Turnaround Schools, Turnaround Systems

All too often, educational leaders are called on to reverse bad situations – students who are performing below expected standards, teachers who don’t trust management, schools who have lost the confidence of their local communities. In this keynote address, Michael Fullan redefines ‘turnaround leadership’, arguing that turnaround thinking must move from a quick-fix to efforts that result in deep and lasting improvement.

Michael will discuss the dynamics of what makes societies and education systems healthy or sick. He will identify the positive things turnaround schools do to get off the critical list, and explores what it takes to motivate large numbers of people to go beyond short-term solutions in order to achieve fundamental, sustainable reform. Ultimately, he will focus on the critical role of leadership not the Lone Ranger leader who rides into town and saves a single school, but leaders whose very actions change the systems in which they work.

Michael Fullan, fomer Dean, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education