This book, an accessible resource for busy practitioners, is a unique hybrid of two genres. As a "tourist guide", it shows you:

- how to prepare for the journey

- what to pay attention to upon arrival

- how to deal with the unexpected.

As a "consumer report", it helps you:

- identify some of the best tools and sources about change

- access useful information about the change process

- find information about the strengths and challenges of various strategies.

Thorough and comprehensive, it offers essential information about how to:

- form leadership teams

- identify high stakes problems

- build commitment

- create a school-wide vision and establish school-wide goals

- handle setbacks

- maintain the vision and sustain change.

- evaluate and assess comprehensive school change.

Also included is a section called "Ports of Call" which provides sources of information to help you implement comprehensive school reform at your site.

From Michael Fullan's Foreword . . ."Chenoweth and Everhart take the big concepts of change and work them through operationally at the level of day-to-day practice. We learn how to form leadership teams, the importance of focusing on capacity-building and reculturing, how to build commitment while dealing with dissatisfaction, problem-solving during implementation, how to keep going, and how to go beyond standardized testing in developing a range of alternative assessment strategies.