In this era of accountability, many school systems have begun taking a harder line with regard to promotion policy, retaining students who do not make sufficient academic progress—particularly in reading and math. In many cases, the decision to retain a student is based on student performance on high-stakes standardized tests. Research has consistently shown that…

With the best of intentions, educators are recommending an infusion of energy directed at increasing parental participation in schools. The federal government has issued documents to help schools organize parent participation programs. Major educational interventions list parental involvement as an important ingredient. Scholarly writing on the topic abounds; new searches produce hundreds of references, many…

To improve school quality and raise performance, educational leaders at the district, state, and federal level are faced with the challenge to: Address Socioeconomic Disparity. Thirty percent of the children in urban areas are poor compared to 18% for the nation as a whole. Urban schools are twice as likely to enroll minority and immigrant…

  Leadership in education has so many different dimensions and definitional issues that it’s very elusive, and has become more complicated since the involvement of business and political communities. Principals had for a long time served as managers of schools, but in the last 10 or 15 years there’s been a sea change in their…

Shortages of teachers are often most acute in certain fields, particularly bilingual/English as a Second Language, special education, mathematics, Spanish, and the physical sciences. Sometimes students are taught by a revolving door of substitutes. Other times students from the affected class are added temporarily or permanently to different classes, thereby increasing class size. When substitutes…

Everyone can tell you about a teacher who was caring, knowledgeable, and inspiring. Most of us know from personal experience that being certified to teach is no guarantee that a teacher will do a good job with children, just as being licensed to practice medicine is not a complete assurance of quality patient care. And…

New teachers commend principals who are instructional leaders, and those who encourage them to participate in professional development opportunities and get involved in the school community. Since new teachers often feel overwhelmed, they are not always sure what opportunities are available to them, how to allocate their time, or how they will be perceived if…

We agree with the statement that “a right to data is meaningless without knowledge of what is available” and with the proposals to create a central, user-friendly catalogue or inventory of all the information available. We think that this should: – Include information of what is available not only in central government datasets but also…

We consider open data to be part of a broader trend towards “open government” where open data combines with social media, mobile technology and other feedback mechanisms to transform the relationship governments have with citizens, delivering better, more relevant public services (which we could broadly term “citizen-centric” open data). Open data also has the power…