Resources
Pathways to Postsecondary Success
For those of you working in secondary or postsecondary education or in the fields of youth development or economic development, I highly recommend "Pathways to Postsecondary Success: Maximizing Opportunities for Youth in Poverty," published recently by the University of California. There's nothing here that will surprise those of us working in the field, but the report does gather important findings in one place, providing a reasonable roadmap for designing or evaluating educational programs and supports at the HS or community college level.
Data-Driven Improvement and Accountability
In October 2013, the National Education Policy Center published a brief by Andy Hargreaves and Henry Braun of the Boston College Lynch School of Education, "Data Driven Improvement and Accountability," (DDIA) in which the authors argue that DDIA in the U.S."has come to exert increasingly adverse effects on public education" as accountability, through high-stakes tests and high-threat sanctions, has become the primary mover of educational change. The authors see this approach as shortsighted and ultimately counterproductive to education reform's improvement agenda and recommend several actions that policymakers can take.
From Edutopia, A Parent's Guide to 21st-Century Learning
This useful guide, available in English and in Spanish, helps familiarize parents with the kind of learning expected of children at all grades, provides an overview of how the notion of what it means to be educated has changed in the era of the common core standards, and provides parents with resources and activities across all grades.
Scott Barron on Effective Board Communication
This blog post, from Scott Barron, recommends creating a regular feedback loop to allow board members to evaluate their peers on several aspects of good communication.
Click here for Scott Barron's blog on Effective Board Communication.
Lou Adler on Choosing Leaders
This blog post, from Lou Adler, suggests that many organizations, in hiring people for key leadership positions, follow a traditional approach that focuses on credentials and experience but gives insufficient attention to determining first what the job would require and measuring candidates' past performance against those requirements. The blog was referenced as part of an interesting discussion on the LinkedIn discussion group Charter Schools Insider.
Eugene Fram Offers Tips on Chairing a Board Meeting
This blog post touches upon several practices that can keep boards from being productive and outcome driven and offers suggestions for board chairs and executive directors.
Click here for Dr. Fram on effectively chairing a board meeting.
Eugene Fram on Building an Autonomous Nonprofit Board
This recent post, from Dr.Eugene Fram, articulates briefly some key characteristics of autonomous not-for-profit boards of directors. The key word here is autonomous; in other words, these are characteristics of boards whose roles and responsibilities are not only clearly established but differentiate the duties of the board from those of management. As charter school leaders look at these, they should remember that charter boards, while clearly sharing in common many of the roles and responsibilities of other not-for-profit boards, carry the added responsibilities of being school committees/school boards.
Scott Barron on Governance
This blog posting, from Scott Barron, provides an extremely useful schematic representation of four pillars for organizing any school's design or redesign and focuses upon one of those pillars: Governance. I highly recommend this post to anyone involved in school design or redesign work.