wrong with schools and what needs to be done. Market approaches argue for greater competition in recruiting students, in the basis of school funding, and in the ranking of schools based on aggregate student achievement. Individual abilities, values, beliefs and motivations seem more powerful than competitive conditions of schools in determining administrative responses (Leithwood and Prestine, 2002, p. 44). And the authors note a wide range of responses by individual principals to market demands, some prioritizing the importance instructional leadership and others finding less time related for instructional practice and learning. Decentralization of decision-making implies empowering parents and local communities. Decentralization also has been used to describe more efficient and cost-effective administrative structures by giving local school administrators control over budget, personnel, physical plant, and curriculum. Rather than freeing schooling administrators to focus on professional issues, (e.g., teaching, learning, curriculum) the data on decentralization indicate greater time demands on school leaders, role intensification, and isolation from colleagues outside their own organization (p. 46). Management approaches adopt the view that schools structures are essentially working, and that efficiency and effectiveness will improve as administrators become more data driven and more strategic in their goals setting and planning. While the authors point to evidence for the real world validity of this approach, they also cite conflicting evidence which reports that “successful school improvement appeared to depend on establishing and sustaining a culture of inquiry and reflection, a commitment to collaborative planning and staff development, high levels of stakeholder involvement, and effective coordination strategies” (p. 47). Professional approaches argue that participatory democracy in schools leads to more effective teaching and learning. Professional approaches are related to standards which emphasize control of entry to profession by government and responsibility for monitoring accountability controlled by the profession itself. However, the authors report a dearth of evidence related to the effects of standards based administration and a greater potential for unintended side effects such as the narrowing of curricula. According the authors, regardless of which accountability approach is embraced, effective leadership always tries do accomplish a few basic goals:: 1) Buffer staffs from demands of policy makers, 2) Provide individualized support to staffs and challenge them to think critically and creatively about practice, 3) Build collaborative culture with structures to encourage collaboration, and 4) Foster parent and community involvement in the education of their children. The second section of the chapter is a case study of one exemplary district’s effort at reform in Illinois, and focuses on effective district leadership in the context of large-scale, accountability-oriented reforms. The case study describes how district leaders effectively responded to standards-based reform in Illinois and presents the view that administrators exert substantial impact over the success reform initiatives. In the study, administrators are gatekeepers for reform policies, and make a huge difference in implementation efforts. District administrators have considerable leeway and control over the capacity building efforts in the district. They assist with implementation, impact levels of staff commitment and engagement in reform efforts. Administrative support for reform and establishing legitimacy of reform initiatives at the early stages of the initiative are also cited as ingredients to successful implementation. The case study of district leadership determined reveals that the end game was less to meet state mandates but rather to use the state standards as an opportunity to improve teaching and learning across the district. Once committed to this path, district leaders adopted strategies to draw teachers and administrators attention to the state’s reform efforts, build district capacity in instruction, and implement more fully developed reforms into schools and classrooms. District administrators were quick to assess the state’s efforts and how to integrate state reform plans into their own improvement efforts. This involved many school level people as well as significant professional development initiatives on the part of the district. Overall, this chapter points to the importance of district leadership and the value of district structures (p. 62). Section Three — Re-culturing the Profession Section 3 of the volume titled “Re-culturing the Profession” begins with a chapter written by Joseph Murphy, the volume editor, in which he provides the architecture for the volume and outlines a framework for reculturing school administration. Murphy says he is interested in developing a new theory of management and leadership practice. He argues that reculturing a profession is not as easy as asking professors to carve out new content or asking practitioners to describe new administrative activities. In Murphy’s view, the basic work of education administration revolves around three basic concepts: social justice, democratic community, and school improvement (p. 66) and he uses three metaphors to describe the roles of educational administrators: moral steward, community builder and educator. These metaphors are reminiscent of ones used by Peter Senge (1990) in which he described the: 1) Leader as a designer - a ship designer model in which the leader governs ideas of the organization, translates ideas in practice, and designs effective learning processes so that individuals and organizations learn; 2) Leader as teacher who sets environment to gain more insightful views of current reality. Leaders bring to the surface the mental models that people use to look at the world; identify strengths and weaknesses of these models. 3) Leader as steward implying the idea of servant leadership. Leader as Moral Steward In this view, the central aspect of school administrators’ work each day is to help clarify the day-to-day activities of participants as they contribute to a larger vision of educational purposes. The leader is more of a ‘moral steward’ heavily invested in defining purposes that combine action and reflection. Leadership is more than simply managing existing arrangements and keeping fires from burning out of control. Putting out fires is not enough to nourish the minds and hearts of principals and leaders. Others have also made this argument. Sergiovanni (1994) proposed that the role of education leader was to create a moral order, one that bonded leader and follower to a set of shared values and beliefs. Beck and Murphy (1994) suggested that seeing the ethical and social justice implication of the thousands of decisions made on a daily basis by school leaders was the role of moral steward. Starratt (1991) said the role of leadership, in the broadest sense, was to build an ethical school. Leader as Community Builder Leadership as community building implies leadership at three distinct levels. On the first level, it implies embracing an external community of parents, families and communities and using the resources available within the school environment. On the second level, it implies creating a community of learning among the school community, teachers and staff, in which learning is embraced and valued. At the third level, community leadership implies focus on creation of personalized learning communities among students as an essential community building function of school leaders. At all three levels, it implies leadership that is less bureaucratic in mindset and new approaches in which others are freed to empower themselves through dialogue, reflection, and democratic participation. The metaphor of principal as "captain of the ship" or CEO, does not sustain critical scrutiny in the 21st century. Sergiovanni (1994) says leadership is based “more on modeling and clarifying values and beliefs than on telling people what to do.” This view implies creating new structures that enable broad participation of leadership and is more reflective and self-critical than bureaucratic management. An image of community builder encourages others to be leaders in their own right and see to it that leadership is deeply distributed in the organization. Leader as Educator By focusing on the educator, Murphy focuses attention on the primary role of teaching and learning in the developing expertise of school leaders. This orientation involves changing the major source of inspiration for educational leadership away from management towards education. Understanding and valuing of teaching and learning provide the basis for development of leadership in schools. This means repositioning leading from a management focus to a learning focus. Rowan (1995) pointed out that leaders must be “pioneers in the development and management of new forms of instructional practices in schools, and [that] they . . . [develop] a thorough understanding of the rapidly evolving body of research on learning and teaching that motivate these new practices” (Rowan cited in Murphy, 2002, p. 187). If learning is to be one of the focuses of a new generation of education leaders, then they will need to be more broadly educated in general and more knowledgeable about curriculum and instruction in particular. Leadership and Learning The next three chapters in the volume deepen and extend this discussion of the role of educational administrators. Chapter 5, “School Improvement Processes and Practices: Professional Learning for Building Instructional Capacity” by James Spillane and Karen Seashore Louis, looks at the role of school administrators in promoting instructional capacity of the schools and teachers. Improving instruction and enhancing instructional capacity is more than improving teacher knowledge or developing better educational materials. It is the interaction among teacher, materials, and students (p. 84). And, if school improvement is to make a difference to children, it must be basically about improving teaching and learning with instructional capacity as the central focus of school improvement issues. Instructional capacity is understood in “the interaction of teachers with particular students around particular intellectual materials” (p. 89). The authors suggest that professional community is not simply an “add-on”, to a list of panaceas for school improvement, but a way to bring together a large body of research on how change in teachers and schools occurs (p. 94). The authors suggest that professional community does not necessarily cost a lot of money, and of all the factors contributing to professional community, “social trust was by far the strongest. Trust and respect acted as a foundation on which collaboration, reflective dialogue, and deprivation of practice could occur” (p. 94). The authors conclude with some of the challenges to school leaders and the leadership profession. One area to consider is content knowledge and knowledge of pedagogy school leaders need to understand and support their leadership efforts with teachers. If school administrators are to develop these areas, in addition to traditional administrative functioning such as budget, scheduling, etc., school leaders will have to practice a distributed perspective on leadership so no single person is expected to master everything: knowledge of curriculum pedagogy, content knowledge, adult development, social factors affecting learning, etc. The whole school or organization, rather than a single teacher or administrator, may be the most appropriate unit for thinking about expertise. Developing social trust, a pre-requisite for individual and organizational learning, is built around time to talk with others. Teacher voice is related to site based management. Large and complex schools may inhibit teacher voices by segregating teachers and limiting common spaces. Finally, the development and cultivation of professional networks, beyond a particular school, is part of the need to support ongoing conversations about teaching and learning. Leadership for Democratic Community In chapter 6, “Leadership for Democratic Community in Schools,” Gail Furman and Robert Starratt expand Murphy’s central notion of democratic community as a way to reculture the profession of school administration. The chapter provides important discussion and background for understanding some of the problems faced when using the terms “community” and “democracy.” The unpacking and repackaging of community and democracy result in the view that “democratic community is based on acceptance and appreciation of difference” … and serves “the common good in a multicultural society and world” and “is the most appropriate focus for school leadership in the “postmodern” world of diversity, fragmentation and cross-nationalism” (p. 129). Instrumental purposes of school and the adoption of technical/rational view of schooling limits the adoption and embracing of democratic community in schools. According to the authors, advocates of “school as democratic community” face huge obstacles, but persist because it is the right thing to do. While much of the chapter covers important discussion of democratic community, the authors include discussion of practical examples of ways leaders might act in the real world of public schools. Leaders engage in dialogue, face-to-face encounters, encourage civil discourse, promote social engagement and invite others to participate. So, the more theoretically rich discussion of community and democracy are balanced with a more practical view of school leadership as well as the values and actions of school leaders committed to democratic community. Chapter 7 by Colleen Larson and Khaula Murtadha expands on the theme of “Leadership for Social Justice.” The authors provide explanations for why school leaders might commit to social justice issues and how specifically their actions might change if they are to adopt social justice commitments. On a number of levels, this chapter is particularly satisfying. The authors explain why many school leaders don’t address issues related to social justice, and that many school leaders see injustice as natural. They are critical of the view that the major task of school leaders is to maintain order and stability and the status quo. Instead, Larson and Murtadha provide alternative images of leadership theory and practice based on ethics of care, critique, and justice to inform a more human form of practice. The ethic of care, in particular, with focus on children and families, seems to be well established in the previous volume on school leadership. The role of spirituality in leadership studies (Terry, 1990), is examined with consideration of the importance of love to the ethic of caring and justice. The extension of what is typically part of the private sphere to be included into the public sphere, we suspect will be problematic to many practicing school administrators. The authors talk about loving principals, and a discourse, which connects caring and feeling with rational judgment. Our sense is that many school principals and superintendents will not be comfortable using a language of commitment and love. While we agree with the authors, we would have liked a better understanding of how this view interacts with bureaucratic language of assessment and accountability, that are a part of many local communities. In the third strand, the authors cite quite extensively from the work of Paolo Freire (1970) in constructing systems and processes of social justice. I found this the most powerful of the arguments concerning leadership and social justice, because it explains in very practical language the ways culture pushes school leaders to act more like Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and adopt technical-rational solutions to administrative concerns. The authors suggest that too often, school leaders are committed to policies that fail to even recognize unequal life chances and significant differences in future income, earnings, and satisfactions that result. Section Four – Reshaping Leadership in Action The next four chapters explore multiple leadership roles in schools. These chapters recognize that educational leadership comes from multiple sources: teacher leadership, administrative leadership, and lay leadership. Chapter 8 by Smylie, Conley, and Marks points out that the teacher leadership initiatives of the 1980s produced mixed outcomes, because selecting individual teachers to share in managerial work, in roles that were not necessarily based on things that really matter to teachers—curriculum, instruction, and student learning—were not effective strategies for school improvement. These reforms viewed teacher leaders more as instruments of school improvement and improvement of student academic learning than as a way to empower teachers, professionalize the workforce and improve teacher performance (pp. 164-67). Three newer approaches to teacher leadership are then explored: 1) teacher research as leadership, 2) models of distributed leadership, and 3) leadership of teams. While teacher research has been seen as a way to promote individual knowledge and improvement, teacher research is also a source of knowledge that teaching is relevant to the larger community, and expands the teacher role to include “decision maker, consultant, curriculum developer, analyst, activist, schoolteacher (Chonran-Smith and Lytle, 1999 cited in Smylie, Conley, and Marks, p. 168). This view argues that as teachers research their own practice, they become more reflective, critical, and analytical not just of their own teaching but of schooling practices around them (p. 169). The authors go on to describe two other forms of teacher leadership based on models of distributed leadership and leadership teams. Leadership teams can support teacher leadership by the work products they produce and by exerting influence over their members, shaping thinking, beliefs, and behaviors. It is less clear that ledership teams can improve organizational effectiveness without strong external leadership to support the team. Smylie, Conley, and Marks conclude that teacher leadership is part of the collective capacity of the organization and its leadership. Teacher leadership often requires effective administrative leadership and there is need to develop administrative leadership capacity for supporting new approaches to leadership, in which processes of leadership flourish at multiple levels. Working against this from happening, however is “leadership-resistant architectures (where) there is no time to convene people to plan, organize, and follow through… (where) business is usually done ‘on the fly’ and communication is often haphazard. . . Norms of individualism, autonomy, and privacy are pervasive, …(and) the history of hierarchical relationship in schools work against collaborative efforts”(pp. 183-84). The authors hope that newer form of collective task-oriented organizational approaches to leadership will overcome these obstacles and promote school improvement Chapter 9 by G. Crow, C. Hausman, and J. Scribner looks at the role of the principal and makes the case that principals themselves must contribute to the redefinition of work in a post industrial society. The authors draw on Tom Friedman’s metaphor of the “Lexus and the olive tree,” to explain pressures for change and pressures for continuity, affecting chool principals . Driving change are basic differences between work in an industrial society and the work in a post-industrial society. Changes in the nature of work in a post-industrial society open up new possibilities for principals to redefine their roles to match the complex environments in which they work. The new workplace in the post-industrial economy forces principals to address the challenges of complexity, the need for customized responses instead of standard operating procedures, and a greater emphasis on human agency. The sources for change come from both internal and external complexities that shape the role and actions of the principal. Internal complexities refer to organizational leadership, building professional communities within schools, and building social relationships with schools as major professional responsibilities of school principals. These qualities are often less the properties of individuals than the properties of organizations, and the ways in which leadership is built and nurtured in these organizations is crucial. External complexities refer to the outside of school environment in which schools exist and the importance of accountability, markets, and civic capacity, to the role and responsibility of the school principal. The challenge is for principals to attend to both internal and external forces and re-think some of the rules of thumb that they use to operate schools on a daily basis. There is no discussion, however, concerning how to re-think some of these out-dated rules of thumb and the tacit knowledge which informs them. Chapter 10 “Shifting Discourse Defining the Superintendency” (by C. Brunner, M. Grogan, and B. Björk) looks at some of the factors that what will shape the role of the superintendency. The authors begin their chapter with a historical analysis of the stages of the superintendency from 1820 to the present. While others have produced historical analysis of the developmental stages of the superintendent, these authors explain that they “are not describing developmental stages – although many of the same issues are highlighted – but rather discursive stages that not only determine the rhetoric of the superintendency, but also tend to drive the responsibilities, priorities, and activities of superintendents. Development implies a maturation or growth from one step to the next. The reason we do not see such an orderly progression is that each discursive stage is not necessarily built on the strengths of the previous one” (p. 212). I think that the distinction is worthwhile, however the discussion of each of the stages was pretty traditional. The more interesting part of the chapter is their discussion of most recent stages (1990s and beyond), and describes the superintendent as collaborator, as someone who articulates why reform is needed, and speaks to the hearts and minds of others (p. 227). The authors suggest new challenges for the superintendent operating from an ideology that supports shared governance and distributed leadership. This superintendent would more likely adopt a activist role involving stakeholders, building power with others around an ethic of community and care. They caution readers of the difficulties of balancing the role advocate and of collaborative leader. Part of the problem is that there is lack of agreement within and between education constituencies on what is in the best interests of children. The authors see the successful superintendent of the 21st century as someone who is passionately committed to equity, and who seeks community involvement. It is unclear whether sharing of power will lead to diminished role of the superintendent or increased respect for a social activist committed to power with others and not power over others? Chapter 11 examines some of the challenges to lay leadership for policymaking and democratic deliberation (S. Rallis, M. Shibles, and A. Swanson). The authors frame the challenge for lay leadership is how to represent multiple voices , implement state and federal mandates, and reach agreement on the purpose and local policy for schooling. Like the earlier chapter by Lugg et al., which considers multiple terrains of education, this chapter considers the struggle for control of education among multiple constituents: individuals, families, communities, the educating profession, and society at large. While other chapters focus on leadership within education settings, this chapter looks at leadership functions of those outside of education, those who are elected or appointed to leadership positions in schools and school districts. The authors consider how lay leadership interacts with professional leadership, and how layperson participation can strengthen schools and school capacity to meet educational challenges. One of the tensions for local leadership (lay and professional leadership) is how to deal with state and national influences on schools. For example, federal legislation creating services for handicapped children and court rulings on desegregation place mandates and legal requirements that shape local education policy and decision-making. Too often, the professional leadership in schools have adopted protective stances (involving bureaucratic norms and specialized vocabulary) which distance parents and community members. While lay leadership might be thought of as an antidote to bureaucratic control, in reality, the purposes of lay leaders are often ambiguous; board members often adopt reactive stances without representing the broader communities they serve. The school board’s informal authority, solidified through ritualized meetings and informal processes, also contributes to consensus and an ethos of community stewardship. The challenge to community stewardship are understood by referencing the idea of democratic deliberation (p. 252). Democratic deliberation requires lay leaders to access different points of view, discover and articulate real interests, and deliberate based on reason and evidence. Democratic deliberation encourages deeper consideration of community values and norms, beliefs about children and learning, and minority and alternative perspectives. The challenge for professional leaders is how to balance their desire for freedom to control the day-to-day operations of schools with legitimate board involvement and concerns. Section Five — Professional Development of School Leaders The final section of the books explores the professional development of school leaders. Chapter 12, by D. Pounder, U. Reitzug, and M. Young, looks at the preparation of school leaders from the perspective of school improvement, social justice and democratic community. Chapter 13, by F. Kochan, P. Bredeson and C. Reihl considers appropriate professional development for practicing school leaders based on these core commitments. Pounder et al. ask what should be the focus (or re-focus) of educational leadership preparation programs. This question raises several other questions: 1) How does administrative work connect to instructional leadership and school improvement? 2) What is the relationship among school improvement, high stakes testing, and authentic pedagogy? 3) How does school improvement relate to schools as centers of inquiry and renewal? 4) What is the connection between school improvement and democratic purposes? and 5) How does school improvement connect to social justice? Each questions forces school administrators to examine and reflect on their own understandings and commitments. These authors suggest university faculty move away from teaching courses based on the functions of school administrators (school principalship, school law, school finance) and towards an educational experience built around the basic themes or pillars referenced in this volume: school improvement, social justice, and democratic community. This re-direction in preparation argues for enhanced clinical internships based on examined commitments, and recognizes the need for greater collaboration among schools and universities in program recruitment, curriculum development, and supervised field experiences. The goal is a “more holistic, focused, and integrated preparation of school leaders (p. 285). The final chapter by F. Kochan et al., considers what professional development based on the three leadership roles - steward, learner/teacher, and community builder – would look like for practicing school leaders. The heart of their conception of professional development is that school leaders are ultimately responsible for their own learning. They must therefore create a structure and culture of continuous learning, with the goal of getting others to learn with them. Too often, principals and other school administrators are driven by the immediate and look for quick fixes instead of the long-term study and reflection required to change practice. The political demands for accountability work against professional development, which involves reflection, innovation, and risk-taking actions. Part of this view is the idea that leaders must recognize the ecological diversity within the system to understand it, let alone improve it. According to Greenwood (1992), heterogeneity, reflection, and change are defining features of any thriving organizational culture. How then should professional development be designed and delivered? The authors suggest that basic principles of adult learning require that principals and school leaders be involved in the design and delivery of their own professional development. Some of the examples of professional development activities that given include: 1) personal growth and development through individual learning plans, 2) learning about the immediate context of the school through self-study and action learning projects, and 3) off-site activities such as peer visitation, online websites and chat rooms, online journals, and online organizational participation, and 4) graduate programs including cohort based professional programs, online courses, etc. Professional development efforts can be supported through networks, academies and a critical friends approach, whereby school administrators to challenge and reflect on each other’s work. This approach requires, however, the existence of norms of openness and critique, not always available in all educational settings. The chapter provides practical examples of leaders who embrace the roles defined in the volume: leaders as stewards, as learners, as community builders. The authors recognize that the realities of the school settings and demand for new technical and practical knowledge is often the substance of professional development. Their key point however, is that a reculturing of educational administration requires emancipatory knowledge based on critical examination of one’s own practice, one which goes beyond the immediacy of the moment. Some Concluding Thoughts on the Volume This volume represents continuing dialogue in educational leadership since the previous NSSE volume on leadership in 1990. The discussion has come a long way in that time, with a more focused understanding of what is important about school leadership, and what is involved in the training and professional development of those charged with leading schools. As a whole, the volume presents a clearer focus on the nexus of learning, social justice and democratic community, and how these areas connect to leadership development and practice. There are also some gaps in the book. One area for further research and investigation is on how school leaders learn or grow on the job. This research would explore how leaders establish identity, how workplace norms shapes leadership development, and ways in which learning occurs on the job. This knowledge is important because it is unlikely that schools will shut down to retool its leadership and that schools will have to change while they are in operation. Also absent in the volume are more detailed cases studies, narratives, and portraits of school leaders which embrace the core concepts of leadership, social justice, and democratic community. There is also almost no discussion about leadership and schooling in non-US settings. Most, if not all, of the authors discuss American school contexts and with little or no reference to leadership in schools settings from Asia, Africa, Australia, South America, etc. What could comparisons of schools and school culture, from distant locations teach American scholars about schools and school leadership? We suspect a lot. Finally, given the key concerns for leadership advocated by Murphy and his colleagues, where is the discussion that captures the voices of children —girls and boys, rich and poor, minority and majority, urban, suburban and rural? These voices, which are needed in order to understand how leaders impact the lives of children and youth, are completely missing. We suspect that the voices of children would have a larger part if this were a volume on leadership for emancipation, imagination, and the human condition. What this volume provides is a framework for American schools and school leadership in the 21st century. This is a practical book that references many contemporary problems and dilemmas of school leadership. The volume provides a road map with language and vocabulary that is important for professors and school administrators engaged in the work of improving schools; the authors provide important summaries of the research on school leadership and analysis of what we know makes for effective practices. Given the scope of this volume, there is plenty of work left to do to re-culture the profession of school administration. References Beck, L. & Murphy, J. (1994). Ethics in educational leadership program: An expanding role. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Billig, M., Condor, S., Edwards, D., Gane, M., Middleton, D., and Radley, A. (1988). Ideological dilemmas: a social psychology of everyday thinking. London: Sage Publications. Cunningham, L., and Mitchell, B., (Eds.). (1990). Educational leadership and changing contexts in families, communities, and schools. Eighty-ninth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cunningham, L. (1990). Educational leadership and Administration: Retrospective and Prospective Views. In L.Cunningham and B. Mitchell, (Eds.), Educational leadership and changing contexts in families, communities, and schools (pp. 1-19). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Freire, P. (1970). Peagogy of the oppressed. New York: Seabury Press. Greenwood, D. (1991). Collective reflective practice through participatory action research: A case study of Fagor Cooperatives of Mondragon. In D. Schön (Ed.), The reflective turn: Case studies in and on educational practice (pp. 84-108). New York: Teachers College Press. Handy, C. (1996). Beyond certainty. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Kliebard, H.M. (1995). The struggle for the American curriculum 1893-1958 (2nd Edition). New York: Routledge. Murphy, J. (2002). Reculturing the profession of educational leadership: New blueprints. Educational Administration Quarterly, 38 (2), (April 2002), 176-191. Ogawa, R., Crowson, R., and Goldring, E. (1999). Enduring dilemmas of school organization. In J. Murphy and K. S. Louis (Eds.) Handbook of research in educational administration (2nd Edition), pp. 277-295, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Senge, P. (Fall, 1990). The leader's new work: Building learning organizations. Sloan Management Review, pp 7-23. Sergiovanni, T. (1994). Building community in schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Starratt, R. J. (1991) Building an ethical school: A theory for paractic in educational leadership. Educational Administration Quarterly, 27, 185-202. About the Reviewers Arnold Danzig is associate professor of educational leadership in the Division of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Arizona State University. He has been a teacher, administrator, director with a state department of education, and college professor. He is principal investigator of a three-year grant from the United State Department of Education grant entitled Learner Centered Leadership for Language and Culturally Diverse Schools in High Needs Urban Settings. He is a co-author of a recent book on the School Leadership Internship (2003) and has authored or co-authored numerous articles on leadership development which appear in International Studies in Educational Administration, Journal of Educational Administration, Educational Leadership and Administration, Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, and the Yearbook of the National Council of Professors of School Administration. Dr. Danzig has also contributed to the education policy literature. He is author or co-author of articles and chapters which appear in the International Journal of Educational Reform, Education Policy, Journal of Education Policy, and the Politics of Accountability, the 1998 Yearbook of the Politics of Education Association. He teaches courses on leadership skills, leadership development, and family-school-community connections. Trisha Fritz is a Ph.D. candidate in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. Her current research examines principals' professional development and the challenges present in urban, high-needs schools. Her background is varied: B.S. in Biology, M.A. in Sociology, work on an unfunded mandate for the state of Arizona, and as a Policy Analyst for the Arizona Board of Regents. In addition to her research, she is involved with a task force for the state of Arizona, and works to coordinate student services for disabled students at a local community college.