Webster, Mary.

This study investigates the dominant discourse of the failure of public education and the 'reform du jour' response ; and seeks ways school leaders could disrupt and transform to create possible alternate discourses for schools. This critical autoethnography included interviews, a focus group, document analysis and a research journal permitting participant research at the heart of a high school reading department. The data were synthesized in ways that made sense of power, practices, and culture allowing the personal to become valid data. ... This narrative illustrated the complexity of the emotional context and illustrated how school leadership discourse could turn the dialogue away from an economic and back to a teaching and learning relationship. The narrative aimed to give rise to a counter narrative, but found that the site of the high school reading department was currently too confused, too complex and too contradictory to establish any meaningful conclusions for its future that are not underpinned by extensive reforms designed to end its isolation.