Leadership That Reaches Every Student: A Guide for Teachers and Parents Who Are Concerned About Providing Students with Vision & Leadership

By Marcal Graham ED.D.

All too many students enter and eventually graduate school ill-equipped for academic, professional, and personal success. But with the proper motivation, skills, know-how, and follow-through that come with being a leader, those same students could shape the future in profound ways. To that end, this empowering guide shows teachers and parents how to ensure that all students realize their potential by engaging the leader within.

Through leadership, young adults develop core values, solve problems, meet challenges, and make a genuine difference in the world. Complete with a survey, discussion and reflection questions, and activities for teachers, parents, and students themselves, this well-researched workbook offers practical tools to help every young adult become a leader by:

Thinking critically and honing decision-making skills
Developing personal accountability
Rising above "anti-leaders" and building healthy relationships
Fostering good attitudes that reinforce positive behavior
Developing strong work ethics
Initiating short- and long-term planning and goal-setting

Leadership That Reaches Every Student will not only help individual students to continually strive for-and consistently achieve-academic and personal excellence, but it will also aid communities in making great strides toward closing the achievement gap plaguing schools today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 11, 2007
• ISBN: 9780595900879

Marcal Graham ED.D.

Marcal A. Graham, Ed.D, holds a doctorate in educational administration and a masters degree in urban studies from Temple University. He currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland.

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Copyright © 2007 by Marcal A. Graham

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ISBN: 978-0-595-45785-4 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-595-69857-8 (cloth)

ISBN: 978-0-595-90087-9 (ebk)

\Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to God, without whom nothing in my life would exist.

To my mother, Marion Graham, and my sister Char-juan Graham, who have been my inspiration and support system my entire life.

Sandra V. Jones, you have always been there in heart and spirit for me. I did not forget about you on this one!

Kenneth Goodwin, thanks for your kind and inspirational words. You are the brother I never had.

Renee Hemsley, thank you for all our insightful and rich conversations about art, education, and life. You are truly concerned about the youth of today.

Dorrette Prince, thank you for all your help in proofreading both of my manuscripts.

You close the academic gap at the same time that you close the access gap, the economic gap, the employment gap …

Joe A. Hairston, superintendent of Baltimore County Public Schools, 2007

Every mandate ofNo Child Left Behind—and there are hundreds—is designed to force the people who run our schools to shape up, work harder, raise expectations, and stop ‘making excuses’ for low test scores, or face the consequences. Despite the law’s oft-stated reverence for ‘scientifically based research,’ this narrow approach is contradicted by numerous studies documenting the importance of social and economic factors in children’s academic progress.

James Crawford, writer and lecturer, president of the Institute for Language and Educational Policy, 2007

Higher standards, a well-designed curriculum, and exemplary instruction are of limited value unless students are engaged and motivated to learn what is taught. Until more students decide to work harder, there will be no significant improvement in our schools no matter how much better we teach.

Bob Sullo, respected educator, speaker, and researcher, 2006

Rather than serving as the ‘great equalizer’ as envisioned by Horace Mann, one of the early architects of American public education, schools in the United States more often have been sites where patterns of privilege and inequality are maintained and reproduced.

Dr. Pedro Noguera, author and expert on closing the achievement gap, 2003

Students must work harder, longer, and with more discipline and sacrifice or there will not be a place for them at the table.

Ray Esquith,