Cascade Matters Blog

Tell Me I Am Wrong

2013-06-09T06:32:00.000-07:00

On a local sports radio station there is a daily segment titled “Tell Me I am Wrong.” Callers, texters and/or e-mailers send in a statement that begins, “Tell me I am wrong.”

The listener makes a statement that she or he believes is correct. Here’s an example, “Tell me I am wrong, but football has replaced baseball as America’s national past time.” The co-hosts then debate whether the caller was wrong or right.

This concept of “telling me I am wrong” got me to thinking about how, in education, we discourage or encourage students to make statements they believe are correct and then are willing for others to consider the statement and agree or disagree.

During recent school visits in schools throughout the country, I have observed students being willing to take a stance, take a risk and know they are in a safe environment to express an opinion and prepared for critical feedback.

Later, I asked students about their sense of safety that allowed them to express their opinion with no guarantee of agreement. Here is what I heard:
How else are we going to learn if we do not challenge ourselves to share our thoughts with others?

I never thought about it as a “safe place”. I think of it as our classroom where everyone is encouraged to share their opinions.
I still think some students do not feel at ease, but most of us are eager to share what we are thinking, because it helps us to make sense of the course.
We are expected to tell others what we think, even if it is not popular, because we all have feelings and they need to be expressed.
It does not happen in every class, but it is actually pretty fun to hear what others think of my opinion.

If we value critical thinking as an expected skill of every high school graduate, creating a safe classroom climate for students to express themselves and receive critical feedback seems like an excellent strategy.

We need to create and sustain school climates that are safe, equitable, engaging and challenging where students and adults are encouraged to express their opinions and willingly accept critical feedback.

Tell me I am wrong.

Leading to Reform: May 12

2013-05-12T16:03:00.000-07:00

Welcome to welcome reform for the second Sunday in May. This week we look at the need for becoming a leader before you are one, Latinos gains in education, the plight of unions being influenced by teachers that need to get busy living, and innovation and the Silicon Valley. As always, we link to to an array of columns and pieces spanning the ideological spectrum on leadership and reform. Watch for a blog announcement later this week.

Act Like a Leader Before Your Are One
If you want to become a leader, don't wait for the fancy title or the corner office. You can begin to act, think, and communicate like a leader long before that promotion. Even if you're still several levels down and someone else is calling all the shots, there are numerous ways to demonstrate your potential and carve your path to the role you want.

What the Experts Say…

"It's never foolish to begin preparing for a transition no matter how many years away it is or where you are in your career," says Muriel Maignan Wilkins, coauthor of Own the Room: Discover Your Signature Voice to Master Your Leadership Presence.

Michael Watkins, the chairman of Genesis Advisers and author of The First 90 Days and Your Next Move, agrees. Not only does the planning help you develop the necessary skills and leadership presence, it also increases your chances of getting the promotion because people will already recognize you as a leader.

The key is to take on opportunities now, regardless of your tenure or role. "You can demonstrate leadership at any time no matter what your title is," says Amy Jen Su, coauthor of Own the Room.

Here are several ways to start laying the groundwork from Amy Gallo via The Harvard Business Review…

Latinos Make Gains in Education, Gaps Remain
After lagging behind other Americans in education for generations, Latinos have significantly narrowed the gap, and last year they passed a milestone, with new Hispanic high school graduates more likely than their white counterparts to go directly to college, according to a new study.

In an era of rising high school completion and college attendance over all, Latinos have made larger gains than other groups, the Pew Research Center reported Thursday, in a study based on data collected by the Census Bureau. By several measures, young Latinos have achieved parity with blacks in educational attainment.

“This is the maturation of a big second generation among Latinos — native born, and educated in American schools,” said Richard Fry, the lead author of the report. He noted survey results showing that Latinos were more likely than white students to say that a college degree is essential to get ahead in life.

Among the major demographic groups, Latinos remain the likeliest to drop out of high school, but that rate dropped by half in just a dozen years. Among people 16 to 24 surveyed last fall, 14 percent of Latinos had neither finished high school nor were attending school, compared with 28 percent in 2000. In the same period, the dropout rate fell to 7 percent from 13 percent among blacks, and to 5 percent from 7 percent among whites.

The Plight of Teacher Unions: The Shawshank Dilemma
A chance conversation with some teachers in a district I know reassured me that vision and following a dream first leads to great rather than good.

I bumped into groups of teachers from a district I once served in at lunch this week. They were on break from a day of PD enjoying a quick lunch. Most were happy and upbeat.

A few considered good teachers were hunched over their table, grumping about the expectations of them to teach better. They spoke of an administration that doesn’t understand them expecting them increase engagement and get better results with kids that are changing.

Isn’t this what most of expect and do deal with every day? Teach better, engage more and achieve? Don’t most of us know that we make our own way forward instead of expecting “them” to do it for us?

These star teachers – I least I thought they were -- included the highest paid in Wisconsin were in a misery trough: frustrated, self-centered, and feeling “unappreciated.”

After a few pleasantries, I said, “Make it better or come work with us in the city.”

This was met with eyes rolling and a comment from one — you don’t understand, you sold us out, you’ve gone to the dark side of charter and voucher schools (full disclosure – I work cross-sector in Milwaukee public, charter and choice schools in leadership development.)

I once considered these great teachers. I sensed they had become cynical and smarting still in the wake of Act 10. They are in compliance mode and angry about it, accusatory, disheveled; just not living.

They say I don’t understand. But, I think I do. If you aren’t happy with your situation change it or change with it. Kids’ lives are at stake -- if you can’t teach at the top of your game, get better or get out. The kids deserve it.

Stephen King’s “The Shawshank Redemption” probably sums it up best, “Get busy living or get busy dying.” Too many become institutionalized in their jobs or circumstances. Some feel a false sense of security but they are not truly free.

In Shawshank, the banker Andy Dufresne refused to allow grim circumstances keep him from hoping and following his dream. Reach full potential by recasting your vision and overcoming life's obstacles. Focus on your vision, don't give up hope.

Shawshank can mirror your current situation. Life can feel like a prison with invisible bars holding you back and dreaming of the time you’re released. It’s your Shawshank and you don’t even know you’re in it.

The fact is that the world has changed for teacher unions and their members and many want their old world back and now. Union leaders are recasting their vision and their members hold them back.

Arthur Levine captures the dilemma for teacher unions and why members still are struggling with their new reality.

Policymakers and unions have fundamentally different visions of the work of schools and teachers. This is not to say unions have done something wrong. It's that the world changed around them. It is also important to note that the situation of teachers' unions is not unique. All of our social institutions—schools, government, media, health care, and finance—were created for an old-style industrial economy. All are out of date and appear to be broken. Each needs to be rethought for the present and the future.

Government, so often critical of unions, has many of the same problems: vesting power on the basis of longevity, institutionalizing tenure through redistricting and opposition to term limits, focusing on process rather than outcomes, and engendering rising levels of public criticism. Members respond to the criticism with some leaving for different work, others hunkering down. Some are living. Some are dying.

In the years ahead, the burden will be on unions to develop policies rooted in information-era schools where student learning is the focus. They can play a vital role in building the information-age schools we need for tomorrow and in supporting the teachers those schools will require, or they will be viewed as obstructionist and ultimately become irrelevant. Many of their members understand this, but the loud and angry ones are still drowning out those who show up every day and give their best to kids and families.

The question isn’t the path perfect. The question is this the path I want to go?

Still, the shift is inevitable. Unions can oppose it or lead the transition, preserving what history has shown to be essential while building the new that is needed. But first, they must understand, advocate, and embrace the seismic shift in how schools work. Many of the union leaders get it, the problem some in the membership don’t and expect them to stop the inevitable shift. Get busy living or get busy dying.

The Way’s of Silicon Valley
Deborah Perry Piscione and her husband jettisoned the Washington, DC lifestyle—rife with political rants and power plays—and entered into the open and inviting ecosystem of Silicon Valley. Both milieus are full of Type-A personalities, but they quickly realized that the similarities ended there. She has written about the secrets that make Silicon Valley the place it is.

It’s more than a geographic place, it’s an entrepreneurial mindset. Whether they are not nor not, they call themselves entrepreneurs.

They work like they are in startups, lead lean lives and are open and are constantly hungry and open to new ideas’. They are not tied down by traditions or legacies Most importantly whether they have been around for five months or fifteen years, they let go of old ideas.

Learn more about what we can learn from Piccione via the Washington Post….

Articles for the Week:

JSONLINE - Education News
Alan Borsuk Blog on Education - Marquette University Law School
Eduwonk
Bringing Accountability to Education Reporting
Horace Mann Blog
School Climate Really Matters by Nirvi Shah
Too Many Untruths Being Spread About Common Core – Get the Wisconsin FACTS
Brain Interrupted by Bob Sullivan and Hugh Thompson
Balloon Bursting on Test Based School Reform by David L. Kirp
President Obama’s Second Term Education Problem by Valerie Strauss
The Idled Young Americans by David Leonhardt
Educational Reform Debate Puts Spotlight on Institutional Racism by Nekima Levy-Pounds
8 Ways to Reinvent a Career When you are Older by Dorie Clark
Why the Lean Start Up Changes Everything by Steve Blank

“The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing. ” --Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Leading to Reform: April 28

2013-04-28T14:48:00.001-07:00

This week we examine Andy Rotherham’s take on Gifted Education. We also look at resilience in children, a teacher leader webinar, and principles for “followership” – in case you are finding people aren’t. As always we link to an array of columns and pieces spanning the ideological spectrum on leadership and reform.

Do People Really Know What Gifted Education is?
This week, Andy Rotherham writes about Gifted Education in Time. What exactly makes a child “gifted”? In New York City, like many school districts, giftedness is decided by a standardized test that measures verbal and non-verbal facility. Score at the 90th percentile and you make the cut for some programs, but at the 97th percentile students become eligible for the highly competitive citywide options for gifted students. The problem isn’t the test, per se; it’s the false precision that comes with it.

There is no consistent standard — some experts say the top 10%, some say the top few percent (in which case, most of the children whose parents think they are gifted are merely talented.) In the case of New York City, does anyone seriously think that a student at the 96th percentile (or the 89th for that matter) might not benefit from gifted education programs, as well? It’s the scarcity of seats, rather than any rigorous definition of merit that is driving these distinctions.

Learn more at Time …

Raising Resilient Kids
The most common concern is the lack of resilience in youth. That today's children and young adults lack some inherent sense of internal strength, character and resilience those previous generations possessed. In a real sense, many wonder if we have raised children who are just too soft.

So what is resilience? Like most character traits, resilience is best defined by describing how it is applied in real life. Resilient people tend to possess:

The ability to stand firm despite challenges, setbacks, delays.
The ability to be undeterred by external circumstances and events
The ability to `rebound'

It is important to realize that resilience has little to do with toughness and far more to do with strength. Where toughness is about the external, strength is about the internal. Where toughness is about appearances and coping mechanisms, strength is about values, principles and identity. With so much focus on preparing young people with the skills they will need in their adult lives, let's not forget to prepare and equip them with the character, values and strength they will truly need to flourish.

Learn more from Michael McQueen about raising resilient kids...

Teacher Leadership Webinar
Intrigued by the growing movement of teachers taking school leadership roles?

Then tune into next Tuesday's Education Week Webinar: "Exploring Teacher-Leadership Trends and Possibilities." In this webinar, experts will discuss what's behind the teacher-leadership trend as teachers increasingly take on "hybrid positions" that combine classroom teaching with other roles. Are school organizational structures finally shifting? How are schools redefining roles to leverage educators’ expertise and ambitions?

The webinar, which takes place on April 30, 2013 at 5 p.m. CST, will also explore how these transitions are best facilitated and what they mean for school culture, student learning, and career development in education. Register here ...

Four Principles of Followership
Former HP Executive Vice President, Vyomesh Joshi (VJ), was keynote speaker at last year’s gapCon.

A big takeaway from VJ’s talk was a question he addressed about the “keys to be a great leader.” VJ paused and said that it’s not about leadership, the real question “followership” and that potential leaders should always ask themselves “Why would anyone want to follow me?”

Here are four key attributes to strong “followership”:

Trust: Through everyday behavior “followership” requires that the leader provides evidence that they can be trusted.
Stability: Leaders with strong “followership” remain calm in the face of panic and give a sense of confidence to those around them.
Compassion: Strong “followership” leaders have unrelenting passion for people and show empathy when those folks are enduring hard times.
Hope: “Followership” requires that the leader have unwavering belief that their product/service will not only succeed, but will change lives.

Many times people are placed in leadership roles and inherently believe that their teams will follow them due to the title on their business card and not the substance of their character. Leadership is as much about being the person that people want to follow as it‘s about knowing where the team is headed.

Do you ever wonder why anyone would want to follow you?

If your high performers are exiting your team, look within instead of blaming or making excuses?

Articles for the Week:

JSONLINE - Education News
Alan Borsuk Blog on Education - Marquette University Law School
Eduwonk
Bringing Accountability to Education Reporting
Horace Mann Blog
New York Times: No Rich Child Left Behind by Sean F. Reardon
Women in Leadership Breaking Barriers Still? by Neela Bettridge
Civic Engagement in the Digital Age by Aaron Smith
Calif Gov. Brown Working to Redistribute Funding From Suburban to High Poverty Districts by David Siders
Tips on Innovation
Advice to TFA from a Former TFA Corp Member by Lauren Blair Aronson
Economics Results Reveal Proficiency Woes by Erik Robelen
Exemplary Civics Programs by Catherine Gewertz

"Is this what is best for a program and the children that it serves?” -- Howard Fuller

Leading to Reform: April 28

2013-04-28T14:48:00.000-07:00

The ability to stand firm despite challenges, setbacks, delays.
The ability to be undeterred by external circumstances and events
The ability to `rebound'

Trust: Through everyday behavior “followership” requires that the leader provides evidence that they can be trusted.
Stability: Leaders with strong “followership” remain calm in the face of panic and give a sense of confidence to those around them.
Compassion: Strong “followership” leaders have unrelenting passion for people and show empathy when those folks are enduring hard times.
Hope: “Followership” requires that the leader have unwavering belief that their product/service will not only succeed, but will change lives.

JSONLINE - Education News
Alan Borsuk Blog on Education - Marquette University Law School
Eduwonk
Bringing Accountability to Education Reporting
Horace Mann Blog
New York Times: No Rich Child Left Behind by Sean F. Reardon
Women in Leadership Breaking Barriers Still? by Neela Bettridge
Civic Engagement in the Digital Age by Aaron Smith
Calif Gov. Brown Working to Redistribute Funding From Suburban to High Poverty Districts by David Siders
Tips on Innovation
Advice to TFA from a Former TFA Corp Member by Lauren Blair Aronson
Economics Results Reveal Proficiency Woes by Erik Robelen
Exemplary Civics Programs by Catherine Gewertz

"Is this what is best for a program and the children that it serves?” -- Howard Fuller

Leading to Reform: April 21

2013-04-21T15:37:00.000-07:00

This week’s how to find some optimism coming out of the events of last week, dealing with email, the best and worst principals and a few trends in leadership. As always, we link to an array of columns and pieces spanning the ideological spectrum on leadership and reform.

A Week for Grit and Optimism
Last week was a new experience and a long, hard one leaving me glad it is behind us. Alan Borsuk writes in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that the basic, important traits of grit and optimism in children and adults can help move us forward after Boston, Texas, and an Elvis impersonator gone bad. Borsuk captures it nationally, locally and personally.

I think we can all agree it was a tough week. But what is Borsuk’s take-away?

It is not to give in to despair. It is time to pursue positive paths - to have faith, in several senses of that word. To do less is to feed a bad future.

Parents, hug your children. You don't know what can happen any time, but you can only do right by giving them what they need today, including emotional nourishment.

Being resilient does not mean we won’t experience difficulty, tough times or question if we can help others be successful despite what we saw and felt last week from the carnage of the past week. Being resilient means looking at all this and saying. I choose to go forward and do better.

How can you show grit at a time when the news can drain all your energy? How can you be optimistic in a week when a bomb while waiting to cheer for his father kills an 8-year-old boy, Martin Richard? Or, when so many other horrible things occur?

Because you have to, for yourself and for your children.

Among the traits Borsuk singles out is curiosity, self-control, conscientiousness, optimism and one he labeled grit -- in fact, it's in the subtitle of his book, "How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character."

Learn more at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel…

Email Anxiety: Your’s, Mine and Our’s
One of the classic frustrations of modern life — sending out e-mails and hearing nothing back or knowing – I have to respond and I have not.

It’s not just e-mails. Unreturned phone calls, texts and messages via social media can be just as irritating. I’m going to concentrate on e-mails because for most people (teenage sons excepted), they are the most common tool of business and personal communication.

A large part of the problem, said Terri Kurtzberg, an associate professor of management and global business at Rutgers Business School, is that in face-to-face or phone conversations, “it is clear how long a silence should last before you need to respond,” she said. “There’s no norm with digital communication.”

I know I struggle increasingly with email, keeping up, tracking responses and always sensing I can do more or haven’t done my best. Share your thoughts on how to manage the relentless email incoming and outflowing in the comments below.

Meanwhile, read more at the New York Times...

Principal’s: The Weak, The Good and The Golden
In her April “One to Grow On” column, Carol Ann Tomlinson a professor at the Curry School of Education, discusses different types of principals she's worked with -- "the weak, the good, and the golden."

Those she cannot forget were "cut from a different cloth," she writes. Tomlinson goes on to share the stories of four particularly memorable leaders who did action research before the term was coined, who created opportunity where "desperation should have ruled," and who never put kids second.

Learn more at ACSD’s Educational Leadership blog…

Seven Leadership Trends for Today
Leaders looking for meaningful growth are all about investing in their people to cultivate an engaged workforce, and ultimately, achieve higher sales and a stronger bottom line. Here are seven trends we’re watching:

Uncertainty is the new normal. Don’t get used to it. Deal with it.
The management talent shortage is intensifying. Weak and ineffective leaders abound. Recently, former teacher colleagues began taking note of their district leaders going from meeting to meeting in a rabble of two or three -- their words. Where it once took only one administrator to attend a small meeting, it now takes two or three District leaders to manage or engage. A picture says a thousand words, including a lack of joy, dishevelment, and confidence. Schools deserve better even if the talent shortage is there. Good leaders are out there. However, they are in high demand and choose where they can work now.
First-line leaders matter. These are the leaders on the ground – doing the work. Leading with hearts and hands and make all the difference. How good are your First Line Leaders?
Organizations that focus on people-leadership practices will reap rewards. Developing leadership and retaining it is what good organizations do.
Employee engagement will continue to be a key concern. Real engagement, not contrived. Engaged employees make the difference and the best leaders find engagement a necessity in deciding where they serve.
Leadership is becoming more collective and the best have developed these skills to a fine art.
Boot-camp training is out. Leadership and merging business, strategic and educational leadership is where it is at.

If organizations can implement these trends into their initiatives, they’ll achieve an even more than planned.

Articles for the Week:

"A mere friend will agree with you, but a real friend will argue.” --Russian Proverb.”

Action Steps: Cards vs. Screens

2013-04-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

As a session adjourned at a recent international online student summit, I saw many adults sharing their business cards. By contrast, the youth participants connected by sharing the screen on their smartphone, tablet or computer.

It became clear to me that business cards are slowly but surely going out of style. They are being replaced by electronic means such as exchanging email addresses or Twitter handles, leaving the small slices of card stock loaded with contact information behind.

Some may explain this as a generational issue as people build on habits that have proven successful. However, as advocacy moves to more multi-generational strategies we need to ensure we use effective and efficient ways of taking action and staying connected.

What really matters however is the action step or steps that each individual, groups, networks and/or organizations take. The ability to form and sustain collective advocacy depends on our interactions with and trust we have in others.

As we collectively advocate for positive change in our schools, our communities, our nation, our world and ourselves we must ensure that we determine the best ways to:

Share information about ourselves and our attributes
Develop strategies to maximize our individual and group strengths
Sustain a sense of belonging and connectedness
Focus on impacts that are frequently measured
Commit to continuous improvement to make mid-course corrections to our advocacy

Sticking with habits that make us comfortable, as we collaborate with others, often increases the gaps between us. Discovering and implementing interventions based on the five strategies above narrows the divide and leads to collective progress and success.

About the author: Terry Pickeral, president Cascade Educational Consultants has extensive experience in policy development, advocacy, education reform, youth leadership, teaching and learning strategies, education collaborations and civic development. His commitment is to ensuring schools create and sustain quality teaching and learning environments for all students to be successful in school and contribute to their communities as active principled citizens.

Leading to Reform: April 14

2013-04-14T14:40:00.000-07:00

This week’s LTR highlights a documentary “The Dream is Now,” the drumbeat about if school districts really matter anymore, if standardized tests are effective, and college access – what many don’t know about it these days. We also link array of columns and pieces spanning the ideological spectrum on leadership and reform.

The Dream is Now – Fixing Immigration
It is time to fix America’s immigration system, giving undocumented youth and their families the chance to earn their citizenship. I encourage you to watch the new documentary titled, “The Dream is Now” from the maker of “Waiting for Superman” just as soon as you can.

Schools that serve disadvantaged children and youth are impacted our nation’s inhumane immigration policies towards illegal immigrants. Given David Guggenheim’s past movies like “Waiting for Superman” this is likely an important film that many working in suburban schools have no idea what this issue is really about.

Watch the trailer below, or learn more at www.thedreamisnow.org.

Do School Districts Matter?
School districts occupy center stage in education reform in the U.S. They manage nearly all public funding and are frequently the locus of federal and state reform initiatives, e.g., instituting meaningful teacher evaluation systems.

We know very little from existing research about how important they are to student achievement relative to other institutional components for delivering education services, including teachers and schools. Neither do we have information on the size of the differences in effectiveness among districts or whether there are districts that show exceptional patterns of performance across time, e.g., moving from low to high performing.

Even though district effects are only a small piece of the pie that represents all the influences on student achievement, there are still differences among the academic achievement of demographically similar students in higher and lower performing districts.

There are also districts that have displayed exceptional patterns of performance in terms of student achievement over the last decade, including districts that beat their demographic odds every year, districts that consistently underperformed, districts that had nose-dive declines, and districts that experienced transformative growth.

These findings provide an empirical justification for efforts to improve student achievement through district-level reforms and should be read by those who want to better understand why some districts are better than others and translate that knowledge into action.

Movement Against Standardized Testing Gaining Strength
Opposition to standardized testing is drawing surprising adherents as more groups, including some that have previously supported the high-stakes assessment method, are calling for reform and even outright elimination of testing going forward. What Reuters calls “a backlash” could be partly explained as a reaction to the increasing enthusiasm for standardized tests exhibited by both federal and state governments. Hundreds of millions of dollars are going towards design and development of new testing regimes, to be used for children aged 5 and up. The tests themselves play a role not only in assessing student progress, but also in determining teacher effectiveness and in decisions on grade promotion.

A growing number of parents are also rebelling against what they see as valuable instruction time being wasted not only filling out Scantron sheets, but also teaching students the mechanics of test taking. But the biggest issue seems to be that the effort and expense of student stress and lost learning time isn’t translating to real academic gains and districts that have good scores on lousy tests perpetuate the testing culture rather than standing up for kids.

“I see frustration and bitterness among parents growing by leaps and bounds,” says Leonie Haimson, a mother who runs Class Size Matters, an advocacy group in New York City that pushes for reduced testing and smaller class sizes. “What parents are saying is, ‘Enough is enough.’”

Some parents are taking a stronger stand than just lodging complaints. A group in northwest Washington took a more concrete step and kept their children out of school on testing days, which resulted in hundreds of children missing their state exams.

Perhaps rethinking education with a holistic approach is the way to go. But you also have to have real accountability and reward staff who get results to youth linked with accountability and rewarding those educators who get results on a blend of assessments including measuring school climate, student achievement on standardized and other assessments along with parent satisfaction assessments with teachers and principals could be another perspective.

The biggest challenge? States are relying on standardized tests because they want to know what is working in schools. Show them the evidence and they may change.

Weak school leaders putting finger in the wind to see which way the wind is blowing or refuse to put the needs of kids and families first over their own interests As Bob Dylan says, you don’t need a weatherman to see which way schools are going. Unfortunately, too many who could make a difference, keep on keeping on and why not, the leaders stay in their comfort zone and parents trust they have their best interests in mind -- when they don’t.

Want to Compare How Your Middle Class School Really Performs?
There was a time when middle-class parents in America could be — and were — content to know that their kids’ public schools were better than those in the next neighborhood over. As the world has shrunk, though, the next neighborhood over is now Shanghai or Helsinki. Tom Freedman highlights how public schools compares how public schools around the world do in applied reading, math and science skills — as saying imagine, in a few years, that you could sign on to a Web site and see how your school compares with a similar school anywhere in the world. And then you could take this information to your superintendent and ask: “Why are we not doing as well as schools in China or Finland?”

The pilot study was described in an America Achieves report entitled “Middle Class or Middle of the Pack?” that is being released Wednesday. The report compares U.S. middle-class students to their global peers of similar socioeconomic status on the 2009 PISA exams.

Looking Back, Looking Good and Looking Forward
After 49 years, my old friend Terry Pickeral had the opportunity of returning to his old high school in Chandler, Arizona. Terry reflects that many things seemed to have remained the same. He also saw many enhancements.

What was most compelling was the engagement with special education students, teachers and a parent of a student with special needs was the sense of inclusiveness. Everyone counts, everyone matters and everyone is encouraged to be engaged.

Learn more at Cascade Educational Consultants...

College Readiness and Access – Is Your School Up on This?
The Education Week Spotlight on College Readiness and Access is a collection of articles hand-picked by Education Week editors for their insights on:

The digital divide in the college admissions process
Districts using early college models
How 'soft skills,' like resiliency and grit, help students prepare for college
Challenges faced by college admissions counselors
Preparing students for the academic and financial demands of college
The gap in college-completion for Latino students

You can get the eight articles in a downloadable PDF, click here to download…

Articles for the Week:

"Arrogance blames. Humility takes responsibility.” --Dan Rockwell

Looking Back, Looking Good and Looking Forward

2013-04-09T10:49:00.000-07:00

After 49 years, I recently had the opportunity of returning to my old high school in Chandler, Arizona.

Many things seemed to have remained the same. The building appearance, the familiar courtyard in the center of the school, similar bulletin boards and similar class schedules.

Some things were no longer there, for example the catwalk that once connected the buildings, the large auditorium at the center of the school and the small parking lot next door.

I saw many enhancements: a new gymnasium, a new cafeteria, a new technology center, new faculty and leaders, a new safety system and new resources. Most of those elements are components common to high schools in 2013.

What was most compelling to me as I engaged with special education students, teachers and a parent of a student with special needs was the sense of inclusiveness. Everyone counts, everyone matters and everyone is encouraged to be engaged.

Chandler High School has integrated social inclusiveness through unified sports, leadership courses, student council, student clubs, assemblies and Chandler Buddies. All focused on engaging special and general education students in meaningful activities.

When I asked the parent of a special needs student what is different about this high school her response was there is no stigma attached to students, all students are accepted because the school is inclusive, ensuring participation and providing students opportunities to show their unique strengths.

When I asked two students how being included in unified sports programs impacts them they indicated that it makes them healthy, it provides an opportunity to make friends and it allows them to achieve team goals.

A teacher indicated that students engaged in socially inclusive activities such as leadership class, Chandler Buddies and/or unified sports learn teambuilding and their responsibilities as team members – skills they utilize throughout and beyond school.

When I looked back on my high school education I recall a mixed set of positive and challenging experiences. When I explore my old high school today, I am proud of the comprehensive nature of social inclusiveness and the courage teachers have to recognize the unique gifts of each student. When I think of the future that will be led by these young people I am confident in their knowledge, skills and dispositions to make great decisions for themselves as they focus on the common good.

About the author: Terry Pickeral, president Cascade Educational Consultants has extensive experience in policy development, advocacy, education reform, youth leadership, teaching and learning strategies, education collaborations and civic development. His commitment is to ensuring schools create and sustain quality teaching and learning environments for all students to be successful in school and contribute to their communities as active principled citizens.

Leading to Reform: April 7

2013-04-07T07:20:00.000-07:00

This week’s newsletter is back from spring break. All of us working with Leading to Reform are excited about the new web site and where it is going, stay tuned. This week’s letter highlights how to design work place satisfaction, Milwaukee’s ed reform, Wisconsin merit pay plans working, and characteristics of weak leaders As always, we link to an array of columns and pieces spanning the ideological spectrum on leadership and reform.

Google Deliberately Designs Work Place Satisfaction
Google has devoted the same level of intellectual firepower it used to create search engines, self-driving cars to discovering, refining, and implementing leadership practices that optimize human performance in the workplace. Upending traditional leadership theory, which directs organizations to squeeze as much out of people while paying them as little as possible, Google holds an authentic reverence for its employees and seeks to not just appeal to their "uber-developed" minds in motivating performance, but also to their very human hearts.

Where does your organization fit in retaining and developing intellectual firepower?

Yes We Can
Tom Vander Ark, an education advocate, advisor, and author recently addressed Milwaukee education on his Education Week Blog On Education.
The most impressive progress in Milwaukee is being made by the Schools That Can Milwaukee (STCM) team led by Abby (Ramirez) Andrietsch.

The goal is 20,000 high performing seats by 2020--and they are about halfway there. STCM has a group of more than 80 leaders from 24 district, charter and voucher schools serving over 10,000 students coming together around quality, collaborating cross-sector, striving for excellence and a greater vision for Milwaukee. STCM supports high performing school visits, best practice sharing and leadership coaching.

"Leaders remind people what is important," said Bill Hughes, STCM Director of Leadership Development at ASCD two weeks ago. "Leadership is a learned skill."

In Wisconsin, it must be learned in a masters degree program so Hughes created a partnership with Alverno.

STCM focuses on moving schools into high performance, replicating homegrown high performers, and attracting high performers like Rocketship. They learned a lot about 'no excuses' leadership from Uncommon Schools and like their mentors, STCM is more about execution than innovation.
Education in Milwaukee is on the rise. Add a dose of innovation and things will get better fast.

Watch for Milwaukee to continue it’s upward climb for kids in our city.

Wisconsin and School District Employees are Getting Big Raises in Post Union Era
Some Wisconsin School Districts and State Employees are now receiving pay increases in excess of 5% based on their value and contribution to the success of their department or school district.

Leading school districts across the State have new compensation plans designed to retain and engage their most effective teachers rewarding their best educators while moving their districts into the next era.

Great and high demand teachers are commanding better compensation and like school leaders, securing better pay in exchange for strong results.
Laggard school districts are still offering the status quo. Sub par pay increases for the best and brightest and making sure everyone gets the same pay raise – just like pre ACT Ten day.

In the first round of pay increases for Wisconsin state employees since union contracts were invalidated, supervisors delivered an average 6.52 percent boost to 2,757 workers, roughly one in 14 of those eligible.

The payout is very different from union-era raises, which were much smaller on a percentage basis but cost tens of millions more because they were distributed to most non-academic employees.

Supervisors were allowed to propose extra pay for valued employees who did superior work, were seeking other employment, or were underpaid compared to others in similar circumstances.

This is a good beginning with more merit compensation becoming the norm as high performers get tired of getting the same raise as the low performer down the hall from them.

Where does your school district fit in the new era of compensation for teachers? Are they studying or are they doing? Learn More…

5 Characteristics of Weak Leaders
Here are 5 characteristics of Weak Leaders. If you work for a leader with several of these characteristics, keep a sharp eye on what is going on before they suck you into their undertow.

Flaw #1: Weak leaders hesitate to take definitive action.
Flaw #2: Weak leaders complain about a lack of resources.
Flaw #3: Weak leaders refuse to take responsibility.
Flaw #4: Weak leaders abuse the privileges of leadership.
Flaw #5: Weak leaders engage in acts of insubordination.

Read and listen to the pod cast here: http://michaelhyatt.com/048-the-5-characteristics-of-weak-leaders-podcast.html

Articles for the Week:

"Leaders that are no hassle, get real results with no gimmicks are priceless. Don’t let them leave your school.” --Bill Hughes

From Survival to Success: 7 Critical Skills

2013-03-26T11:14:00.000-07:00

A colleague recently shared a story of a young man who said where he comes from prepares him with certain survival skills. This got me to thinking about the skills our students gain from their formal education experiences.

Current national, state and local education conversations about student competencies tend to focus on academic achievement rather than skill development.
However, there are alternative voices advocating for skill-based competencies such as the Partnership for 21st Century Learning, the Civic Mission of Schools and Character Education Partnerships.

I keep going back to the statement by the young man about how his environment prepares him to survive. I want to make sure schools do more than promote survival skill-building but focus on those skills that assist each individual to achieve to their fullest and contribute to their community.

Here is my list of those critical skills:

Moral and ethical reasoning skills to act, according to a set of values, appropriately in various situations
Decision-Making skills to effectively analyze information and make decisions accordingly
Collaborative skills to engage with others to find come to mutually beneficial solutions
Inclusive skills to understand diverse perspectives, expand knowledge and take collective actions
Civic skills to understand and exercise the rights and responsibilities of active principled citizens
Communication skills to effectively communicate with diverse audiences using multiple methods
Continuous improvement skills to learn from our experiences so that we increase our capacity to link experience to learning

Of course any list excludes elements that others feel are as critical as those identified; however I believe these skills provide the framework for individuals to develop, progress and succeed as individuals and community members.

About the author: Terry Pickeral, president Cascade Educational Consultants has extensive experience in policy development, advocacy, education reform, youth leadership, teaching and learning strategies, education collaborations and civic development. His commitment is to ensuring schools create and sustain quality teaching and learning environments for all students to be successful in school and contribute to their communities as active principled citizens.

Leading to Reform: March 24

2013-03-24T14:58:00.000-07:00

This week’s newsletter highlights leadership and Millenials, Larry Cuban’s thoughts on technology, teacher preparation in Milwaukee and a reminder about leadership and collaboration. We link as always to an array of columns and pieces spanning the ideological spectrum on leadership and reform. Leading to Reform will be taking some time for Easter with the next issue coming out on our new website and blog in early April.

Is Leadership an Issue for Millenials?
Leadership has an image problem amongst Millennials and that signals trouble for today's executives. According to Lauren Rikleen, who has studied workplace demographics for Boston College's Center for Work and Family there won't be enough members of the Gen X population to fill anticipated leadership roles in the next decade.

Yet, Millennials have ambition. According to research in Bentley University's white paper, 65 percent said that being "successful in a high-paying career or profession" was either extremely or very important. The drive is there for this generation, so why the reluctance to take on a larger leadership role?

Smart Leaders and the Power of Collaboration
Schools are trying to meet the new imperative. Learning and Development (L&D) is much more important with accountability built into every L&D event. The goal is to integrate learning into a Schools ’s culture and processes. There are also training sessions, workshops, conferences, and retreats, but the most successful strategies are those that make learning a continuous process, hardwired into a schools’ metabolism.

For school leaders this is both a daunting challenge and an exciting opportunity to engage and retain top talent. You have to keep your eye on the horizon, your ear to the ground and your nose in the wind. Your school’s needs are ever changing, and you must stay one step ahead while dealing with many informal leaders in the school who are trying to hold on to what they have been doing.

Most schools are still stuck in developing teachers and leaders without accountability, never closing the loop between the training and the results.

End the Distractions; Focus on Kid’s Learning
Three deans of education in the Milwaukee metro area are committed to teacher preparation, both in our college-based programs and in their partnerships with Teach For America. They are rightly proud of well-developed programs at undergraduate and graduate levels but also proud of contributions to the work of the TFA corps members in area schools, who also benefit from our coursework and coaching.

They recently reflected on Jeanne F. Williams' thoughtful op-ed in Friday's Journal Sentinel, which raised the question: Will trying to say which route of teacher preparation is better move us toward improved learning outcomes for Milwaukee's children?

The real issue is how all of us - not just teacher preparation programs, but the entire metropolitan area - can work toward a common goal where every school is high performing, supporting all children as they build knowledge, skill, character and capacity. Truly, it "takes a village."

Preparing teachers could not do so without key partnerships with K-12 public, choice and charter schools in and their leaders who work with our students in field experiences, internships and beginning teacher roles. In turn, those schools rely on the support of the community: parents, neighbors, and local business and faith communities, along with city, county and state governments. That circle is also affected by national conversations and policies, as well as the economy and, ultimately, international influences.

As the critique goes, education is unfortunately one enterprise where the stakeholders circle the wagons and shoot at each other. So, how do we get beyond the distracting argument of whether traditional teacher education or TFA is best; of pitting choice, charter and public schools against one another; or of comparing this special program to that one? Until we get past these distractions, we won't be able to put all of our efforts into what matters most: the learning of all our children.

Rather than argue, what if all stakeholders started down the road to improvement by collaborating?

Magical Thinking About Technology in Education
Is technology is going to save public education? Too many school districts are chasing the elusive target of technology. I know I did for years and realize the poor return on investment – where the money spent on more hardware could be used differently and with more impact for kids.

Here’s a cautionary post from Larry Cuban, a high school social studies teacher for 14 years, a district superintendent (seven years in Arlington, Va.), and professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, where he has taught for more than 20 years. His latest book is “As Good As It Gets: What School Reform Brought to Austin.” This appeared on his School Reform and Classroom Practice blog.

Time Management Habits to Master
Time management is about taking charge of oneself. It is about accepting responsibility for our lives and what we choose to do with our time.
Here are 12 time management habits for the spring. Tailor these as you like, but whatever you do, work on one each week using Benjamin Franklin’s method:

Strive to be authentic
Favor trusting relationships
Maintain a lifestyle that gives you maximum energy
Set a very few priorities and stick to them
Turn down things that are not your priorities
Get the rest of these great time management tips at Forbes...

Articles for the Week:

"Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.” --John Wooden

Aspirations and Inspiration

2013-03-20T09:20:00.000-07:00

I frequently hear references to student aspirations and teacher inspiration. These are two great concepts. However, I think there is a striking imbalance between them.

Student aspirations focus on the attainment or accomplishment of a specific goal. For example, high school graduation, college acceptance and securing a job.

Teacher inspiration focuses on influencing students to do their best and strive for attainable goals. Usually inspiration includes emotional motivation and enlivening interactions.

To me, the corresponding imbalance comes from the focus on teachers inspiring students to aspire to higher levels of achievement and development. Wouldn’t it be better for there to be mutually beneficial relationships in which students inspire teachers to aspire to greater development and capacity.

In my experience, the best schools are those in which students and teachers inspire each other to aspire for achievable yet challenging goals. Such relationships yield greater opportunities for all to develop and enhance their knowledge and skills and recognize we all need external motivation, encouragement and support.

About the author: Terry Pickeral, president Cascade Educational Consultants has extensive experience in policy development, advocacy, education reform, youth leadership, teaching and learning strategies, education collaborations and civic development. His commitment is to ensuring schools create and sustain quality teaching and learning environments for all students to be successful in school and contribute to their communities as active principled citizens.

Leading to Reform: March 17

2013-03-17T12:08:00.000-07:00

This week’s newsletter highlights shared purpose, gains for kids in KIPP Schools, young American’s and technology plus 10 tips on school climate and another reason to pay attention to The Whole Child Initiative. We link as always to an array of columns and pieces spanning the ideological spectrum on leadership and reform. Most now forwarded by readers.

Purpose is Good. Shared Purpose is Better
Mark Bonchek, a social business strategist writes for the Harvard Business Review that organizations are turning to "purpose" and "authenticity" as a way to engage consumers and employees. But it's hard enough to find a purpose in life if you're an individual, let alone an entire organization. And being authentic is a bit like being cool — sometimes the harder you try, the less you are.

The first step is to recognize that there are different kinds of purpose. Sometimes purpose is about values — who you are and what you stand for. Other times it is about value — what you do and how it benefits others, says Bonchek.

The ultimate goal would seem to be having your values and value aligned: have what you do reflect who you are, have what you stand for guide what you make, and have your value to the community enhance your value to customers and shareholders.

Shared purpose is a journey you and your organization will be on together for a long time. Those of us, who are fortunate, work in an organization that shares our purpose. Those who work for an organization they aren’t aligned with won’t be able to do their best work and are killing time for the organization and themselves. Learn more at the Harvard Business Review…

Kipp Gains Substantial
KIPP, previously known as the Knowledge Is Power Program, has had more success than any other large educational organization in raising the achievement of low-income students. Jay Mathews in his blog takes a closer look at the Mathematica Policy Research five-year investigation of 43 KIPP schools — the largest study ever of any charter school network. It concludes: “the average impact of KIPP on student achievement is positive, statistically significant, and educationally substantial.

Researchers compared higher performing to lower-performing KIPP schools to ascertain what characteristics had the most impact on learning. “Class size, teacher experience and professional development opportunities” were not associated with higher scores, the report said. Instead, achievement was greater in KIPP schools “where principals report a more comprehensive school-wide behavior system” and where more time was spent on core academic activities.

Learn more from Mathews here: Big Study Says KIPP Gains Substantial says Class Struggle Blog

Where are we Going? Why Whole Child Gets Us There
Educational systems across the globe are under pressure to change. Many countries are focusing attention on additional accountability, school choice and competition, short-term outcomes, and data-driven decision-making (what have been called the Second and Third Ways).

Some high performing countries and systems, however, are reexamining their structures and policies to move towards greater collective professional autonomy from bureaucratic control, stronger active involvement of local communities and diversified teaching to respond to today’s widely varying populations of learners. This Fourth Way of educational reform heralds the next stage for educational improvement – a movement which reverts educational authority back from centralized bureaucracies to educators and communities, diversifies skills and content taught to suit each community and context, and is driven by the inspiring and also basic belief that there are skills and aptitudes that are just as critical as content knowledge.

Our peers and our competitors are abandoning the old ways of change. There is a new way, a fourth way of change, that can inspire our teachers, engage our communities, and lift up all of our children via a more holistic approach.

We can stay the course, or we can seize the day. Which path will your school take?

10 Ideas for Better School Climate
School climate, the quality and character of schools, affects the life and learning of students. School climate matters and leads to higher student achievement and connection to school. Schools can provide the leadership and effective engagement strategies to effectively integrate and sustain quality school climates to ensure students experience the best conditions for learning. This year the National School Climate Center (NSCC) created a set of 11 School Climate Practices for Implementation and Sustainability Briefs to identify specific strategies schools can adopt to create and sustain quality school climate. Learn more from Terry Pickeral here…

Youth and Technology 2013
Smartphone adoption among American teens has increased substantially and mobile access to the Internet is pervasive. One in four teens are “cell-mostly” Internet users, who say they mostly go online using their phone and not using some other device such as a desktop or laptop computer.

These are among the new findings from a nationally representative Pew Research Center survey that explored technology use among 802 youth ages 12-17 and their parents. Key findings include:

78% of teens now have a cell phone, and almost half (47%) of them own smartphones. That translates into 37% of all teens who have smartphones, up from just 23% in 2011.
23% of teens have a tablet computer, a level comparable to the general adult population.
95% of teens use the Internet.
93% of teens have a computer or have access to one at home. Seven in ten (71%) teens with home computer access say the laptop or desktop they use most often is one they share with other family member

In many ways, teens represent the leading edge of mobile connectivity, and the patterns of their technology use often signal future changes in the adult population.

Articles for the Week:

"The luck of the Irish is the ability to persevere through misfortune."

10 Recommendations for Implementing School Climate Reform in Schools

2013-03-12T07:29:00.000-07:00

School climate, the quality and character of schools, affects the life and learning of students. Research shows that school climate matters and sustained positive school climate is associated with positive youth development, effective risk prevention and health promotion, reduced bullying and harassment behavior, greater student self-knowledge and reflection, increased cultural awareness, student learning and academic achievement, increased graduation rates and teacher retention.

Schools can provide the leadership and effective engagement strategies to effectively integrate and sustain quality school climates to ensure students experience the best conditions for learning. This year the National School Climate Center (NSCC) created a set of 11 School Climate Practices for Implementation and Sustainability Briefs to identify specific strategies schools can adopt to create and sustain quality school climate.

The following recommendations, gleaned from the School Climate Practices for Implementation and Sustainability Briefs are applicable to schools throughout the US as part of school climate and education reform.

Raise awareness of social climate characteristics, standards and research to ensure agreement by education stakeholders.
Adopt school climate standards to ensure system-wide integration with focus on safety, relationships, teaching and learning and physical environment.
Create policies that allocate resources to effectively implement school climate assessments, analyses and improvement.
Conduct regular assessments of school climate using research-based tools.
Identify specific intended outcomes and impacts of school climate reform and effective assessment measures.
Focus on shared leadership and diverse perspectives as they provide the foundation for sustainability.
Create leadership opportunities for all students to contribute to school climate reform.
Promote professional development that increases school climate knowledge and skills through professional learning communities.
Integrate instructional strategies that engage students in developing academic, social, civic and career competencies.
Support positive relationships among students, among adults and between students and adults in school and community.

For more information on the School Climate Practices for Implementation and Sustainability Briefs go to http://www.schoolclimate.org/publications/practice-briefs.php

About the author: Terry Pickeral, president Cascade Educational Consultants has extensive experience in policy development, advocacy, education reform, youth leadership, teaching and learning strategies, education collaborations and civic development. His commitment is to ensuring schools create and sustain quality teaching and learning environments for all students to be successful in school and contribute to their communities as active principled citizens.

Leading to Reform: March 10

2013-03-10T13:27:00.000-07:00

This week’s newsletter highlights that innovation at the beginning looks different, opening up principal preparation, identifying good and bad teachers, and minimizing any career regrets. We link as always to an array of columns and pieces spanning the ideological spectrum on leadership and reform, most of those links are now forwarded by readers.

The Front of Innovation is Different
Innovation need is really just continuous improvement or slight improvements to existing products, you are in luck, because that work simply requires that you extend your existing deep body of knowledge. If, on the other hand, you need radical or disruptive innovation, your existing body of knowledge, your scope and frameworks, even your tools and insights may become barriers to innovation rather than accelerators. That’s because true innovation is about discovery, learning and analysis rather than building on past knowledge and success. True innovation is unusual, and requires a different approach. Innovation is the only activity in a business where the people involved are amateurs, because we spend so little time in most businesses working on discovering new needs, learning about customers and markets, and thinking deeply about the implications from discovery and learning.

Let’s consider three factors that make the “Front End” of innovation so different from the rest:

Discovery
Learning
Analysis and Synthesis

Opening the Principal Pipeline
In today' schools, the principal plays a critical role in advancing student achievement. He or she sets the school's vision; oversees human capital efforts including hiring, developing, and releasing teachers; and sets the expectations necessary to improve achievement in his or her school. Without more effective cage-busting principals, it is hard to imagine all schools will close the achievement gap and prepare students for successful futures. And without districts and preparation programs collaborating to work beyond systematic constraints, it is unlikely the challenges and shortages of able school leaders will ever be effectively overcome. Learn more at Rick Hess' "Straight Up" blog at Education Week…

Choice, Changes, and Money Following Kids (and Success)
Andy Rotherham was at a D.C. school this morning that he’d been meaning to check out for a while and in conversations with them a school transfer issue came up that you hear a lot about in schools, but less so in the chattering about schools. The common assumption – repeated in the media – is that kids are transferring from charter schools back to traditional public schools creating a problem for the latter and a benefit for the former because school funding is based on a one-time count in the fall (so if a kid is counted end of September and leaves in November the school still retains the funding). There is some truth to this – and it’s long past due to modernize student funding so that money follows kids, and follows success, in a more real-time way. But, as parents get more choice in places like D.C., where options are increasingly prevalent, they are moving kids between all different kinds of schools at different points in the year. In other words, some charters are impacted by this as well (those that accept various kinds of transfers as many do). When you add in online schools and other non-traditional models (where there are both genuine friction points and also some abuse) it’s clear just how archaic the standard practices for counting kids and allocating resources are. Even accounting for the predictability of funding that is necessary to smooth school operations this is low-hanging fruit for policymakers to fix so that dollars flow to where kids actually are and schools are rewarded for success, not just who shows up at a key time of year.

Where does your school board and district leaders stand on all this? The current system isn’t holding up anymore and should not. Especially how kids are accounted for. Shouldn’t every parent have options to move their kids to different schools and the receiving school be funded?

The Five Top Career Regrets
Thirty professionals between the ages of 28 and 58 were asked each what they regretted most about their careers to date. The group was diverse: A 39-year-old managing director of a large investment bank, a failing self-employed photographer, a millionaire entrepreneur, and a Fortune 500 CEO. Disappointment doesn't discriminate; no matter what industry the individual operated in, what role they had been given, or whether they were soaring successes or mired in failure, five dominant themes shone through. Importantly, the effects of bad career decisions and disconfirmed expectancies were felt equally across age groups.

Here were the group's top five career regrets:

Don’t take or stay in a job for the money
I wish I had quit sooner
I wish I had the confidence to start my own business or school
I wish I had used the time in school more productively
I wish I had used my career hunches better

Career regrets should hold a privileged place in your emotional repertoire. Research shows (PDF) that regret can be a powerful catalyst for change, far outweighing the short-term emotional downsides. As famed psychologist Dr. Neal Roese recently stated, "On average, regret is a helpful emotion." It can even be an inspiring one. But it means that we must articulate and celebrate our disappointments, understanding that it's our capacity to experience regret deeply, and learn from it constructively to ultimately frame our future success.

What are you doing with your career?

Best and Worst Teachers Can be Flagged Early
New teachers become much more effective with a few years of classroom experience, but a working paper by a team of researchers suggests the most—and least—effective elementary teachers show their colors at the very start of their career. Learn more by reading, "Do First Impressions Matter? Improvement in Early Career Teacher Effectiveness."

Articles for the Week:

"Jerks make the best friends -- They always tell you the truth.” --Jon Boche

Leading to Reform: March 3

2013-03-03T09:32:00.000-08:00

Leading to Reform’s back office back from his break from the midwestern winter. A regular blog and web site – coming soon. This week’s newsletter highlights things successful leaders do on weekends, revising the SAT to catch up with the ACT, civic mission of schools, shifting from management to leadership. We link as always to an array of columns and pieces spanning the ideological spectrum on leadership and reform. Most now forwarded by readers

14 Things the Most Successful Leaders Do on Weekends
Leadership is learned behavior that becomes unconscious and automatic over time. Successful leaders know that weekends are actually the secret weapon in professional success. You need to hit Monday ready to go. To do that, you need weekends that rejuvenate you, rather than exhaust or disappoint you. Cross-training makes you a better athlete, and likewise, exercise, volunteer work, spiritual activities, and hands-on parenting and relationship tending make you a better leader than if you just worked all the time.”

Executive coach Dale Kurow, M.S., says successful people usually spend their weekends participating in a “combination of family activities with their kids and spouse, errands, and creative activities to exercise the right side of their brain.”

Penelope Trunk, a career coach and author of Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success, adds: “A highly successful person is very focused on what they want to be doing. The weekend and the week look very similar: They are focused on creating the life they want.”

What exactly are they doing on weekends?

Make time for family and friends
Exercise
Pursue a passion
Disconnect
Plan
Socialize
To read numbers 7 to 14, please click here...

SAT Gets a Makeover
The SAT, the most widely used college entrance exam for generations of students, is getting a makeover. The College Board will redesign the test to more sharply focus on the “core set of knowledge and skills” that high school graduates need to succeed in college. The overhaul comes as the SAT is starting to lose market share to a rival standardized exam, the ACT. Historically, high school students in the West and the South have taken the ACT, while those on the East and West coasts have tended to take the SAT.

More than 1.66 million students in the class of 2012 took the SAT, making it the largest class of SAT takers in history. And the pool of test takers has become increasingly diverse, with rising numbers of low-income, African American and Hispanic students taking the exam.

But in 2011, the number of students who took the ACT surpassed the SAT for the first time. The SAT can be improved. Before joining the board, he helped write the Common Core standards in English for kindergarten through grade 12 that have been adopted by 46 states and the District. The new standards will be rolled out by 2014.

Shifting From Management to Leadership
Our job as leaders is to transform complexity and ambiguity into something that creates enduring value. Perhaps the most valuable innovation we can make is the one that is most accessible to us. We can pause…step back… to discern through the “information smog” what is important and to gain deeper awareness and synthesis of information. As leaders, too often we step forward with action to deal with complexity without first stepping back for the clarity we need. Our impulse to speed up and take action is driven by our intention to achieve, but our go-to approach—action and transaction—is often futile when dealing with increasing chaos and complexity. Unknowingly, our dedication to speed and action can be counterproductive. As the VUCA forces (Volatility, Unpredictability, Complexity, Ambiguity) intensify, we have to consider learning how to step back to get clear so we can step forward with optimal contribution.

Learning to bring clarity to complexity is an essential value-creating competency for leaders today.

The Challenge of Civic Education in a Segregated Society
Engaging in democratic discourse requires conversing with people who take different perspectives on issues or who have different backgrounds and life circumstances. Effective civic learning environments encourage students to encounter people with different ideas and beliefs (Kahne, Middaugh, Lee, & Feezell, 2012).

One of the greatest threats to civic education in the United States today is demographic: Our schools and neighborhoods are becoming increasingly resegregated by both race and class. The harms from these trends are raising alarms from across the political spectrum. (See, for example, Murray, 2012; and Orfield, Kucsera, & Siegel-Hawley, 2012). How can students learn to engage in civil discourse with peers holding diverse perspectives when schools are so demographically divided? One answer involves creating online spaces where diverse students can convene and learn together.

Another is making sure civics is part of classes across every school. Too often educators and especially board members are fast to avoid the conversations students need to have with people with different ideas and beliefs.

In too many schools, opportunities to collaborate with other schools remain as add-ons that are restricted to students in a few elective classes. This pattern is a shame because the work done in these online spaces is vital to the civic mission of schools.

What is your school doing with the civic mission of schools? Do the school leaders paying attention?

Articles for the Week:

”We haven’t been treating people very nice lately.” --Kole Knupple

Leading to Reform: February 17

2013-02-17T15:27:00.000-08:00

This Week’s letter highlights that we need to get back to the "Whole Child" classroom and school, sticking with our leadership resolutions and the Seven Habits of Mediocre Leaders. As always, we link to an array of columns and pieces spanning the ideological spectrum on leadership and reform, most of those are now now forwarded by readers.

Resolution to Realization: Three Leadership Renewals for 2013
That new-year spirit, and the resoluteness along with it was gone. The concept faded into the background and along with it, I sensed a noticeable ‘slip-back’ into the old routines and patterns of the past.

What if we treated our resolutions as seriously as our business goals and strategies? Would it make a difference in your leadership, in your approach to envisioning and bringing forth the new and the different?

Consider these three Leadership Renewals to move your leadership resolutions to realizations:

Remember what is important
Being on-purpose every day
Building energy and resilience

Learn more at Forbes...

Anyone Seen Any Whole Child Classrooms Lately?
We are in an intense time of change within education; from the Common Core State Standards Initiative, to the rapid advancement of technology, to new teacher and principal evaluation processes. Conventional wisdom in education reform is that those of most principals show they don’t have the skills to be successful in how schools will be lead in the next few years.

That is the case in my former school district. When asked by a national education reform leader if the principals in the highly regarded school district had the necessary skills to lead schools in the second decade of reforms, a group of high performing district leaders realized, about half do not and probably won’t get there. They are not up to the responsibility of putting kids first in a high expectation teaching environment where every teacher is expected to show a year’s progress for each student.

Education is becoming radically different – with a relentless focus on producing better student learning now. This requires school leaders to dig deeply for a mindset that will withstand and embrace the shifting paradigms of the educational landscape. After all, our students deserve educators who are well informed and thoughtful about how their practices affect the whole child now and in the long run.

Change is demanding, but if we remain open-minded and rational through the adjustment process, we can intentionally shift our priorities to focus on meeting the needs of the whole child. Today's teaching and learning environments necessitate that teachers approach each decision with uncanny perception and strategic thinking – with an eye on the needs of kids first and their achievement. In fact, most principals will be operating like CEO’s of their schools and if student learning is not increasing, they will be out the door to make room for a leader who can insure kids come first in a class room that is not only rigorous but child centric as well. Learn More...

The 7 Habits of Mediocre Leaders
Bad leaders overestimate themselves. Don’t let overestimation get in the way of becoming successful and delivering on the expectation your board or superintendent hired you to do. Improve schools now and put kid’s first.

Being mediocre doesn’t mean you won’t change the world. It means being honest with yourself and the people around you. And being honest at every level is really the most effective habit of all if you want to be an effective leader – the one the superintendent or school board hired you to be.

The hard part for most people is that they’re afraid to go out and try to succeed because they might fail, YET by failing they’re going to be handed the greatest thing: a lesson from the school of hard knocks.

And then true wisdom: “Keep failing until you accidentally no longer fail.”

Notice the “accidentally”. The point here is that even with repeated failures success may still not be graspable, but the leader has learned enough things (hopefully) so that you become the leader the hiring team believe in.

Read more here: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2012/08/the-seven-habits-of-highly-effective-mediocre-people/

Articles for the Week:

"All truth passes through 3 stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. And then it is accepted as being self-evident." --Arthur Schopenhauer, German Philosopher

Supporting Student Development

2013-02-16T16:46:00.000-08:00

Recently, a friend shared a set of responses New York City students provided to the following prompt: “What I need from my teachers to succeed is...”

Here are a few of their responses:

Attention
Caring
Individual time
Ability to ask questions privately
If I tell a teacher about a need I have, I expect them to follow-up
Work better in small groups
Challenge me
Slow down! What is the rush?
Leave time for humor

These responses inform us that students are eager to develop and know what best supports their progress and success.

To me there is another message that they are asking teachers to do what they wanted to do when they aspired to be teachers: give attention to students in caring ways, establish trusting relationships, be present and use humor. This is more about attitude than skills, more about context than content and more about relationships than power.

It is a great reminder to us as teachers to not leave our feelings and soul outside the classroom and school. Ultimately, they make the difference is our effectiveness to motivate and educate our students.

About the author: Terry Pickeral, president Cascade Educational Consultants has extensive experience in policy development, advocacy, education reform, youth leadership, teaching and learning strategies, education collaborations and civic development. His commitment is to ensuring schools create and sustain quality teaching and learning environments for all students to be successful in school and contribute to their communities as active principled citizens.

Thinking on the Right Side of the Brain

2013-02-11T15:01:00.000-08:00

I just completed a professional development experience that took me further outside my comfort zone than I have ever dared to tread before. I learned how to draw. Being a teacher that had a difficult time drawing a recognizable model of the solar system for my class, it is easy to question my wisdom in selecting this course for my professional growth. As it turned out, I gained some unexpected new insights.

Drawing can’t happen if we stay firmly implanted in the left (verbal) side of the brain. We need to process on the right side of our brain in order to perceive, and be able to draw, a form.
School happens mostly in the left hemisphere. It is organized in logical sequential ways and is largely immersed in verbal and numerical learning.
Students need to be taught to use their whole brain. While the left brain is necessary for processing language, it is in the right brain that they learn to perceive relationships, understand the whole picture, and make connections in their learning.

As one who lives pretty firmly entrenched in the left brain world, this class taught me that I actually am pretty adept at engaging my right brain. In reflecting on my learning experiences, I realized I was lucky to have had teachers who helped me learn to process through both hemispheres. These outstanding teachers used strategies like project-based learning, service-learning, inquiry, and open ended dialogue, giving me experiences that shifted between learning isolated knowledge or skills and immersing those skills in rich, meaningful applications that encouraged deeper connections, built relationships, and formed understandings of the bigger picture.

This is also where I gained the ability to form a vision for the changes I am working to achieve, to “see” how things could be different, and to feel the passion that keeps my energy ignited. It’s how I became “ambidextrous” in my thinking, even before I could draw. Perhaps we all just need a little more art.

About the Author: Teri Dary is the Education Consultant for Service-Learning at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and serves as co-chair of the National Coalition for Academic Service-Learning. She has been an educator for 27 years and has extensive experience in curriculum and program development, effective instructional practices, and teacher professional development. You can e-mail Teri at teri.dary@cascadeeducationalconsultants.com

Leading to Reform: February 10

2013-02-10T14:11:00.000-08:00

This week’s letter highlights that leadership helps us think differently about public education, that youth are more optimistic than many, data on second generation immigrants, becoming informed about vouchers, and hope for all us that may fall between introverts and extroverts. As always, we link to an array of columns and pieces spanning the ideological spectrum on leadership and reform.

What Public Education Means
Public education means many things to many different people. Some people believe it is a place where students receive an important foundation for learning and others strongly feel it is an institution that needs to change. Besides those two opinions, there many that sits in-between. Public school are changing fast and in numerous ways in spite of the obstacles and those trying to hang on to what has been in place.

One of the most important things is to put education at the forefront of our conversations and debates. Students, teachers, parents, policymakers, political leaders and school leaders are at the table where these discussions occur. They have the best voice instead of school board members and self appointed experts who seem to be speaking the loudest in their communities with their eye on the rear view mirror and public opinion than what is right for youth and teachers in the second decade of the 21st century. Learn more at edweek.org…

Youth More Optimistic than the Rest of Us
American youth have little doubt that they will have a better life than their parents. Almost all fifth- through 12th-graders are optimistic about the future, saying they are very likely (43%) or somewhat likely (52%) to have a better standard of living, better homes, and a better education than their parents. A combined 5% of young people say the possibility of having a better life than their parents is somewhat or very unlikely.

As Collin Powell says, “perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.” All of us could use a bit more of that kind of thinking. Learn more at Gallup...

Adult Children of Immigrants
Second-generation Americans—the 20 million adult U.S.-born children of immigrants—are substantially better off than immigrants themselves on key measures of socioeconomic attainment, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. They have higher incomes; more are college graduates and homeowners; and fewer live in poverty. In all of these measures, their characteristics resemble those of the full U.S. adult population.
Hispanics and Asian Americans make up about seven-in-ten of today’s adult immigrants and about half of today’s adult second generation. Pew Research surveys find that the second generations of both groups are much more likely than the immigrants to speak English; to have friends and spouses outside their ethnic or racial group, to say their group gets along well with others, and to think of themselves as a “typical American.

Students' strongly positive expectations for their future contrast sharply with American adults' guarded outlook about this country's next generation. Adults are evenly divided about whether it is likely (49%) or unlikely (50%) that today's youth will have a better life than them, according to a Dec. 14-17, 2012, USA Today/Gallup poll that asked the same question of Americans aged 18 and older

My experience makes it quiet certain that members of the second generation will have a major impact on this nation’s destiny for decades. I am confident and optimistic for our future. Thoughts?

Read the full report at Pew Research...

Michelle Rhee: My Break With the Democrats
As a lifelong Democrat, controversial education reformer Michelle Rhee never thought she’d support school vouchers. Until she did.

School leaders don’t have to agree with her but they better know what she is talking about. While one could say Rhee defines the term “resolute,” there is no doubt now she is a leading voice in the reform movement.

Those who ignore her voice, ignoring what she has to say are missing important perspective and won't be able to make smart decisions about the future of their school or district. They are not paying attention to the range of views needed to understand reform - not necessarily agree with it.

I share her view on vouchers – choice is about creating opportunity for kids where they don’t have one now. If you disagree, at least learn more about vouchers and choice so you are informed rather than relying on obsolete perspective. Learn more at The Daily Beast...

Introverts and Extroverts Succeed & Flounder
Conventional leadership wisdom says extroverts may succeed more than introverts. In fact neither do as well as a newly defined group called ambiverts. Ambi-whats? Ambiverts, a term coined by social scientists in the 1920s, are people who are neither extremely introverted nor extremely extroverted. Learn more at the Washington Post...

Articles for the Week:

"The primary purpose of education is to cultivate a better society, not merely reflect the current one. Where is your school district on this one?" --Bill Hughes

Questions

2013-02-09T09:37:00.000-08:00

One way we measure students’ knowledge and skills is to ask them questions. Tests, reports, presentations and reflections are common ways we encourage students to answer questions to assess their knowledge and abilities.

Are we asking the right questions? Most questions we ask have a right or wrong answer; but what if we asked questions that had multiple correct answers. For example, what if we asked students in a social studies class to identify ways that people learn their civic responsibilities. That question has several correct answers including (1) reviewing and memorizing the various civic responsibilities expected of each citizen; (2) engaging in civic work that builds civic responsibilities; and (3) reading historical resources that identify civic responsibilities.

Are we asking students to assist in the development of questions? Of course, teachers understand course content on a different level than students, but providing an opportunity for students to co-develop the sets of questions for assessment is effective in several ways: (1) ensuring the questions are relevant to students, (2) relieving the teacher of obligation to create all questions, (3) demonstrating a trusting and collaborative environment and (4) demonstrating to students the challenge to create quality effective questions to assess content knowledge and skills.

Are we providing a safe environment where questions can be asked and student are not threatened? As we encourage students to raise questions, we must also ensure they feel safe to do so by creating a classroom and school environments that support inquiry and eliminate shame or embarrassment. Students are curious about course content and its relevance to their experiences, now and in the future, we can provide safe opportunities for them to express their thinking and accept every inquiry as important, interesting and relevant.

As we consider and answer these three questions we will find that questions provide prompts for students to think deeply about course content and experience a more comforting context in which to gain and enhance knowledge and skills.

About the author: Terry Pickeral, president Cascade Educational Consultants has extensive experience in policy development, advocacy, education reform, youth leadership, teaching and learning strategies, education collaborations and civic development. His commitment is to ensuring schools create and sustain quality teaching and learning environments for all students to be successful in school and contribute to their communities as active principled citizens.

Five Ways to Effectively Engage Students

2013-02-06T14:42:00.000-08:00

As I talk to district and school leaders one of their major concerns is how to effectively engage students. Strong school leaders understand that an engaged student leads to positive behavior and student development.

To answer the most-often asked question “how do we effectively engage students” I offer the following five strategies:

Focus on all students to ensure equitable opportunities and activities for all students to be engaged;
Integrate active teaching and learning strategies like service-learning and project-based learning;
Create an engaging school climate so that values and behaviors reflect engagement;
Provide professional development for teachers, staff and school leaders to increase their student engagement knowledge and skills; and
Include student engagement as an element of teacher performance, measuring and enhancing their ability to effectively engage students.

About the author: Terry Pickeral, president Cascade Educational Consultants has extensive experience in policy development, advocacy, education reform, youth leadership, teaching and learning strategies, education collaborations and civic development. His commitment is to ensuring schools create and sustain quality teaching and learning environments for all students to be successful in school and contribute to their communities as active principled citizens.

Leading to Reform: February 3

2013-02-03T13:52:00.000-08:00

This Week’s letter highlights that Leadership is about getting results, The Otis Redding School of Management, how reform and progress in education reform being driven by the executive branch. We link as always to an array of columns and pieces spanning the ideological spectrum on leadership and reform. Most now forwarded by readers.

7 Reasons a Positive Leader Gets Results
If you were given four things you could do right now to be a better leader, what would they be? You could work on them all year where you work, with your family, friends and co-workers. No seminar, no courses, just activities that drive results. You have free reign. No permission needed. All you have to do is start and finish. You can’t just say you are going to do it, start and then quit halfway through. You have to finish.

John Bossong writes in his blog seven reasons why positive leaders get results. More so, he shows that you have to “do the work”. You have to make an investment. You have to invest enough in yourself to finish and believe in yourself.

Or, you can be like the people who are trying to be leaders and flit from project to project. Each of us dread when we have to work with them. They aren’t committed to finishing. They don’t want to do the work.

Commit to these four things:

Don’t let anything hold you back
Lead and make a difference
What’s on the other side is worth it
The finish line is great

Learn more at John Bossong blog...

The Otis Redding School of Management
Leadership is about moving the needle on student learning in schools. Leadership is about what gets attended to or measured is what gets done. What's happening today is the flip side of that. Measurement can become a tyranny that makes sure that nothing gets done.

Recently, I came across the Otis Redding Theory of Measurement, which is named for his song "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay." In that song, Redding sings, "I can't do what 10 people tell me to do, so I guess I'll remain the same." That line sounds as if it could be about school’s misconceptions about measurement and what leaders are paying attention to. Learn more about leadership at Fast Money…

American Education Being Reshaped by the Federal and State Executive Branch
The American education system is being reshaped before our very own eyes in a truly fundamental way―and with little debate. National and state policymakers behave as if both levels of government have much the same roles in education: to set goals and standards, for example, and to create accountability systems, define teacher quality, determine strategies for producing quality teachers and improve the performance of low-performing schools. Left unresolved, the conflicts this creates are likely to deepen and worsen over time.

It has not always been this way. Historically, the federal government’s role had been to aid, assist, prod and push the schools, districts and states. Local boards have more authority and responsibility than ever, but they are dealing with incoming changes in education policy and programs because, at the end of the day, local boards and even state agencies bend to pressure where Governors and President Obama push reform forward relentless.

Is that how we want these decisions made? Do we really want the executive branch of government to decide, pretty much by itself, what the aims of American education should be and how they should be achieved?

The solutions as to how the American education system should be governed are not obvious. But we ought to have a conversation about it before we wake up one day to find that the executive branch of the government has become our state or national school board. Learn more at the Hechinger Report...

Education Reform in Wisconsin Gains More Attention
Supporters of public education and compensation reform won a significant battle recently as a federal appeals court upheld Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's Act 10 reforms against union challenges to their constitutionality.

The reform effort sparked nearly two years of pitched political battles at the Capitol in Madison, which in the end resulted in Governor Walker prevailing by a greater margin in the recall election and the Republican control of the State Legislature.

Act 10 had two basic elements, financial and structural. First, the law mandated that most state employees pay half the cost of their retirement benefits and to significantly increase their contributions to an underfunded medical system. Second, the law outlawed the use of collective bargaining on all issues except for those related to wage increases. It also required unions to submit to an annual certification vote and halted the use of mandatory union-dues payroll deductions.

Ultimately, the centerpiece of the union counterattack – a recall of Gov. Walker – failed to win support from the same Wisconsin electorate that later last year voted by large margins to re-elect Democratic President Barack Obama.

But union officials went to court, arguing a weak case that the exclusion of public-safety workers from the reforms violated the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause. Using that logic, then the entire pension system is unconstitutional, given that it offers widely unequal benefits – between taxpayers, who pay for the system and are on hook for the unfunded liabilities and the public employees who retire earlier and generally with greater benefits than the general public.

Articles for the Week:

“20th century metrics and thinking drive the wrong discussions, products, and services. Most boards are looking backwards, still trying to make sense of what they didn’t understand the first time let alone the new wave of metrics and thinking coming in.” --Deb Mills-Scofield

Voice: A Starting Point Not The Destination

2013-02-03T09:11:00.000-08:00

Over the past year I have seen many advocates for education and social change focus on their voice being heard in national, state and local conversations. Once they have the opportunity to voice their opinion, share their insights and recommend strategies they feel successful, as their voice has been heard.

This is a great first step rather than final step in advocacy. Yes, we need to share our voice in critical conversations, but rather than stop there we need to start there. Advocacy is not just about having a voice in the conversation but changing the conversation to focus on the desired impacts and establish the most effective strategies to achieve them.

Leading to Reform: January 27

2013-01-25T05:26:00.000-08:00

This week’s letter highlights that leadership is more about collective action, a policy wish list, and Wisconsin moving forward in ed reform and leadership possibilities in Apple. We link as always to an array of columns and pieces spanning the ideological spectrum on leadership and reform, most of those are now forwarded by readers.

Don’t Go it Alone: The Need for Collective Action
How many school districts do you know that are recycling past initiatives into “reform” in state of the district speeches right now?

Discerning school watchers call this, "the same old blah-blah”. Typically, it results in the kids being put behind the needs of adults and places the job security of the leaders first. For some, it is an attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of people who are trusting school leaders are focused on kids and education.

In his 2013 Inaugural Address, President Obama issued a call for “collective action,” arguing forcefully that we cannot “meet the demands of today’s world” by acting alone.

“Now, more than ever,” he said, “we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people.”

Recent reform around education is more about leaders working on their own rather than collaboration, competitive collaboration where people push one another to be better while learning together. That is the philosophy we need to guide education policy today.

Bill Clinton nailed the policy choice starkly in his speech at the Democratic National Convention last August saying, “You see, we believe that we’re all in this together is a far better philosophy than you’re on your own."

Could Clinton’s framing -- "you’re not on your own, we’re in this together" -- be the clarion call for a different, inclusive education agenda?

Arthur Camins captures how the current education debate happening nationally, at the state and even local level. School leaders need to appeal to a different strategy, that we’re in this together, interdependent, and need each other to be successful.

Too many board school leaders pride themselves on going it alone; sailing against the wind, ignoring what the best know that they are here for kids first working together is the answer in just about every situation. Learn More...

Top Ten Wish List: Education Policy
Here’s a top ten list that really nails the high priority items on almost any educator’s wish list. Greg Kaufmann, who writes on poverty for The Nation and Elaine Weiss, the national coordinator for the Broader Bolder Approach to Education give us a list virtually all of us can agree with. The top three items on their list are:

National policies that enable parents, families, and communities to provide children with what they need to thrive educationally.
An enriching, holistic curriculum.
Fully resourced schools.

If you are thinking about reform priorities for 2013, this article is a great place to start. Learn more at The Washington Post...

Wisconsin’s Education Reform Moves On Up
The eyes of the nation may be elsewhere, but education policy moves on in Wisconsin. It is important to note that although state courts invalidated parts of Governor Scott Walker’s controversial collective bargaining law, federal courts have upheld it.

Informed observers expect it will ultimately be upheld, much to the dismay of a few still looking backwards. The truth is most Wisconsinites appear ready to move with the Wisconsin motto: FORWARD.

Walker received a standing ovation on January 25 at a statewide meeting of school board members and district administrators when he discussed education reforms. While some still roll their eyes or wish it weren't so, it is time for school leaders responsible for young people's education to "get over it" and put the needs of kids first, making the decisions necessary to support education programing and reform rather than the now obsolete school district programs from the turn of the century. I suggest you stay tuned. Meanwhile, Alan Borsuk takes a look at some of the outstanding issues…

Apple's Leadership Possibilities
Is Apple, known for thinking big and deep in danger of becoming the new Microsoft? Despite the pummeling Apple stock took at the hands of Wall Street last week, you would still want to be Tim Cook way more than you’d want to be Steve Ballmer.

The fact of Apple’s position is that its growth potential remains huge. Current circumstances offer a leadership opportunity for the company. Apple has advantages and has huge scale ahead of it. What it really needs to do is believe in and convey its extraordinary leadership potential. Apple’s recenet problems come down to three key points:

Scale. Analysts, including perhaps Apple themselves, do not grasp the scale of opportunity. Mobile is bigger than anything that preceded it. Apple could embed into any number of domestic devices. With its customer loyalty it should surely be challenging Google data-gathering products like Glasses and cars. With its global logistics experience it should be a challenger to Amazon.
Management. Apple introduced a new form of management that Nick Vitalari and I called The Elastic Enterprise. It has the capacity to scale at low relative cost because other companies are keen to work with it. The challenge is to frame that co-creation capacity in a field other than mobile phones.
Leadership. We also said that in order to be an Elastic Enterprise, companies needed a new form of leadership. These leaders would be peers, first among equals, accessible yet slightly aloof. They would be multidisciplinary, and traverse technology and culture with ease, without losing their appeal to either side of the equation. More than anything they would be able to attract resources like developer communities and bring the right people to the work.

Learn More at Forbes...

Articles for the Week:

“I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed.” --Joshua