Principals shifting their roles from building manager to instructional leader need more extensive PD to ensure top performance from teachers and students, according to a new policy brief from ASCD. Race to the Top's requirements linking teacher evaluations to student test scores is largely responsible for the change in the principal's responsibilities, says Susan Race, […]
Millions of students took Common Core tests this springÁ'and while it was business as usual in many districts, the spreading opt-out movement left some administrators caught between concerned parents and state requirements. The largest opt-out numbers are from New York, where by mid-April over 177,000 students had refused to take Common Core math and ELA […]
With many assessment mandates rolled out by Ohio in recent years, the 6,000-student Plain Local School District ended up in a challenging situation. “Like others in the state, each time a mandate came out, we fulfilled it with a new assessment,” says Cassandra Sponseller, Director of Teaching and Learning and Director of Gifted Programs for […]
Providing students with the right academic resources is crucial to their success. Whether it's finding printed books, e-books or other research materials, new software can help librarians organize materials and make them easy to find. The software also gives students access to these materials on phones, tablets and other mobile devices. Destiny Library Manager Follett […]
When a classroom is sweltering, nobody is productive. More and more teaching days are being lost to hot, humid weather even though there is a way to mitigate the problem: air conditioning. The challenge is justifying the cost of installation and maintenance at a time when competition for budget money is fierce. The place to […]
While blended learning has become a common topic of discussion and an increasingly common district-level strategy for driving student achievement, strategies for successfully making the transition to this new model of learning are often ignored. In this web seminar, originally broadcast on March 17, 2015, presenters explored best practices and lessons learned from blended learning […]
Big data and analytics now offer districts some clues about which teacher candidates will be the most effective in the classroom. These programs are designed to accurately gauge the impact teacher candidates will have on student test scores. Analytics companies such as TeacherMatch and Hanover Research are working with hundreds of districts nationwide to aid […]
When the District of Columbia Public Schools’ Chancellor Kaya Henderson announced in 2012 the launch of an ambitious plan to transform our schools, we were all very excited, albeit a little nervous. But the plan to invest in struggling schools, and focus significant resources and attention to raise proficiency rates across the district, made our […]
Blended learning is constantly growing and evolving, and transforming education to be more of a student-centered environment. This web seminar, originally broadcast on May 13, 2014, featured blended learning expert Michael Horn, who outlined disruptive innovations and the subsequent impact on education. Also, an administrator discussed how her district made the transition to a blended […]
St. John's Prep is a rigorous, Catholic independent day school for boys in grades 9 through 12. When the school adds a middle school with grades 6, 7, and 8 in September 2015, its 175-acre campus in Danvers, Mass. will serve 1,450 students. Focused on creating an atmosphere that fosters intellectual growth, St. John's Prep […]
