Balancing Expectations for the Role of School Leader

Being a school principal often feels like walking a tightrope, balancing various stakeholders’ diverse and sometimes conflicting expectations. District leaders envision well-run schools hitting academic targets, fostering positive learning environments, and...
New Understandings About Teachers' Role in Schools

New Understandings About Teachers' Role in Schools

The school district’s annual leadership retreat will take place on July 15-16. The superintendent has opened the training for teachers who wish to be leaders by pursuing administrative certification.  What was an initially exciting concept–an invitation to...
The Hard Work of the Process of Change

The Hard Work of the Process of Change

The Complexity of Changing Outcomes for Students). But there is also internal change that teachers and administrators embark on, to create better learning conditions for their students.  Internal change efforts are not any easier to accomplish, even though the impetus...
Innovation and Schooling

Innovation and Schooling

When my son was in middle school, I remember his seventh grade class moving from one subject and one room together, directed by the teacher, and following a painted line on the floor.  To not stay within the line meant a reprimand or even worse, a discipline...
Three Focus Areas for School Leaders

Three Focus Areas for School Leaders

A principal I know has reported that in the first four weeks of school this academic year, he has averaged being called out of his building to meetings close to two days per week. At that rate of disruption to the critical work of being a hands-on leader, a principal...