That which informed the Stonington Public Schools to proceed down the path it is traveling to improve instruction and increase learning has been largely the published works found below. Many are books, but many are articles that have become definitive resources for American education. I have the distinct good fortune to know personally many of the authors listed below. Quite a few have actually been in the district and have worked with teachers, administrators, the Board of Education, and the Board of Directors of the Stonington Education Fund. My ability to pick up the phone and call these experts in American education, systems thinking, and organizational theory provides the district a resource few other districts in the United States have.

Most of the adminstrators and teacher leaders have read most of these books and articles–not as assignments–but because of their determination to help create an informed means to achieve the distrtict’s mission.

Primary Sources:

Collins, Jim. Good to Great. New York: Harper Collins Publisher, 2001.

Daniels, Harvey and Marilyn Bizar. Methods that Matter: Six Structures for Best Practice in Classrooms. Portland, ME: Stenhouse, 1998.

Despres, Blane, ed. Systems Thinkers in Action. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Education, 2008.

Elmore, Richard, “Bridging the Gap Between Standards and Achievement.” A monograph for Albert Shanker Institute, 2002.

Elmore, Richard, “Building a New Structure for School Leadership.” A monograph for the Albert Shanker Institute, 2000.

Fuhrman, Susan and Marvin Lazerson, eds. American Institutions of Democracy: The Public Schools. New York: Oxford University Press (The Annenburg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands), 2005.

Fullan, Michael. Change Forces. Bristol, PA: The Falmer Press, 1993.

Fullan, Michael. The Moral Imperative of School Leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, Inc., 2003.

Fullan, Michael. Turnaround Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006.

Gharajedaghi, Jamshid. Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos and Complexity. Boston: Butterworth Heinemann, 1999.

Heifeitz, Ronald A. and Donald L. Laurie. “The Work of Leadership.” In Best of Harvard Business Review. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2001.

Lambert, Lando, Deborah Walker, et. al. The Constructivist Leader, 2nd Edition. New York: Teachers College Press, 2004.

Marzano, Robert, Debra Pickering, and Jane Pollack. Classroom Instruction That Works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2001.

Senge, Peter. The Fifth Discipline. New York: Doubleday, 1990.

Sousa, David. How The Brain Learns, 2nd Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press, Inc., 2001.

Wagner, Tony. Making the Grade. New York: Routledge Falmer, 2002.

Wagner, Tony, Robert Kegan, Lisa Lahey, Richard Lemons, Jude Garnier, Deborah Helsing, Annie Howell, and Harriette Rasmussen. Change Leadership: A Practical Guide to Transforming Our Schools, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006.

Zimelman, Steven, Harvey Daniels and Arthur Hyde. Best Practice: Today’s Standards for Teaching and Learning in America’s Schools, 3rd Edition. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2005.

Secondary Sources:

Fullan, Michael. Change Forces: The Sequel. Philadelphia: The Falmer Press, 1999.

Gardner, Howard. Changing Minds. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004.

Gardner, Howard. The Disciplined Mind. NYC, NY: Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2000.

Hargreaves, Andy and Michael Fullan. What’s Worth Fighting for Out There. New York: Teachers College Press, 1998.

Kegan, Robert and Lisa Lahey. How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work. San Francisco: Jossey-Boss, a Wiley Company, 2001.

Levine, Mel. The Myth of Laziness. New York: Simon& Schuster, 2003.

Pfeffer, Jeffrey and Robert Sutton. The Knowing-Doing Gap. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000.

Pink, Daniel H. A Whole New Mind. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2005.

Reeves, Douglas. The Daily Disciplines of Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey Bass-Bass, A Wiley Imprint, 2002.

Senge, Peter. The Dance of Change. New York: Doubleday, 1999.