Blogs on Leadership

More Blogs on LeadershipRSS
Brian SimsJuly 22, 2011

Brian Sims is managing director of training academies at AUSL in Chicago. Betsy Haley Doyle co-authored this blog. She is a manager in The Bridgespan Group's education practice.

Last June, as principals and teachers from 14 Chicago public school "turnarounds," run by the nonprofit Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL), gathered at the Academy's leadership summit, there was a moment when the room turned silent. A slide went up comparing the percentage of students achieving annual expected growth at each school to the average score for each school's teachers. The figures were based on a sophisticated teacher evaluation tool, the nationally recognized Danielson framework.

Read More
Bob LenzJuly 5, 2011

The end of the school year presents us with an opportunity for reflection at Envision Schools. We take a final measure of students' progress throughout the school year, celebrate the many Envision graduates that will be heading off to college in the fall, and consider how we can incorporate those lessons into improving our own work to best enable, encourage, and ensure student learning.

Read More
Ken EllisApril 13, 2011

It's a few minutes after 7 a.m. on a drizzly Friday morning and math teacher Jonathan Winn is standing just outside his first period classroom yelling at the top of his lungs, his voice reverberating across campus. "How does that go?!" He's not so much yelling at his students as yelling for them, exhorting them to shout out the answer to a complex calculus problem, in unison. A few minutes later, Winn is dressed in a wig and a white ruffled shirt, playing 18th-century mathematician Gottfried Leibniz doing calculus in Paris. Later in the 90-minute class, he puts on a drum major's hat and exchanges drum beats and claps with his students, to get them to feel the power of their unity.

Read More
Elena AguilarApril 6, 2011

Margaret Wheatley, a brilliant thinker and organizer, writes: "I believe we can change the world if we start listening to one another again: simple, honest, human conversation, and not mediation, negotiation, problem solving, debate, or public meetings. Truthful conversation where we each have a chance to speak, we each feel heard, and we each listen well."

Read More
Elliot WashorApril 5, 2011

Editor's Note: We have two guest bloggers today -- Elliot Washor and Charles Mojkowski, Elliot is co-founder of Big Picture Learning, a global leader in education innovation with 62 highly successful schools throughout America, Canada, The Netherlands, and Australia. Charles Mojkowski is a senior associate at Big Picture Learning. The majority of Big Picture Learning's schools are regular public schools, and some are in-district charters.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

--Marcel Proust

Read More
Maurice EliasApril 4, 2011

How can we determine not only who is a competent leader, but a good leader? Some, like Tom Lickona of the Smart and Good Schools Initiative, believe the proper distinction is between moral and performance character. The former typically refers to having sound values, to be oriented toward an ethical way to behave; the latter refers to the essential importance of having the skills -- particularly SEL skills-- to carry out one's values.

Read More
Lily BoyarMarch 25, 2011

Real World Reality Check

I fell in love with school when I found out about a hidden gem called the Team Program. The Team Program is a rare experiential wilderness education program designed to get juniors in high school out of the four walls they have been accustomed to in the traditional classroom, and into the real world. Twenty-four students from the three major public schools in my county are accepted each year into this public school program. The program is held at a small public high school and the diverse group of juniors spends the year there, before returning to their "home school."

Read More
Maurice EliasNovember 29, 2010

Have you read Spirit: Defining Our World? It's a magazine published by Special Olympics to promote their programs and share information and inspire those who are interested in the organization and its goals. There are remarkable stories of individuals who refuse to be defeated by their handicapping conditions.

Read More
Mary Beth HertzNovember 15, 2010

This is the final post in a four-part series on running an edcamp unconference. You can find links to the previous posts at the end of this post.

Once you've taken care of all of the important things like securing a venue, finding sponsorship and assembling a team, there are plenty of smaller details to take care of. Some of these can be accomplished earlier in the game and some can be left to the last minute.

Read More
Dr. Katie KlingerSeptember 27, 2010

Even though Hawaii was one of the states awarded Race to the Top funds back in the second round, we still know it takes the grass roots efforts of parents and teachers to make positive change for their children academically.

Read More
see more see less