In Ethical Leadership, Robert Starratt--one of the leading thinkers on the topic of ethics and education--shows
educational leaders how to move beyond mere technical efficiency in the delivery and performance of learning. He
challenges educators to become ethical leaders who understand the learning process as a profoundly moral activity
that engages the full humanity of the school community. Starratt explains that educational leadership requires
a moral commitment to high quality learning for all students--a commitment based on three essential virtues: proactive
responsibility; personal and professional authenticity; and an affirming, critical, and enabling presence to the
workers and the work involved in teaching and learning. He clarifies how essential these virtues are for leadership
in the pressure-cooker of high-stakes schooling. He provides vivid illustration by beginning and ending the book
with a "morality play," the narrative of a principal who struggles to do the right thing for his students and teachers,
as they are pressured¾and often punished ¾ by state mandated tests. Starratt concludes by offering
practical suggestions for working leaders as well as preservice and inservice courses in educational leadership.
