All the top Education news.

Now that I'm a 'seasoned' administrator (I have two years in already!! :)), I've decided that instead of trying to fix everything, I'll pick a few goals to really focus on this next year (see how much smarter I'm getting?!?). I want to focus on literacy in our school, especially reading. We are an alternative school, K-12. Our students have come to us, for the most part, because their behaviors got in the way of their learning in their home school and so they were sent here. Many of our teachers are young and inexperienced. The new principal I hired a year ago, just completed his first year…

I caught Secretary Duncan on NPR this week talking about teacher evaluations and other key issues surrounding education reform. Secretary Duncan talked about several studies that were recently featured in Education Week. The studies major findings that teacher evaluations reflect a Lake Wobegon effect. Almost 99% of teacher evaluations studied reflect teachers were at or above average. In other words, all of the teachers being evaluated are meeting or exceeding standards. Sec. Duncan's question rings true - if all of our teachers are meeting or exceeding standards then there is little to no…

As the largest educational technology conference, National Educational Computing Conference-NECC, is going on, I started to think about the different vendors I work with, the relationships I have with them, and the characteristics that help me choose some venders over others. As a former athlete and coach, I decided to use the analogy of a team. When it comes to this part of the profession, I have two teams: an internal and an external. To be successful, I must have a strong internal and external team and I am fortunate to have both. My internal team is made up of the instructional technology…

During the last several months, our school district has worked to identify areas of strategic importance to dramatically improving life opportunities for our students. Our focus is squarely on student achievement, and we are approaching this focus through four key areas: Leadership, Engagement, Data, and Collaboration. While we are moving forward in each of these areas, I want to highlight the work we are doing in Leadership. As we assessed our leadership needs in the district, we determined that, like many other K-12 districts, we had a critical need for leadership development. As we planned…

Confessions of a Paper Chewer In 1988 I was a 5th grader in a typical Ohio elementary school. It was a day like any other and my cousin and I were bored. The teacher had decided to teach social studies that day by reading to us out of the 8th grade textbook since there was more detail than our 5th grade text. Now, you may ask how I remember this… He used the 8th grade book a lot. Without any words exchanged I can remember he and I engaging in the super bowl of paper eating contests. The goal of course was to see who could get the most sheets in our mouth. He quickly took a two sheet lead,…