Building Trust for Better Schools

Foreword by Anthony Bryk 'While trust has been shown as a key mechanism for facilitating school improvement, how that can be accomplished is not altogether clear. In this excellent book, Kochanek, through in-depth case studies and sophisticated quantitative analyses of data from a large urban school system, convincingly demonstrates how principal leadership can promote and sustain trust among administrators, teachers, and parents' - Barbara Schneider, Professor of Sociology, University of Chicago 'Kochanek's book not only clearly explains the theoretical underpinnings of trust development in schools, but also provides rich case studies which explore this theory in action' - Carmen Manning, Assistant Professor, English Education, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Why is trust in schools so important? What does trust mean to a school's productivity? Relationships between headteachers, teachers, and parents cannot be ignored when attempting school reform. No matter how innovative the changes or ideas, reform is unlikely to succeed unless the adults work together to implement it. Building Trust for Better Schools answers the question of how to build trust within the school community. Parents are dependent on teachers to educate their children. Teachers are dependent on headteachers to create school conditions that are conducive to helping children learn. This excellent new resource identifies links between the growth of trust and positive organizational outcomes that benefit school improvement efforts. But how do we build trust? Kochanek offers an innovative process model of trust building. Increased trust in schools: - Increases participation among faculty in school reform efforts - Creates a greater openness among teachers to innovations - Increases outreach to parents - Produces even higher academic productivity in schools There is a need for efficient sharing of information in schools across role relationships. This can be done with the building of trust among headteachers, teachers, and parents as they work together toward a common goal!