Promises and Perils Facing Today's School Superintendent

Bruce S. Cooper has been vice chair of the Division of Administration and Professor of Policy and Urban Education for 20 years at Fordham University. He has served as a consultant for outside firms in education and has held associate positions at the University of London, Dartmouth, and the University of Pennsylvania. Lance D. Fusarelli is an assistant professor of Policy and Urban Education at Fordham University.

Cooper and Fusarelli (both of the Department of Policy and Urban Education, Fordham, U.) offer 11 contributions examining the role of the American public school superintendent in relation to different facets of leadership. Grouped into four categories, the papers look at the human resources needs of finding and preparing superintendents, the relationship of the superintendency to stakeholders such as the unionized teacher and the local boards of education, the policymaking role of the superintendent, and the role of the superintendent in the wider context of public schooling as a whole.

• Part 1 Human Resources PerspectiveChapter 2 Dilemmas of the Modern SuperintendencyChapter 3 Executive Succession Processes and Management Success for Latina SuperintendentsChapter 4 Preparing Superintendents in the 21st CenturyPart 5 Superintendents' Relationships to Key StakeholdersChapter 6 Carring the Torch of the Jeanes SupervisorsChapter 7 Superintendents' Views of New and Traditional Collective Bargaining ProcessesChapter 8 Superintendents and Local Boards and the Potential for Community PolarizationPart 9 Superintendents as PolicymakersChapter 10 Superintendent EvaluationChapter 11 Zero Tolerance Policies and the SuperintendencyPart 12 The Superintendent in ContextChapter 13 The Role of the District Superintendent in Leading Academically Successful School DistrictsChapter 14 Caught Betwen the State and the MarketChapter 15 Bane or Benefit? Considering the Usefulness of Research Focused on Female Superintendents16 Index17 About the Contributors