While great teachers, students and administrators can overcome the worst of conditions to create academic success, there is little question that outdated educational facilities can make a difficult task, educating adolescents, downright daunting.
Archive for the ‘More With Less’ Category
Study: Engaged Students Learn Twice As Much
May 14th, 2011
No Comments
"Lectures have been equally ineffective for centuries."–Carl Weiman The Boston Globe headline read "Study: It’s not the teacher, but method that matters." The headline is misleading. In fact, the study reveals that it is the teacher and how the teacher teaches that matters the most. While the study looked at college physics students, the findings [...]
Teacher Evaluation Improves Student Achievement
May 9th, 2011
No Comments
As measured by gains in student achievement, teachers, even experienced, mid-career classroom instructors, improved as a result of their participation in a formal evaluation process. An Education Week report cites two studies conducted in Cincinnati, which has an extended history using a formal evaluation system consisting of four formal observations. In Cincinnati, teachers are given [...]
Khan you imagine that?
March 21st, 2011
No Comments
A few days ago I introduced my wife to the new iPad app The Daily. Yesterday, she wanted to show me how amazing The Daily was and how she was using it. She particularly liked the videos imbedded in the articles. "What if you could make a textbook look like this? she said. I told [...]
Working Harder or Working Better
February 26th, 2011
No Comments
This week I am blogging from the NASSP Conference in San Francisco. "More is easy. Better is hard." This morning I listened to Bill Daggett of ICLE talk about school improvement. Bill said something that I have heard him say many times before. In fact, I have used the same statement in many of my [...]
Teacher Supply Plummets
December 14th, 2010
No Comments
Be careful what you ask for! Just about anyone could see this one coming. Cut school budgets and layoff teachers. Demand that teachers close the achievement gap. Tie evaluations to test scores. Threaten to fire teachers. Complain about teacher pay. Call schools failing. Then wonder why people don’t want to be teachers. School leaders and [...]
Only as strong as our weakest link
October 18th, 2010
No Comments
In the context of high-stakes accountability, schools must do two things very well. First, schools must have a focus that is so clear and concise that every staff member can articulate it to anyone. Too many schools are fragmenting their efforts and straining limited resources by trying to do too much at the same time. [...]
SAT: Test takers way up, scores flat. That’s failure?
September 14th, 2010
No Comments
If a business increased its production by 44% with no drop in quality and no increase in equipment costs and with no additional resources, researchers would be beating a path to the company’s door and Jim Collins would be writing a “Good to Great” book about the company. Why? In the real world, simultaneous quantitative [...]
A Voice For Those Who Have None
September 7th, 2010
No Comments
“There is nothing so unequal as the equal treatment of unequal people.”—Thomas Jefferson While there may be disagreement about how to improve our lowest performing school, both Arne Duncan and the public agree that they must get better. Ironically, just as the interest in schools is peaking the economy is rapidly eroding any chances we [...]
A Target of Opportunity
August 29th, 2010
No Comments
Principals take note. There is a bull’s eye on your back! The policy wonks new mantra is “We’ve got to do something. We must improve schools.” So, what do we do? Let’s find a convenient target of opportunity and strike. Then, at least we can say we did something. So, what is the easiest target? [...]
