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ArticlesFive Professional Learning Transformations for a Post-COVID World
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.
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ArticlesGender Gap at the Top
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.
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Articles
Too Many Standards? My Four Answers
WELL BEFORE the global pandemic caused a wave of school building closures and consequent learning losses, teachers complained there were too many standards for student learning. The problem was that, however well-intentioned and thoughtfully designed, state standards all su!er from the same faulty assumption: Students need only one year of learning. That assumption always has been questionable, but after students in 2020 lost at least six months of learning (and many would argue they lost more), teachers in 2021 are facing students who may be two years or more behind their current grade level. The idea of teaching and assessing three years of learning in a single year is preposterous. Fortunately, some practical solutions are available.
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Articles
Accountability is More Than Test Scores
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.
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Articles
Avoiding Land Mines
Who could possibly be against teaching social responsibility? Quite a few people, it turns out—as anyone who survived the controversy in the 1980s and early 1990s over outcomes-based education (OBE) can attest.
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Articles
Busting Myths About Gradingx
MythBusters is the longest running television series in the history of the Discovery Channel. During its 14 years on the air, the show, featuring Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, have conducted 2,950 experiments, explored 1,050 myths, and created 900 explosions (Friedlander, 2015).
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Articles
Challenging Inequity, Insisting on Excellence
As education leaders strive to promote excellence for all students, they confront sharply contrasting schools of thought about the best way to close achievement gaps between students of different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds.
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Articles
Changing the System
The desire for school change is great, but much of the advice on how to lead for change is profoundly frustrating. Follow these five ‘shifts’ to see change for the better.
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Articles
Data: Meaningful Analysis Can Rescue Schools from Drowning in Data
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
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Articles
Dealing With Stress and Anxiety
Dealing with Toxic Threats to Emotional Health
It’s the worst I’ve seen in more than 30 years,” said one superintendent
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Articles
Earning Credits, Saving Money
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.
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Articles
What’s Worth Fighting Against in Grading
In his classic book What’s Worth Fighting for in the Principalship identified a dozen action items for principals and school systems that remain as relevant today as they were almost a decade ago.
Resources
Dr. Douglas Reeves and colleagues regularly publish on relevant topics for busy educators. Whether it is a book, article, or blog, each contain facts and practical next steps for practitioners. As with all our resources, please share with colleagues and communities.
