Local Control
Law & Courts
Mask Mandate Lawsuits Reflect Bigger Battle: Do States or Local Districts Control Schools?
Some legal clarity is forming over whether governors may restrict school districts from enacting mask mandates to fight COVID-19.
School Climate & Safety
Opinion
Arne Duncan: Reopening Schools Is a Local Decision, Not the President's
The Trump administration has completely failed to protect Americans and lead during the COVID-19 crisis, writes former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
Are There Unseen Children In Your School?
What do we know, what can we be sure of, and what do we need to learn about how it feels to be a child in our schools?
School & District Management
Opinion
Educating the 'Whole Child' Requires Courageous Leaders
Student achievement and educating the 'whole child' can be seen in actions schools take. For that, school leaders must have courage to lead away from hesitations.
College & Workforce Readiness
Opinion
Interviewing? Good Questions are Important. Careful Listening is Paramount.
Hiring is, arguably, the most important shared role of leaders and the governing body. It deserves and investment of time to listen openly and share perceptions and thoughts.
Personalized Learning
Opinion
Loss of Freedom of Thought and Expression Threatens Schools
Limiting speech and access to information is the antithesis of our purpose in a free and open democracy. The limits being placed on the internet and on speech in the CDC will affect our work, certainly.
School & District Management
Opinion
School Leaders Build Trust by Inviting Others to the Table
It is about presence. It isn't just about Rotary or Kiwanis. It is also about church dinners and nonprofit fund raisers. It is business and police. It is clergy and senior citizens and parents and preschool providers. Is it too much to ask?
School & District Management
Opinion
Are We Leading Change or Leading in a New Era?
The traditional modes of teaching and learning are being disrupted form outside the schools walls and educators know that a richness for students will arrive when those walls become more permeable under teacher leadership.
School Climate & Safety
Opinion
Why We Desperately Need to Rethink College and Career Readiness
The answer is not to "bring back" vocational training. The answer is to redefine vocational training and integrate it into the learning required for all students to graduate from high schools.
Equity & Diversity
Opinion
School Leaders, Racial Bias, and Hope
Unlike the POTUS, our actions will directly, and immediately impact children and families. So, we cannot be complacent.
School & District Management
Opinion
Football, Head Injuries, and a School Leader's Choices
Researchers some of our football players will live a lifetime battling behaviors and issues never knowing they are caused by those tackles they so loved when living their halcyon days of middle and high school.
Assessment
Opinion
A New Grading System Meets a Critic's Empty Words
When schools step up to consider new ways to engage and motivate students they should be lauded.
School Climate & Safety
Opinion
How Schools Can Help Adolescents Become Responsible, Informed Adults
The lines that separate childhood from adolescence and adolescence from adulthood have disappeared. Rites of passage are few. But there is something schools can and should do.
Recruitment & Retention
Opinion
Reversing Teacher Burnout is a Possibility Within Reach
Guest blogger Jennifer Cleary writes, "Burnout is a real issue, for both first-year teachers and thirty-year veterans. Schools are losing valuable educators, and student achievement is suffering."