School & District Management Blog

Leadership 360

Leadership experts in the K-12 field Jill Berkowicz and Ann Myers wrote about challenges and possibilities for administrators in the 21st century. This blog is no longer being updated, but you can continue to explore these issues on edweek.org by visiting our related topic pages: school leadership and district leadership.

Equity & Diversity Opinion Schools Need Collective Leaders' Voices to Advocate for Change
Leadership voices have been directed at objection and resistance toward the national mandates and state implementations of them. The pull away from that toward voices raised with new vision and a plan can feel like the removal of a suction cup that has been securely attached to a wall.
Jill Berkowicz & Ann Myers, June 2, 2016
4 min read
School Climate & Safety Opinion Leaders and Loyalty to Themselves, Others, and the Organization
Loyalty is a valued, and tricky, characteristic. Before being loyal to a person or an institution, one must be loyal to a guiding belief, conviction, or ideal.
Jill Berkowicz & Ann Myers, May 31, 2016
5 min read
School Climate & Safety Opinion We Need Diversity at the Leadership Table
As we probe diversity in the field of technology, minority involvement and inclusion in leadership seems to be a missing ingredient in the educational uses of and framing of technology in learning.
Jill Berkowicz & Ann Myers, May 29, 2016
6 min read
School Climate & Safety Opinion School Leaders Serve Everyone in the Community
Schools are communities. They are the best of us locally or the worst of us. They can only move ahead as a community of the whole, with shared values, and a leader for all.
Jill Berkowicz & Ann Myers, May 26, 2016
5 min read
School & District Management Opinion Want Culture to Support Change? 5 Questions to Help Leaders
Any plan for systemic change must be bolstered by serious attention to the cultural shifts that might be needed simultaneously.
Jill Berkowicz & Ann Myers, May 24, 2016
5 min read
School Climate & Safety Opinion The Key to Student Success: Build Educator and Collective Capacity
While it is well established that many factors can increase student performance, the most important factor is the quality of the classroom teacher.
Jill Berkowicz & Ann Myers, May 22, 2016
9 min read
School & District Management Opinion Schools as Instruments of Social Change: Transgender Students and Bathrooms
This is truly a moment for the adults who make decisions about whether they are going to accept social change and create the environments in which all children can flourish to be courageous.
Jill Berkowicz & Ann Myers, May 19, 2016
6 min read
School & District Management Opinion Communicating Your District's Image
Does your message reflect your values? Whose job is it to manage that message? How does one decide how that message is communicated?
Jill Berkowicz & Ann Myers, May 17, 2016
3 min read
School & District Management Opinion Why Successful Leaders Create Space for Questions
What questions accompany the decisions that are made every day and might make the answers more long lived?
Jill Berkowicz & Ann Myers, May 15, 2016
4 min read
School & District Management Opinion Ed Leadership Should Go Beyond 'Comply or Defy'
In reality, the possibilities for meaningful, ethical leadership are greater than the alternatives of comply or defy.
Jill Berkowicz & Ann Myers, May 12, 2016
6 min read
Equity & Diversity Opinion Schools Alone Can't Resolve Problems of Race and Poverty
What we need are ideas—crazy, new ones that might never have worked before; but now we are 21st-century leaders in a 21st-century world. We need to push policymakers into their own unfamiliar places.
Jill Berkowicz & Ann Myers, May 10, 2016
7 min read
School & District Management Opinion Schools for Today's Students Call for Educational Leadership and Advocates
If we are objecting to the common core and to the standardized tests, are we preparing the alternative?
Jill Berkowicz & Ann Myers, May 8, 2016
5 min read
School & District Management Opinion Time and Schedules: Ally or Constraint?
Our value about the use of time, expecting almost all of it as scheduled as teaching time, runs counter to the current need to change the way teaching and learning take place.
Jill Berkowicz & Ann Myers, May 5, 2016
4 min read
School Climate & Safety Opinion Leaders' Journey From Stressed and Oppressed to Creative and Energized
Mending a broken system or incrementally improving an archaic one is not inspirational work. Both demand staying with the original, making little space for creativity. It is innovation that excites workplaces.
Jill Berkowicz & Ann Myers, May 3, 2016
4 min read