Becoming a Great School

In education we are working on behalf of a truly noble cause: the lives of our students. We need a system for working together that is worthy of the work — one that harnesses the idealistic visions and inherent energies that brought us to education in the first place.

Becoming A Great School prepares you to create that system. The authors challenge top-down leadership as a vestige of the past which fails to fully engage today’s teaching professionals. They explain why the following structures are essential to school revitalization: an intrinsically-motivated, energized workforce functioning smoothly together as a team; a clear focus which inspires cohesion and a sense of purpose; and a process which gradually renews the school’s educational systems piece-by-piece. The outcome is a stronger, revitalized, more effective, extraordinary school — and it is all accomplished from within.

Ken, Nels and Joe reveal the quality management principles and collaborative leadership skills that led to amazing results for them, while detailing the practices necessary for educators to achieve the same outcomes in their schools.

Become the leader you imagined yourself to be while creating the school you always wanted to work in.

Dr. Kenneth B. Cooper has been a professional educator for thirty-nine years. For twenty-two of those years he served as principal of the Paul F. Doyon Memorial School in Ipswich, Massachusetts.

Nels Gustafson is a former Human Resources Director and Chief Labor Negotiator for the Sylvania Corporation. He directed Sylvania’s initial program of quality management and has extensive experience in issues related to leadership and working relationships.

Joseph G. Salah has specialized in school-improvement consulting for the last nineteen years; prior to that he has experience in the military, local government, and with for-profit and non-profit organizations. He has a continuing interest in matters related to leadership processes, working relationships, and behavioral change.