Here, authors Ronald Newell and Irving Buchen continue the dialogue begun by Roland Barth, Linda Lambert, Carl Glickman and others pertaining to democratic, teacher-led schools. Teachers are capable of managing schools, without designated principals and/or superintendents. A number of practitioners have taken up the gauntlet and have created collaborative cultures in order to fulfill the need for creating teacher-controlled environments. These environments are necessary to carry out the as-of-yet unfulfilled reform of practices that benefit students at the most elemental level of education—the relationship of teacher and learner. In teacher-managed schools, teachers have control of budgets, management, personnel, and all other decision-making. It is not enough for teachers to be willing to democratically control schools. The culture of schooling is not inherently democratic, and a collaborative culture must be cultivated by creating the community, the collective, the consensual, the consultative, and the coaching commitment. Newell and Buchen show how the experience of a group of practitioners has lighted the way for continual development of the elements of the collaborative culture by living them. They also discuss the problems and promises of creating and living this collaborative, democratic culture.

"Shared governance as a topic for educational texts has been around for at least two decades in one form or another. What makes Democratic Learning and Leading: Creative Collaborative School Governance by Ronald J. Newell and Irving H. Buchen different is its focus on democratic schools through the Ed Vision Cooperative." - School Administrator

"They hold that a collaborative culture in the schools improves the most important relationships within them, which are those of the teachers and students. They examine the history of school governance, the rise of the concept of the democratic school and the EdVisions Program, and the skills that program and others offer teachers to help build a democratic, "teacher-owned" school environment." - Reference and Research Book News, August 2005