Trapped between an encroaching tide of privatization and a rocky theoretical shore, educational leadership in America’s public schools is ardently researched and professionally practiced, but frequently besmirched and poorly understood. Despite the intentions of public educators to engage all students with the original power of education, disconnections caused by mandates, ideologies, and theoretical fuzziness render educational leadership unreliable.

The capacities necessary for school leadership to function reliably on behalf of all students are well within the grasp of present-day public educators. But, the action or agency sufficient to enacting educational leadership reliably is on hold. Educational leadership throughout US public schools is submarined when disconnections and ideological misdirection impede the primary purpose and the moral obligation of public education.

To fulfill the promises of public education and restore the intentions of educational leadership requires that educators, policymakers, and proponents of US public education reimagine the interconnections that yield the primary purpose and moral obligation of public education. Functional educational leadership is examined throughout this book as the agency necessary and sufficient for public education to discard the forces and factors that impose unreliability.

Jeff Swensson