Principals of Dynamic Schools

Taking Charge of Change

The second edition continues with Sharon Rallis and Ellen Goldring providing lively and inspiring views of school leadership that is both grounded in reality and compellingly hopeful that this reality can be redefined for the better. This book packs more useful ideas about what leadership is and how it works in successfully restructuring schools than any other book now available. The authors speak to this topic with a voice that is as passionate and sensitive as it is reasoned and authoritative. Rallis and Goldring tell a story based on their extensive case studies and survey studies and on a through overview of the research of others. They define anew what it means for principals to be in charge. The principals they studied were much less concerned with controlling what people did and how they did it and much more concerned with controlling the conditions that enabled others to function in ways that increased the likelihood shared goals would be reached. Rallis and Goldring describe and illustrate the behavior of these new principals and the forces that shape their activities.