The Five Essentials of Organizational Excellence: Maximizing Schoolwide Student Achievement and Performance

by Lawrence L. Marazza

Overview

"Marazza offers a prescription for how essential skills can empower school organizations that can ultimately lead to higher student achievement and stakeholder satisfaction."
John Pieno, Chairman
Florida Sterling Council

"Marazza′s book displays both practicality and relevancy in school leadership, and examines leadership theories that triangulate his own methods of transforming today′s schools."
Frank Rudnesky, Principal
Bellhaven Middle School, Linwood, NJ

"The Five Essentials of Organizational Excellence offers and explains what every administrator should know about collaborative leadership and the benefits for student achievement."
Nancy Noeske, President and CEO
PROACT Search, Inc.

Redefine leadership and engineer improved student achievement!

Educational reform. Organizational development. Increased diversity. Accountability. The climate in education today demands an understanding of key concepts. More important, educators beg for answers to important underlying questions. How can we reform education in order to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student population? How can we develop an alliance that holds itself accountable to the success and failure of every school, every student? This guide leads you on a path of surprising answers and unorthodox solutions to the problems facing schools today.

The Five Essentials of Organizational Excellence explores the necessity for building strong relationships among administrators, teachers, parents, and the community by:

• Planning strategically
• Benchmarking for excellence
• Leading collaboratively
• Engaging the community
• Governing by standards

Leading a school to excellence involves more than just the principal--every member of the community must be involved in order to make a difference in a school′s success.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781483360584
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	06/18/2003
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	184
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Lawrence Marazza is the President and founder of The Lighthouse Management Group, a training and management consulting firm located in Russell, Ohio and focusing on the development of high performing school districts and quality assurance programs for public sector organizations. His career in education spans more than thirty years, twenty-six years as a Superintendent of Schools for three school districts located in two different states. He has also served as an elementary and secondary teacher, college instructor, and public administrator.

Throughout his career, he has been able to apply private sector leadership initiatives and practices to public schools. During his tenure as a superintendent he established partnerships with businesses and institutions of higher learning. Through these partnerships, he developed leadership training programs for parents, teachers, school administrators and other stakeholders in public education. Under his leadership, school district alliances with businesses and universities have produced innovative programs and practices that have resulted in significantly improved learning opportunities for students as well as the formation of collaborative teams of public school stakeholders meaningfully involved in school decision-making.

Dr. Marazza was named a "Distinguished Graduate in Teacher Education" by Mount Union College. He is also a Professional Fellow with the Weatherhead School of Business at Case Western Reserve University. In addition, he is a contributing author to The Power of Public Engagement: A Beacon of Hope for America’s Schools.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. The Missing Essential Connections to Educational Excellence
Unconnected Systems
Thinking and Planning Strategically
Benchmarking for Excellence
Leading Collaboratively
Engaging the Public
Standards-Based Governance and Quality Assurance
The Integrated Essentials
The Power of Consensus
Random Acts of Improvement
Summary
2. The Power of Thinking and Planning Strategically
Commitment by Governance
Preparing for Strategic Planning
The Power of Conversation in Public Education
The Politics of Strategic Planning
Training the Stakeholders
The Mission and Building Principals
Personal Investment in the Plan
Public Engagement in Communicating the Plan
Summary
3. Benchmarking for Excellence Using the Sterling System
Benchmarking, Intelligence, and the Sterling System
Student-Results Benchmarking
Benchmark for Organizational Success
Integrated Management Systems Designed for Student Excellence, Using Benchmarking and Competitive Intellgience To Achieve Excellence
Summary
4. Leading Collaboratively for Combined Wisdom
Transforming Leadership
Transformationg the Principalship
Change Comes From the Edge
The Role of Personality Preferences in the Restructured Organization
The Interpersonal Dynamics of Collaboration
Retro-Programs, Sacred Cows
Collaborative Organizations
Organizational Characteristics of a Personal Bureaucracy
At the Core of Collaborative Success
Leadership and Followership
Leadership Needed Today
Principles Governing a Principal′s Work
Legitimate Followership
Local Leadership Academy
Systems Thinking
Summary
5. Engage the Public in a Productive and Proactive Manner
Nine Factors of Engagement
Public Involvement
Building Principals and the Nine Factors
Deeper Public Involvement
S.W.A.T. Teams: Schools Where Achievement Thrives
Kitchen Talks
School Block Talk
Principal-Led Parental Collaboration
Summary
6. Govern by Standards Developed With the Stakeholders
Building Principals and the Need for Standards of Excellence
Developing Standards of Excellence Consistent With School Vision
Govern by Standards
The Governance Model
Summary
7. Empower Integrated Management Systems With Five Essential Skills
The Sterling Criteria for Organizaitonal Performance Excellence
Principals, Five Essentials, and Sterling
What Drives Organizations to Sterling Excellence?
Sterling Core Values
Summary
8. Integrate the Five Essentials
Simultaneous Development
The Cycle of Implementation of the Five Essentials
Cost-Benefit Analysis
Administrative Arrangements versus Curricular Concerns
Justify or Eliminate
Summary
9. Chaos, Essentials, and Learning Organizations
Five Essentials and the New Science
Information, Relationships, and Chaos
The Five Essentials and School Culture
The Five Essentials and Learning Organizations
Summary
10. Conlusion
The Leadership Trap
The Discipline of Dialogue
Have You Told Them That?
Changing Times, Changing Challenges
Captain Education
What Now?
Summary
Epilogue
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

"The Five Essentials of Organizational Excellence offers and explains what every administrator should know about collaborative leadership and the benefits for student achievement. "

Nancy Noeske

"Readers concerned about improving their school district will find the material applicable and adaptable to almost any situation. "

Robert Blake

"After a long and distinguished career as a local school superintendent, Lawrence Marazza has laid out the precepts and practices that guided his success. "

Richard Boyd

"Marazza’s book displays both practicality and relevancy in school leadership, and examines leadership theories that triangulate his own methods of transforming today’s schools. "

Frank Rudnesky

"This book . . . will help busy superintendents who are searching for integrative frameworks that bring together difficult concepts from various leadership literature into one overarching model. "

The School Administrator

"Marazza offers a prescription for how essential skills can empower school organizations that can ultimately lead to higher student achievement and stakeholder satisfaction. "

John Pieno