Changing to Charter

This is a book about educational leadership. It tells the stories of 7 educational leaders who made the difficult decision to change their school to public charter school status. Several of the stories are told by those leaders themselves. Their journeys span over 25 years in many cases. The authors also conducted follow-up interviews, dialogues, and investigations to investigate the keys to their sustained success over time. These leaders all possessed an unwavering commitment to their school communities and maintained unusual dedication to their stakeholders.

Changing to Charter delivers much more than an examination of the demands, risks, and rewards of converting K-12 schools to charter status. Through the biographies of charter conversion pioneers and their conversion schools, the authors convincingly portray two seemingly contradictory findings: (1) the backgrounds of conversion pioneers are as varied as the circumstances surrounding each conversion; (2) successful school conversions, like the pioneers that led them, share a common core of leadership, indeed human, characteristics critical for successful school conversion and operation., Shore, Leahy, and Medley have written the book that every person interested in better schools for our children must read. It is hard to make a school great, but it can be done with excellent leadership and dedication.

Rebecca Shore, Ed.D., is an Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, a former high school principals, and former charter school board member. Maria Leahy, Ed.D., is an administrator in a Catholic school in Charlotte, North Carolina, adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and former charter school board member. Joel Medley, Ph.D., serves as the Director of Leadership Development for school and academic leaders at K12, Inc., and former Director of the North Carolina Office of Charter Schools.