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 This blog is no longer being updated, but you can continue to explore these issues on edweek.org by visiting our related topic pages: school leadership and district leadership.
Assessment
Opinion
The Accountability Timeline: Putting Students First
The standards are new. The evaluation systems are new. Everyone has to learn something. Now even those who put them in place in the first place are rethinking the accountability timeline.
Teaching
Opinion
Throwback Thursday: Facilities and Teaching Practice - Getting the Order Right
A lesson learned from the '60's and '70's is that changing the building before changing teacher practice is ill advised. Until we attend to the changes in practice and beliefs about teaching to unleash 21st century education, building changes won't matter. The work is human work.
Classroom Technology
Opinion
Want Your Students Engaged? Gaming Holds Some Answers
Why not look past our beliefs that games are about shooting, killing, and other bad things, and allow ourselves to become jealous of the success games are enjoying while teaching children and adults alike how to research, learn, fail, succeed, teach, communicate, and graduate (level up) to new frontiers?
Classroom Technology
Opinion
Internet and Empathy, Compassion, and Respect
How can we maximize the capacity of this extraordinary communication medium and attend to our ever-increasing need for empathy and compassion to endure as a human speices? While we lead the use of technology as a vehicle for communication, teaching and learning, we need to wrestle with these questions about visibility, empathy and compassion.
Curriculum
Opinion
Throwback Thursday: Take the Tiger by the Tail - CC Math, For Example
The political belief is that setting a national standards' bar is the answer to improving education for all students. Some say it is a daunting charge, and some say it is an unattainable one. No matter the feelings that exist around the Common Core Standards, until and unless things change, we are implementing them.
Education
Opinion
What Can We Learn From Captain Ron Johnson?
In order to lead well in these times, certain leadership attributes and behaviors may be more essential than ever. Captain Ron Johnson's model is one that informs.
School Climate & Safety
Opinion
Compassion in the Classroom: A 'Real Strength' for Education
Compassion is education's water; it not only can help quench the thirst for social-emotional learning but it can cut through the rigidity of standardized-test based education to foster holistic learning.
School Climate & Safety
Opinion
Throwback Thursday: Responding to Depression in Our Schools
On this #tbt, the good news is we continue to learn about depression and share the data. The challenging news is, as the numbers reported are becoming larger, our knowledge about how to address these struggling children may not be growing.
Education
Opinion
Make Each Child the Focus: Organize the Year Around Questions
Let this year be one in which more students find their place in a welcoming school and classroom. Plan for it to be the year when every student's path to success is achieved because we were able to keep that as the focus of our work...all year long.
Education
Opinion
Tacoma School District's Journey: The Apology to Mr. Gaylord
Forty-two years later, we cannot make up for the mistakes of an unfortunate past, but we can at least acknowledge them and let those affected know that regret doesn't end when the old guard moves on.
Assessment
Opinion
Throwback Thursday: Achievement, Assessment, and Accountability
If we continue to focus on student growth and improvement as learners, keep track of that progress, and watch its impact on standard test results, will we be able to know if what we are doing is helping students develop as learners and thinkers.
Teaching
Opinion
No Textbooks: A New Responsibility for Teachers and Leaders
The move away from textbooks must be accompanied by a responsibility to create the time, space, and guidance in which teachers can research new resources and use them to transform the work being done in and outside of their classrooms.
Professional Development
Opinion
Reflection and Renewal Sustain Leaders
The focus on knowledge, skills and measurements must not pull us away from the essential need for learning and growing the inner lives of those who lead.
School Climate & Safety
Opinion
Throwback Thursday: Fired for Being Gay
The bias that raged in the 20th century proved to serve no purpose other than to cause damage. As we have moved away from the exaggerated bias, fear mongering, and exclusion of those considered different from the majority, inclusion offers some healing.