Steps to Schoolwide Success
We are beyond excited to announce the release of our newest book! Steps to Schoolwide Success: Systemic Practices for Connecting Social-Emotional and Academic Learning, by Stacey A. Rutledge, Marisa Cannata, Stephanie L. Brown, and Daniel G. Traeger, tells the story of developing, implementing, and scaling an improvement initiative in Broward County Public Schools. Aimed at building what we call Personalization for Academic and Social Emotional Learning (PASL), the improvement effort used continuous improvement and partnership approaches to connect students to educators and schools in the nation’s 6th largest district.
In telling the stories of educators in Broward who worked alongside researchers to co-develop PASL and lead its implementation throughout the district, we describe the five components of PASL, how they were developed, and how they were adapted and implemented in high schools. We argue that a network-based approach to school improvement can be effective by emphasizing what schools do well and using the knowledge, expertise, and leadership skills of the educators within them. In contrast to a top-down, externally-driven reform approach, PASL shows the power of leading improvement from within that is by and for educators.
Order the book from Harvard Education Press.