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What's Working in Schools
US $3.00
From the Failure Is Not an Option® Courageous Leadership Academy
HOPE Foundation
Issue 8
 October 23, 2008
 
     
 
 
Commentaries on Leadership:
Clarity of Professional Purpose
by Dennis Sparks
 

"Education has to be about lifting limitations on ourselves and on others"
- Paul Houston

"In many instances, education is the tool that gives a child life choices."
- Ruby Payne

 Clarity

 

I believe

I believe that if leaders are to successfully sustain their commitment and energy through the unrelenting challenges they face, it is essential that their work each day be energized and guided by their deepest purposes.

I offer my professional purpose—which is steeped in 30 years of work in the field of professional learning—to stimulate readers to consider their own purposes and to commit them to writing: I want all students in all schools to experience high-quality teaching every day and to be surrounded by supportive relationships.

The quality of teaching and relationships experienced by students is determined by the quality of leadership within the school. And, ultimately, the quality of relationships, teaching, and leadership is determined by the quality of professional learning and teamwork experienced by teachers and school leaders. I get up each day to do my work because I want to affect the quality of teacher and leader learning.

What you can do now

Prepare an “I believe” statement about your professional purpose. After writing your statement, share it with colleagues to better understand your own views and those of others. To promote learning and to counter the debate and defensiveness that often occur when individuals advocate the “truth” of their points of view, I encourage you to offer your belief in the spirit of mutual inquiry with a genuine openness to being influenced by others.
 
 
Dennis Sparks  

Dennis Sparks is emeritus executive director of the National Staff Development Council (nsdc.org) and serves as a "thinking partner" to leadership teams of education organizations. He is the author of the best-selling book Leading For Results (corwinpress.com), and his Leading Through Learning essays are co-published by NSDC and Phi Delta Kappa International (pdkintl.org/publications/leading.htm). He can be reached at dennis.sparks@comcast.net.

 
 
Join an upcoming Failure Is Not an Option®:
Courageous Leadership for School Success event!
 
   Featuring presentations by:  
             
  Dennis Sparks

Dennis Sparks*
Emeritus Executive Director of the National Staff Development Council (*Invited)

  Robert Marzano Robert Marzano
Senior scholar at Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning 		 
             
  Michael Fullan Michael Fullan
Author of What's Worth Fighting For series		   Ernest Morrell Ernest Morrell
Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA		  
             
  Harry Wong Harry Wong
Author of The First Days of School and How to Improve Student Achievement		   Alan Blankstein Alan Blankstein
Author of Failure Is Not an Option and co-editor and contributor to The Soul of Educational Leadership series of books		  
             
  Deborah Wortham Deborah Wortham
Superintendent of Steelton-Highspire School District (PA)		   Jay McTighe Jay McTighe
Former Director of the Maryland Assessment Consortium		  
             
   Upcoming Failure Is Not an Option® events:  
     
 
Denver Denver, CO
11/11 - 11/14/2008
   
Savannah Savannah, GA
12/9 - 12/12/2008
 
Austin Austin, TX
11/19 - 11/21/2008
   
Carefree Carefree, AZ
1/20 - 1/23/2009
 
     
 
These events provide inspiration, motivation strategies, and a framework for creating a culture where failure is not an option.
 
     
 

In addition, your team will get:

• RtI: Response to Intervention
• Best practices to engage all learners
• Building teacher capacity to close achievement gaps
• Classroom management and lesson mastery
• A bold vision for a 21st century, standards-based education
• Strategies for increasing student achievement

 
     
   Register Today!  
     
  Use the faxable registration form to register your team today.  
     
   
In This Issue
 
 
 
Failure Is Not an Option® 3
Failure Is Not an Option 3
 Effective Assessment for
 Effective Learning:

Seven Instructional Principles for Guiding Student Achievement

Featuring: Jay McTighe, Carol Ann Tomlinson, Alan Blankstein, Ken O'Connor, Larry Bell, Michael Fullan, Linda Darling-Hammond, Ernest Morrell and school practitioners from two high-performing school districts

This fall, the HOPE Foundation will be releasing Effective Assessment for Effective Learning, a collaborative effort involving renowned researchers and practitioners in our field. Read more

 
 
Facilitating Collaboration through State-wide Advisory Groups
by Skip Daley
 

This past Spring, The HOPE Foundation unveiled its new approach toward building collaborative relationships amongst statewide educational leaders. HOPE’s Advisory Groups are teams consisting of district leaders, executive staff from the state educational umbrella associations, and representatives from regional offices of education. The groups convene once every other month via conference calls to discuss local education hot topics.

The Needs of Local Educators

Identifying the problem is usually the first step in creating a solution. In education, the obvious problems fall into many general categories, such as: lack of funding; lack of resources; lack of training; or lack of structured leadership. While this represents only a small fraction of the needs of our districts and schools, it seems to be a standard across the nation, regardless of size, setting, or status.

HOPE’s Advisory Groups are an opportunity to openly discuss the challenges of local educators. With a sounding board of trained professionals on the other line of the phone, the conversation produces feedback from those either currently experiencing similar challenges, or those who have proven success stories of overcoming parallel hurdles. Read more
 
     
     
 

For Courageous Leaders, Engagement Is More Than Involvement
by Alan Blankstein

 
"Engagement is the next big challenge in school reform; it is deeper than collaboration."
- Michael Fullan
 

Principals who are fully engaged spend a good deal of their time outside of their offices —greeting students when they come to school; providing coaching and feedback to teachers; helping teams develop clear direction, protocols, and a culture of data-based decision making; creating a climate of continuous learning and celebrating successes; and confronting behaviors inconsistent with pre-established consensus statements around school-wide values (Blankstein, 2004, 2007).

Similarly, engaged superintendents and district personnel are closely connected to people in their buildings. They provide active support for school personnel, and they act as learners alongside their building-level colleagues during staff development opportunities —as opposed to, for example, introducing a keynote speaker and then leaving. Read more
 
 
Alan Blankstein  

Alan Blankstein is Founder and President of the HOPE Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that is dedicated to supporting educational leaders over time in creating school cultures where failure is not an option for any student. Alan is author of the best-selling book Failure Is Not an Option®: Six Principles That Guide Student Achievement in High-Performing Schools, which has been awarded “Book of the Year” by the National Staff Development Council. Currently, Alan is Senior Editor along with Paul Houston of the eight-volume The Soul of Educational Leadership series.
   
Get HOPE to go....
 Invite an on-site speaker...
Alan Blankstein Alan Blankstein
Author of Failure Is Not an Option and co-editor and contributor to The Soul of Educational Leadership series of books
   
Scott Taylor Scott Taylor
Former St. Louis Distinguished Principal of the Year
   
Deborah Wortham Deborah Wortham
Superintendent of Steelton-Highspire School District (PA)
   
Ernest Morrell Ernest Morrell
Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA
   
Kari Cocozzella Kari Cocozzella
Co-author of Creating a Failure-Free School and contributor to Out of the Box Leadership
   
To schedule an on-site speaker in your school or district, contact Loni Dishong at 1.800.627.0232 ext. 223
 
     
     
  Letter to the Editor  
     
  A Change Agent’s “Shock Absorbers”

Dear Alan and members of the HOPE Foundation:

Thank you!

You're thinking, what a general, random comment! But, I feel compelled to express my thanks to all of you, especially Alan, for keeping me inspired to persevere in my role as a change agent.

Several years ago I had the privilege of attending a Hope Foundation conference in Naperville, IL. I was even one of those who came pre-conference to be a facilitator at that meeting. The experience was a mountaintop one—I came away with the synergy that anything was possible!

Currently, I am a math specialist/coach in an elementary school—a change agent for better equity of instruction, more emphasis on standards and differentiation, meeting the needs of all. I mainly work with adults, trying to change practice, so that learning can be better for all students in my building, not just a handful with whom I might work. Teachers seem to think that I should be able to "fix" kids when, in reality, it takes a village.

I look forward to your newsletter, especially Alan's articles. The September one gave me the initiative to re-write my own mission statement. This newsletter urges me to work harder to find ways to get people to work together—not just to plan field trips and run copies—but to really examine student learning, educator practice, and make things better.

The road is full of bumps and detours, but your publications act as my "shock absorbers." While it is not within my means to attend a conference in person, these tidbits really do provide far more than you would imagine.

So—Thank you all!

Sincerely,

Patty Corwin
Math Specialist, Forest Glen Elementary School
Glen Ellyn, IL

  
     
 
Where There Is HOPE, Failure Is Not an Option®
 
 
Copyright © 2008 by The HOPE Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved.
 
 

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