Schools That Work is a practical text for people wanting to create elementary schools where all children become readers and writers. The book describes critical features of school educational plans (e.g., professional roles, organization of time, curriculum, student assessment, professional development, parental involvement) that support or even impede the development of more effective educational settings. This work gives suggestions on how schools must change if they are to meet all the needs of children. Schools differ substantially, so no single strategy will work in every location.

“We provide information and examples on hope that you will develop your own vision of what your school might become” (Preface).

The beginning of Schools That Work is quite interesting. The book begins with detailing what won’t work and why not. The thought in this is that by beginning the book in the negative of what won’t work in schools, the focus then is answering all the important questions of what will work. The authors use researched studies of schools, which is interesting because they are some of the same issues that we’ve discussed

As an appropriate conclusion, the authors end with A Parting Word, p.254. “First, creating schools that work for all children takes time, energy,and initiative. Second, no two schools are ever alike, so each school must develop its own plan on its own schedule. Third, every school can improve itself, but not every school does. Fourth, honestly and openly examining how change benefits children is the surest way to

What does work? It was inspiring reading about stories of schools that were in “trouble”, and then made complete turn-a-rounds after change. We know that sometimes change occurs bottom-up (teacher initiated) and top-down (administrator initiated). The authors have observed that the changes that work only occur when teachers, administrators, and supervisors come together around a common view of concerns.

in class. The problem is that it has taken a very long time to develop the school traditions of today. It is quite obvious that these traditions cannot be unraveled easily or quickly. The authors feel that creating schools that better respond to the difficulties of some children when learning to read and write will require substantial institutional and individual learning. Progress must come from recognizing the mistakes we have made. We all learn from our mistakes. As a classroom teac

Some topics in this essay:
Aren’t Special, Cunningham Schools, Allington Cunningham, reading writing, creating schools, curriculum materials, readers writers, learn mistakes, develop own, schools children,