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What's Working in Schools |
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| Commentaries on Leadership: |
Effective Instructional Leadership |
by Dennis Sparks |
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"A principal . . . can . . . create an organization that is continuously developing the social capital that allows people to trust, depend on, and learn from each other. But an effective instructional leader also needs to build intellectual capital—by playing a substantive role in curriculum choices, in establishing expectations for the quality of student work, in analyzing the form and quality of teaching, and in organizing targeted opportunities for teachers in the school to learn the specifics of teaching their subject matters well."
—Elaine Fink & Lauren Resnick |
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I believe that leaders’ first and foremost responsibility is continuously improving teaching and the learning of all students. And this responsibility is a very demanding one, as Fink and Resnick point out. It means creating cultures that nurture trust and other qualities of strong professional relationships. It means providing intellectual leadership in curriculum, teaching, and assessment. It means having clarity of purpose regarding values and intentions. It means being able to explain succinctly and precisely in everyday language the key ideas and strategies that guide the school’s work. It means skillfully managing the most important daily logistical aspects of operations and management. And it means developing and tapping teacher leadership to provide assistance in one or more of these areas.
Perhaps such skillfulness is more than can be reasonably asked of leaders who are, after all, only mere mortals. But at least for the foreseeable future it is the challenge that leaders face if they intend to create schools that successfully serve all students.
Prepare an “I believe” statement about instructional leadership. After writing your statement, share it with colleagues for the purpose of better understanding 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. |
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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. |
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| In This Issue |
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| RtI: What Is It and How Do We Get Started? |
| by Erika Simono, Professional Development Consultant |
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Response to Intervention (RtI) is a general education initiative that schools across the nation are implementing in a variety of ways. RtI requires a collaborative approach from all staff members including teachers, special educators, administrative staff and parents. RtI provides students with individual intervention plans based on student academic or behavioral needs.
Each plan requires interventions that are scientifically-based, differentiated to meet the needs of the diverse learner, and intended to be highly dependent on progress monitoring. In addition, scientifically-based professional development should be provided for all staff members involved in Response to Intervention (Marston, 2003). Read more |
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| See Erika Simono's presentation, "Strategies for Academic Success with English Language Learners" at the Best Practices Worldwide for Engaging All Learners Institute in San Jose, CA |
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| Collaborative Teaming and Professional Learning Communities in Fort Wayne Community Schools |
| by Carolyn Powers |
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| Fort Wayne Community Schools is Indiana's second-largest school district, with 53 schools and nearly 32,000 students who speak more than 75 different languages. When I joined FWCS in 1999 as a principal, I encountered a school culture of top-down rule-making, teachers isolated behind closed classroom doors, and an at-risk student group struggling with a 69-point achievement gap.
Change began when our school improvement team attended a professional development event in Ohio. We heard Rick DuFour discuss professional learning communities and Alan Blankstein describe collaborative teacher teams. We could see the strength in that approach and brought the message back to the staff. Read more |
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| Carolyn Powers is Co-Director of Elementary Administration at Fort Wayne Community Schools in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Contact Carolyn at 260-467-1000 or www.fwcs.k12.in.us. |
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Courageous Leaders Confront the Data and Their Fears
by Alan Blankstein
Naming and facing our fears constructively can be the first step to overcoming them. As Jim Collins observes in Good to Great (2001), successful organizations consistently and accurately assess current performance with an eye toward improvement. They "face the brutal facts."
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"Naming and facing our fears constructively can be the first step to overcoming them." |
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Facing the facts is often difficult; they can be unflattering! For educators especially, certain types of assessment tend to correlate with personal and critical evaluation by administration (Fullan & Hargreaves, 1996, 1998). Nevertheless, facing the data and our fears constructively changes our responses from avoidance to an expanded range of possible actions. Compare these two events from NASA: Read more |
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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. |
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| Closing the Implementation Gap One Link at a Time |
by Cathy Owens |
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It seems everybody is talking about closing gaps—the achievement gap, the learning gap, the teaching gap. There is more information available than one could ever absorb about what causes gaps, why they continue to be an issue, and what schools will look like on the impossible day when all gaps are finally closed.
Lately, the buzz is all about professional learning communities (PLCs) as the long-awaited solution to closing gaps and improving schools. But it’s not the act of forming the PLC itself that matters most. What matters most is successful implementation—the specific, focused, and step-by-step actions that PLC members take as a result of relevant, job-embedded professional development. The effective PLC is comprised of teachers, teacher leaders, and school administrators working together one step at a time in their efforts to change what they do and why they do it. Actions are the key to school improvement. Read more
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Cathy R. Owens, NBCT, is Director of Educational Partnerships for TeachFirst, Inc. (www.teachfirst.com). Formerly Director of Learning for the National Staff Development Council (NSDC.org), as well as Director of Professional Development and Teacher Networks for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS.org), Cathy is a well-regarded expert in professional learning for school administrators, staff developers, and teacher leaders. A consummate speaker and author, she is a regular presenter at professional conferences and writes articles for leading education journals. |
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| Message From the Forum |
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Corrective Quality Instruction
Posted by: Jennifer Vargo, Teacher, Mishawaka, IN
I just attended the 'Failure is not an Option' Summit in Indianapolis, IN. Tom Guskey referred to 'quality corrective instruction' in his speech. I understand we, as a team, need to talk and come up with some strategies of our own; however, I am wondering if anyone has implemented this and would be willing to share your journey and some specific ideas.
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| Provide your thoughts, ideas and respond directly to this question by joining the forum on the HOPE Foundation Web site. Click on the “Forum” link on the main menu. Log-in with your user name and password, or register to create a new user name and password. We look forward to your feedback! |
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Failure Is Not an Option®:
Best Practices
Worldwide for Engaging All Learners Institute
San Jose, CA • October 14-17, 2008 |
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Brought to you in collaboration with: |
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Bay Area Coalition for Equitable Schools (BayCES)
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San Francisco School Alliance
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California PTA
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Principal Leadership Institute at UC Berkeley
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About the Institute: |
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This Institute will focus on the best practices worldwide for engaging all learners and creating and sustaining learning communities based on the Failure Is Not an Option® process. Teams will learn how to apply data, effectively build collaborative teams, and develop systems for improving teaching and learning. Special attention will be spent on building leadership capacity - within and across schools - to engage students and achieve long-term success. Leading educational experts will review how high-performing schools effectively promote and utilize collaborative teaming and instructional leadership to sustain student achievement. |
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Learn how to: |
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Develop teacher leaders
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Create project-based learning that engages the “Hip-Hop Generation”
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Establish evidence-based coaching
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Sustain professional learning communities to build leadership capacity
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Utilize Response to Intervention (RtI) for special learners
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Topics include: |
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Teacher education and school leadership development
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Developing skills to work effectively in coaching partnerships
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Implementing the Failure Is Not an Option® process to create a high-performing school culture
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Making schools better places for everyone
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Connecting communities and cultures to form highly engaging pedagogies
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Cultivating transformational environments within classrooms
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Utilizing Response to Intervention (RtI) strategies to succeed with all learners
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Developing strategies for success with English Language Learners
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Building successful RtI programs
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Turning around underperforming schools
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Register Today! |
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Time is running out to take advantage of this unique learning experience; register your team today! |
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Where There Is HOPE, Failure Is Not an Option® |
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Copyright © 2008 by The HOPE Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved. |
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