Leaders often play the role of investigator, and are always playing the role of decision maker. Whether in an elementary school or a secondary school, children break rules or behave in unkind ways that require intervention. Often if student's discipline has been raised to the level of a hearing, or a faculty or staff member has made a misstep, central office leaders are called to investigate. Listening deeply, asking the right questions, and remaining clear about the influence of bias are…

FREE: The Declaration of Independence from Excessive Test Preparation

by Steve Peha

MUSIC: Now Don't Get Mad at Me...

by Steve Peha

I don’t talk much about music in this newsletter and I really should, if for no other reason than I loved it in high school, was a music major in college for a while, and had a short but interesting…

iPads < Teachers

Bright

https://medium.com/bright/ipads-teachers-e51896af3930…

Creating chaos is not the path to a reinvented ...or even stronger...educational system. It is not fathomable to consider the mess that will be caused by the requirement for school leaders to leave their buildings to provide "objective" observations in other buildings and districts. Who believes that changing the location makes one a better judge of effective teaching? Are leaders that malleable or under the thumb of the local union? Hardly. And, by the way, what about the important…

If you are new to fantasy football then you don’t have to panic or worry about it at all. We are here to tell you some excellent steps that how can you play the fantasy football. But, before we go on to more information about the fantasy football let’s take a look on the fact that what is the fantasy football. Well, fantasy football is a game where you can become the owner, general manager and coach of the team which includes NFL players. You will earn the points on the statistical…

 Is anyone following the  Atlanta cheating scandal?  It’s the biggest in the nation’s history. Last week  a dozen people were sentenced to jail. Two participants have so far died.

Here for me is the really interesting part. You can read a long article in the New York Times (that being the preeminent symbol of media that no longer does investigative journalism) and not have any idea what actually happened.

 When you hear people talk about…

The concern over the education system in the United States has taken off with a life of its own.  Can anyone identify what is wrong anymore?  Is it teacher performance, outdated curriculum, lack of staff, supplies, and technology, underperforming pre-service programs, limited resources, or ineffective leadership? Is it a lack of school design to meet the needs of 21st century learners? Is it our lack of capacity or will to educationally overcome the effects of poverty? Is it the federal…

It is not uncommon when focusing on good communication to think of it as an exchange...something that comes from us to others or others to us.  Communication is related to how things are said, what medium is used...verbal or written words, personally or in a group, memo, email, letter, webpage, blog, article, phone call and so on. Word choice, tone, pacing, and intention are aspects of communication. But, we contend the best attribute for a school leader to develop as a good…

Passing the HP HPE0-J76—great advantages for the IT professionals

Understanding the nature of HPE0-J76 Designing HPE Enterprise Storage Solutions

The HP Designing HPE Enterprise Storage Solutions is a well-known HP certification exam, which is associated with  numerous promising job roles. The HP HPE0-J76 questions has designed the core areas of HP Designing HPE Enterprise Storage Solutions in a technical way and in the wake of advanced HP…

A metric is only useful as a metric when it isn't used as a metric

What will happen when teachers are systematically rewarded or punished based on standardized tests? asks Eduardo Porter in The New York Times. The design of any system must be carefully thought through to avoid sending incentives astray, since people -- wittingly or unwittingly -- goose numbers once a measure is set up. The phenomenon is known as Goodhart's Law, though one economist calls it…

Coming soon: A larger gap in achievement scores

The Common Core was rolled out with promises of closing learning and achievement gaps, but in the short term, gaps will almost certainly grow wider, writes Tara García Mathewson for The Hechinger Report. The gap in scores between disadvantaged students and peers has already ballooned in Illinois, New York, and Kentucky, all of which launched early versions of aligned exams. In Illinois, the achievement gap…

The Common Core: promises, promises

In 2010, plans for Common Core-aligned tests were introduced with fanfare and promises they'd end dumbed-down, multiple-choice tests and weeks of mindless prepping, writes Emmanuel Felton for McClatchy. They'd bring coherence to a mishmash of state exams and allow states for the first time to compare local students to peers elsewhere. Their online format would make testing more efficient, accurate, and relevant to the…