In June 2010, The NewTeacher Project (TNTP) partnered with 37 charter school campuses in Washington, D.C. to conduct an analysis of their talent management practices. The goal was to create an index of Instructional Culture that would help uncover what sets top performing charter school teachers apart.
Many school districts underutilize one of the most powerful and common symbol systems available to them—numbers—to monitor, evaluate, and revise programs and policies. In this abstract from Education Leadership, a trio of authors examine new ways for school leaders and teachers to make the most of the data available to them.
Setting goals that connect to the classroom and focus on student learning helps educators see, learn from, and communicate their results. In this abstract from Education Leadership, author Jan O'Neill discusses SMART Goals; setting specific goals that are strategic, measurable, attainable, results-oriented, and timebound.
School staff are periodically reminded to revisit their SMART goals—goals that are Strategic and Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-based, and Timebound, in order to better assess the student population across learning disciplines. This article by Jan O'Neill offers useful advice for doing so.
Analyzing data not only helps inform decisions and challenge assumptions, but also helps teachers view their instructional and collaborative practices with a new perspective. In this abstract from Education Leadership, three schools show how the data-based inquiry and decision-making process can improve decisions about curriculum, instruction, and policy.
Over the last two decades, there has been a growing appreciation that school climate, the quality and character of school life, fosters — or undermines — children’s development, learning and achievement. Research confirms what teachers and parents have claimed for decades: a safe and supportive school environment, in which students have positive social relationships and are respected, engaged in their work and feel competent, matters. This white paper from the National School Climate Center studies which methods work and which do not.