Picture this: You have hired excellent teachers, set high learning standards, started numerous student intervention programs, managed resources efficiently, and aligned your school goals. Sadly, no matter how hard everyone works each day, your school still has not been able to close achievement gaps, significantly raise achievement for other students, and provide the most vulnerable students with the social/emotional programs they need.This was the problem we faced in…

From those who have been vocal about their opposition to allowing transgender students use the bathroom that matches their gender identity, much of the objection seems not to be about the gender identity issue but rather that we are confronting imagined imposters who mean others harm. First, in what school, in this day and age, does anyone enter the building without checking in?  Second, in what schools do adult visitors in the building, use the bathrooms assigned for children?  If…

We are no longer at the threshold of the 21st century. It is running us over with its exciting opportunities and accelerated speed. If we do not capture the moment and create the learning environments students truly need, we will have failed. The same structures and methods of the past can inspire us but not constrain us. Read…

Leading, like teaching and learning, is a multidimensional, highly relational endeavor. In a culture that emphasizes technical efficiencies over relational values, the principles that ground educational leadership can become compromised. This corruption of ideals can be traced to conflicts inherent in our roles, as public educators and leaders are asked to enact contradictory purposes. We are agents of the state whose salaries are paid by public funds; and we are agents of change,…

Race and poverty remain connected and neither can be resolved by schools alone but neither they can they be resolved without education. Schools may be segregated by a socio-economic gravity pull toward sameness. The historical phenomenon of moves to the suburbs was motivated by families pulled toward schools and communities where resources were more plentiful. It is also part of our history that schools can help students out of poverty, one by one, and attain higher achievement and…