Exploding the Myths of School Reform

This educational expose places established and emerging ideas about effective school and system improvement under scrutiny. Exploding the Myths of School Reform confronts real-world challenges and perspectives from research, policy, and practice, and it draws on international benchmarking studies to support its objectives and claims. With each chapter addressing a perceptible fallacy - such as the myths that poverty determines performance, that achievement cannot be achieved at scale, that innovation and networking always add value, and that it is curriculum rather than learning that counts - this groundbreaking manifesto is set to provoke and persuade. Through the book's carefully structured narrative highlighting areas of universal concern, it presents a compelling approach to school reform, designed to not only enhance academic performance, but the potential for students to learn. Teachers, school leaders, directors, policy makers, and researchers will find the instructive frameworks and 'codas' for systemic change at all levels disarmingly simple to understand and apply. The same values and strategies that uphold social equity are shown to also promote quality in teaching, strong system leadership, regional capacity building, and whole school design. With depth and precision, and replete with explanatory diagrams, Exploding the Myths of School Reform contributes to the contemporary debate about the direction of schools and school systems, the possibilities and issues most likely to be encountered by leaders today and tomorrow, and the means to instigate authentic and lasting reform.