Professional development opportunities are common for teachers and principals who operate on the front lines of education. But they are rarer for public education's top leaders--state chiefs, superintendents, board members and others--who are further from classrooms but whose policies and practices nonetheless profoundly affect student…

Themes discussed in reviews of seven books on educational management include the profession's changing context, management of change, managerial discourses, leadership micropolitics, the shift from management to leadership, power and values, and the education/management linkage. Educational management should stress educational goals, not…