Researchers have found a statistically significant and positive relationship between district-level leadership and student achievement when the superintendent, central office staff, and school board members do the work most highly correlated with positively impacting student outcomes. In addition, positive correlations that have been found between the length of superintendent service and student achievement seem to confirm the value of leadership stability within schools. The reality is that the average tenure of a School Superintendent is 2 years, whereas the average tenure of the CEO’s at Dell, GE, Fed Ex, and Microsoft was found to be 24 years! According to the research (Waters & McNulty, 2006), school board members need to hire a superintendent who has the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to carry out the appropriate leadership responsibilities focused on improving teaching and learning. Successful boards were the ones found to support the collaboratively developed district goals for achievement and instruction. Lastly, according to the research, to increase the likelihood for district success school boards need to support district- and school-level leadership in ways that increase, rather than decrease, stability.


How does this research make sense based on your professional experience?

The biggest failing I have seen in the Common Core at this point has been the implementation. Add to that the incessant need it would seem from "the top" that a standards change was not enough - we also need to revamp the evaluation and accountability systems, and by the way, "Do it all now!" What you have is a quality over quantity debacle that has really created the perfect storm. It will take astute leadership and courage to navigate from here to success, unfortunately, I do not see an overabundance of either. We must move forward with our heads out of the sand and determine what our greatest priority is, improved standards, improved evaluation, etc. Those that discount a need for focus on fewer and more effectively, thus more deeply implemented innovations, I would ask my favorite Dr. Phil question, "How is a lack of focus and quality implementation working for you thus far?"

What do you think?

One of the key things coming out of the research of cognitive psychologists is the importance of knowing what students already know about a subject when attempting to teach. In addition, also of importance is having a clear conception of what the learning target or goal is (Where are we going?) and knowing at any given point where are we in relation to that target or goal (How am I going?). Ideally, if this information is transparent to both the teacher and the student, both can work in concert to answer a third critical question, what next steps should I take as a learner that will help me to reach my goal? The following illustrate the 3 key questions identified by the research of Professor John Hattie that students and teachers alike should be able to answer in regard to learning: (1) Where am I going?, (2) How am I going?, and (3) Where to next? 

A key caveat of this is being able to go beyond simply stating a learning goal or "I can" statement. The conception of “Progress” becomes critically important. That is, what will it look like, sound like, and even feel like when I have reached the learning goal or target? Ideally, these are common conceptions held by like teachers across content areas in regard to the objective academic content standards. This is important to providing the opportunity for all students to have access to rigorous learning outcomes. It may take different strategies and levels of support for various students to get to the target, the "where to next?" part, but all should have access to what Marzano (2003) called a “guaranteed and viable curriculum.” That is a curriculum that provides rich learning experiences for all students to access, regardless of the number on their classroom door, and with sufficient time to develop both the surface and deep knowledge required to develop a mastery level of learning. 

Do the teachers in your school or district have a common conception of what progress is on the most critical learning goals for your students? Do students have this same conception of progress? How do you know?

Read an interesting study about three different approaches to using the popular Value-Added-Models or (VAM) today that are being used for grading schools and providing high-stakes evaluation for teachers and school leaders. The only problem with the concept of any of these VAM machinations is that they assume that whatever assessment they are adding value too can accurately judge instructional quality. There is no such evidence to support this assumption. My grade school Algebra I teacher taught me never to ASSUME. Thank you Mr. Weber, that lesson has served me well most of my life!

What do you think about the concept of Value-Added and what evidence might you be aware of supporting that the achievement or aptitude tests that most states have chosen are able to make valid inferences about whether or not kids have been well taught or not?

Is anyone talking about this in your state?