Leading Schools in Disruptive Times

"The American education landscape has shifted radically in the past four decades. The forces shaping a global society are reshaping American schools-and educators are racing to stay ahead of the changes that are affecting their operations and philosophies. Today, American school leaders often ask: Why is change coming so quickly? How do we adjust our leadership practices today to deal with the changes? How do we lead our schools into a future that no one can predict? This updated edition features a special focus on the disruptions of 2020: COVID-19 and the resulting distance learning experiment; the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Armaud Arbery, and countless others; the riots and social justice movements; a historic election. While no one saw a pandemic coming, we have always known that disruptions lead to other disruptions. This pandemic is a result of a disruption: accelerated global travel. Somebody in a wet market in Wuhan, China, contracted the disease, and it spread rapidly because we can now travel to anywhere in the world in 24-36 hours, and so can new germs. This pandemic shouldn't be thought of as a freaky occurrence or an aberration; it's a disruption born out of other disruptions. And there will be other types of wild disruptions coming at us in the 2020's born of other disruptions already around us. We can't see them yet, and they might not be pandemics, but they're all around us"--