As schools continue to recover from the tragedy of a global pandemic, they can look to new opportunities emerging amidst the trauma and grief. These opportunities include a return to the primacy of relationships among adults and students, the abandonment of ineffective practices such as inspirational monologues without meaningful interaction, and dramatic improvements in professional learning. To realize the latter, educators need to drive toward five transformations in professional learning. Although we have long known the inadequacies of traditional approaches to PD, the constraints imposed on schools by the pandemic create a sense of urgency that should make us intolerant of such ineffective practices.

Creating the best pipeline for senior leadership means encouraging women to apply

A school board’s most important responsibility is hiring and evaluating the district superintendent, but a major concern is that the percentage of women superintendents is far from being representative. Several education experts offer advice on how boards can build a leadership pipeline for women.

The Leadership Performance Rubrics are designed for use as a coaching instrument to improve leadership performance for leaders at every level, from superintendents to building principals and teacher leaders.

Test scores represent only one piece of the accountability data. These test scores should be interpreted in the context of other information about what schools are doing.

From “Analysis Paralysis to Meaningful Insights from Data”

Learning Forward’s Standards for Professional Learning have the potential to influence educational policy and practice in profound ways for the systems that are courageous enough to take them seriously, and the Data standard is a critical element systemwide

As tight as school budgets are around the nation, family budgets in many districts often are strained even more, particularly when parents are looking at the rising costs of college.

How boards focus on evidence

Every board member has heard the claims “Research shows that ...” and “Studies prove that ...” But how do educational leaders and policymakers know if the research is sufficient to validate a policy decision?

Every marathon runner knows the feeling. At the starting gate, the crowds are cheering and you feel invincible.

In the past few weeks, I’ve watched school board members attend to the details of sprinkler systems, report cards, crossing guards, painting contracts, homework policies, and cafeteria menus.

Money and time are the resources in greatest demand in shortest supply for school leaders.

Much of the research discussed in these columns has focused on how under-performing schools have been making dramatic improvements through the collaboration of school boards, senior leadership, building- level administrators, teachers, and community members.

Learn how to improve student attendance

To paraphrase educational philosopher Yogi Berra, “Showing up to school is 90% of the game; the other half is mental.”

Domino's Pizza estimates that it delivered more than 1.2 million pizzas on Super Bowl Sunday.

Remember when the coach was the man on the sidelines wildly gesturing his team on to victory? Now the proliferation of instructional coaches, leadership coaches, and life coaches has made the term coaching less precise.

Consider the following laments that I have heard recently from school leaders: “We can't change the grading policy—it's part of our culture.”

School leaders are often held accountable for things beyond their control.

What would preventing 1,000 course failures mean for your school system? For administrators, it would mean 1,000 fewer repeated courses that have to be worked into students' schedules.

Two variables that profoundly influence student achievement are the quality of instruction provided by teachers (Darling-Hammond & Sykes, 1999; Education Trust, 1998) and the quality of leadership provided by school principals (Davis, Darling-Hammond, LaPointe, & Meyerson, 2005; Leithwood, Louis, Anderson, & Wahlstrom, 2004).

For some people, the term strategic planning brings to mind a disciplined and thoughtful process that links the values, mission, and goals of a school system with a set of coherent strategies and tasks designed to achieve those goals.

Much of the research discussed in these columns has focused on how under-performing schools have been making dramatic improvements through the collaboration of boards of education, senior leadership, school administrators, teachers, and community members.