The Center for Courage and Renewal is launching a new website, Teaching with Heart, Fire and Poetry. It is an online community and resource hub for teachers to explore their work with other teachers. The community was inspired by the books, Teaching with Heart and Teaching with Fire. In these Read more
How do you solve big problems in education in a way that honors the knowledge and expertise of educators in a methodologically rigorous way? How can what’s working in individual classrooms and schools be used to address problems on a larger scale? Educator Networks, or Networked Improvement Communities, are groups Read more
The Sustainability Rubric for Local Educational Agencies is a tool developed by the United States Education Department for LEAs to assess the sustainability of a specific priority reform that they are undertaking. This rubric is flexible enough to help LEAs with wide-ranging reform goals, but also will help the Agency Read more
We first blogged about Networked Improvement Communities (NICs) here: https://www.coreeducationllc.com/blog2/using-the-wisdom-of-educators/ But what exactly is an NIC, and how does it differ from a Professional Learning Community, Action Research group, or Community of Practice? The Carnegie Foundation offers a helpful guide: Networked improvement communities (NICs) are scientific learning communities distinguished by Read more
GTL Center’s latest Professional Learning Module is Supporting Principals Using Teacher Effectiveness Data (September 2015). It discusses practical strategies principals and district leaders can use to make hiring, staffing, teacher leadership, and professional development decisions. Teacher effectiveness data can help school and district leaders to make informed and evidence-based talent Read more
In the world of ed-tech, STEM, and international comparisons, it can be easy to overlook art, music, and drama teachers; career and technical education instructors; and athletic coaches. Yet, as Peter Hofman argues persuasively, these are the very teachers who the most adept at “stimulating student performance and the complex Read more
The School Turnaround Learning Community has assembled a collection of reports, policy papers, and tools related to principal evaluation. This collection of resources provides considerations for developing local administrator evaluation systems, examples of implementation and resources in support of these systems, and literature reviews identifying themes and perspectives that might Read more
TNTP has spent the last two years trying to answer the question, “Do we know how to help teachers get better?” Their new report,The Mirage: Confronting the Hard Truth About Our Quest for Teacher Development, shares what they found. The Mirage examines how three large public school districts and one Read more
REL Mid-Atlantic is offering an open question line for education-related research questions. Are you interested in learning what the latest research says about an issue in your district? Need help using data to inform policy decisions or identifying evidence-based curricula or interventions? REL Mid-Atlantic can help at no cost to Read more
In today’s highly competitive and increasingly global economy, students need more than just academic skills and knowledge. They also need employability skills in order to successfully cultivate a career. Employability skills include relationship skills such as interpersonal skills and personal qualities; workplace skills such as resource management, information use, communication Read more
Surely everyone’s list of the top 50 books for educators would be different, but Nick Grantham of Fractus Learning has come up with some pretty good suggestions. Summer reading season is here, and this list has some that you have probably already read, some that you have been meaning to Read more
State and district leaders need more than high-quality measures of teacher effectiveness to make their evaluation policies stick. They also need communications and engagement strategies, ongoing professional learning and support opportunities for teachers, and a plan to combine and use evaluation data to inform decisions at the school, district and Read more
Three new toolkits from the Regional Education Laboratory (REL) Program are designed to help educators and leaders use data and evaluate programs and policies: Logic models for program design, implementation, and evaluation: Workshop toolkit This Logic Model Workshop Toolkit from REL Northeast & Islands helps state and district leaders design, Read more
Shanna Peeples, recently named National Teacher of the Year, published on her blog a speech that she delivered in DC during her selection process. I don’t want to offend you, but I have to tell you that I will be talking about the f-word today. And that f-word is a Read more
A redesigned School Turnaround Learning Community (STLC) site provides access to a range of free resources and opportunities for engagement focused on school turnaround in action. A project of the Center on School Turnaround at WestEd, the STLC supports state, district, and school leaders working to improve the nation’s lowest-achieving Read more
P21, the Partnership for 21st Century Learning, released an online free resource for parents to help prepare kids for the future of citizenship, learning and the workforce. The National PTA served as a family engagement advisor for the project. To be successful today, students must be civically and digitally literate, Read more