The Influence of Teachers: Reflections on Teaching and Leadership

I just finished reading my free (from VIVA) copy of John Merrow's new book The Influence of Teachers: Reflections on Teaching and Leadership.  Overall, the book echoes my sentiments that both parties currently receiving a lot of media attention (Save Our Schools-ers and Bottom Line-ers) are taking the wrong approach to truly fixing our public schools.  Maintaining the status quo is obviously not doing much to improve public schools.  I also don't believe that asking very high performing, enthusiastic teachers in low-performing schools, without doing anything to change the profession as a whole - to fight against the stagnation and isolation that pervades even top-performing schools - is a long term solution.  So, cheers to John Merrow for agreeing with me... just kidding.  I really enjoyed reading his book from cover to cover, and I encourage others to read it as well.