Sponsored by IBM and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)
Brought to you by the Reinventing Education Change Toolkit ( www.reinventingeducation.org) project.
By G. Thomas Houlihan, Executive Director, Council of Chief State School Officers
We as educators have seen more change since 2001 than we possibly could have imagined. The expectations of real time results, data-based decisions, and the ability to lead through change are immediate and relevant to our everyday experiences. Four years ago, CCSSO began its formal relationship with IBM around the Reinventing Education Change Toolkit project. Our common goal was and is equipping leaders for managing change. As we begin 2005, the need to meet change head-on is all the more pressing. In the 2005 education world, we can count on change happening-often, and unpredictably.
For those of you unfamiliar with our organization, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) is a nonpartisan, nationwide, nonprofit organization of public officials who head departments of elementary and secondary education in the states, the District of Columbia, the Department of Defense Education Activity, and five U.S. extra-state jurisdictions. CCSSO provides leadership, advocacy, and technical assistance on major educational issues. The Council seeks member consensus on major educational issues and expresses their views to civic and professional organizations, federal agencies, Congress, and the public.
Our partnership with IBM around the Change Toolkit is part of a larger commitment on the part of CCSSO to offer resources to help education leaders be more successful at managing change. The resources found on the Change Toolkit website are not a magic bullet, but the website contains a wealth practical of information on how to manage change more effectively.
We see this new Education Leadership Newsletter as the logical next step in our partnership with IBM. There are many successes to be celebrated in what many of you are accomplishing in leading and leading change in your states, districts, and schools. We are happy to be working with IBM to provide you a venue to share successes, learn from each other, and enjoy monthly original insights from Rosabeth Moss Kanter, one of the foremost experts on leadership, organizational transformation, and change management.
Our goal is to give you content that is practical, timely, and peer-oriented. We want this to be relevant as you move forward in the fast-paced, high-stakes education world in which we are all living.
We welcome your feedback and your contributions to this newsletter in the months ahead, and we hope that we are creating and sharing a resource will help us all with the many challenges we all face.
Thank you for all you do on behalf of children in the United States.
For more information on the Council of Chief State School Officers, please visit www.ccsso.org.
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