The Skillful Leader II: Transforming Ineffective Teams: Maximizing Collaboration's Impact on Learning

Previously titled The Skillful Leader II: Confronting Conditions That Undermine Learning, this important book in The Skillful Leader series has been reissued under a new title to better reflect the content. The book arms administrators and teacher leaders with step-by-step strategies to confront and raise the performance of teams and individuals who undermine student learning. The text includes methods of collecting data, strategies for intervention, and tips for hiring and training. Individual and community profiles, together with legal notes, provide practical tools for busy leaders.

About The Authors:
Alexander D. Platt, Ed.D. is a founding and senior consultant with Boston-based consulting firm Research for Better Teaching (RBT). In 2000 he founded Ready About Consulting, dedicated to working with leaders of underperforming schools. He specializes in coaching urban principals on raising the quality of instruction through supervision and has presented at many national conferences and institutes including the Harvard Institute for School Leaders and the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA). He has taught long-term supervision and evaluation courses to over two thousand administrators in the United States, and to administrators in Europe and Japan. Dr. Platt has been an Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum in the Wayland (MA) Public Schools, a leadership consultant to NESDEC (New England School Development Council), and has served as President of the Massachusetts Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (MASCD). He is the lead author on the best-selling book, The Skillful Leader: Confronting Mediocre Teaching.

Caroline E. Tripp, Ed.D., is a consultant with Research for Better Teaching (RBT) and a member of the faculty of the Boston Principal Fellows program. She specializes in helping districts build effective administration teams, designing and implementing supervision and evaluation systems for teachers and administrators, and supporting the development of new administrators. For the past nine years, Dr. Tripp has been the director of curriculum and training for RBT’s joint project on workplace excellence with the Montgomery County (MD) Public Schools. Caroline is a former lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Assistant Superintendent of the Shrewsbury, MA, Public Schools. She has presented nationally on a wide range of topics related to teacher quality and leadership development and is a co-author of The Skillful Leader: Confronting Mediocre Teaching.

Robert Fraser, Ed.D., J.D., is an attorney and former Assistant Superintendent for Personnel with more than 32 years’ experience as a labor negotiator. His primary areas of expertise are personnel administration, labor law, negotiations, and education law, including special education. Dr. Fraser has been a member of the Massachusetts and American Associations for School Personnel Administrators. He is a partner at the Boston law firm of Stoneman, Chandler and Miller, and he has been an instructor at Boston University and Harvard School of Education.

James R. Warnock, M.Ed., is a consultant with the Boston-based consulting firm Research for Better Teaching and has 30 years’ experience in education. His consulting work centers on instructional leadership, teacher training, supporting districts in developing standards-based supervision and evaluation systems, and working with principals of underperforming schools. Jim also directs the Sino-American Seminar on Educational Leadership for the University of Vermont’s Asian Studies Outreach Program and has traveled and worked extensively throughout China. He has provided technical assistance to schools in Russia as part of a U.S. Department of State Community Connections program and has conducted teacher training in Australia. Jim was Assistant Superintendent of Schools for the city of Burlington, VT, and also served as a secondary principal, K-12 staff developer, and teacher.

Rachel E. Curtis, M.Ed., has 20 years’ experience working in and with urban school districts and has taught at the early childhood and graduate levels and provided student support at the secondary level. Rachel most recently served as the Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning in the Boston Public Schools. During her decade of work in Boston, her accomplishments included: devising the instructional coaching model that is currently used district-wide for literacy and math coaching; founding the Boston Principal Fellowship and supporting the creation of the Boston Teacher Residency, nationally recognized, district-based principal and teacher certification programs; and developing teaching standards and a new teacher induction program and evaluation system aligned to the standards. Rachel now consults with school systems, foundations, higher education, and the policy sector on human capital strategies for urban schools.