A Statewide System for Developing Leaders

How the Missouri Leadership Development Program supports principals at all stages of their careers and transforms teaching and learning in the “Show Me” state. The impact of principals on teaching and learning has long been acknowledged. Research ranks school leaders as the second-most influential school-level factor—after teacher quality—on student achievement. However, programs to develop principals’ … Read more »

Unlike Any Other: The School Year Ahead

An incoming first-grader shyly enters her classroom for the first time; she’s never been inside a school before. Her classmate confidently sits down at a desk; she spent the last year in-person and knows the routines. Are they both on-par for the coming school year? A ninth-grader looks around at his high school class for … Read more »

Long Overdue: A New Discourse on School Reform

Photo by Martin Fernandez (https://www.flickr.com/photos/dodeacommunications/9457988689/) CC-BY-2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/)

  Remember the last time you were part of a conversation about school reform that was balanced, respectful of different perspectives and focused on finding common ground? Didn’t think so. Such exchanges are becoming an endangered species–largely due to the interwoven influences of ideology, money and power. And the result is that we’ve handicapped our … Read more »

Helping Principals Beat the Clock

Let’s talk about time. Under new state and federal policies, most high-need schools we work with at the Community Training and Assistance Center are implementing more rigorous approaches to teacher support and evaluation. School districts are equipping principals with specialized training to conduct classroom observations based on evidence, not gut feelings, using standards-based rubrics, not … Read more »

Teacher Trust Matters

Headlines about teacher and teacher union concerns over efforts to link teacher performance evaluations to student achievement scores leave one with the impression that teachers are either unwilling to be accountable for student achievement or that they are just resistant to changing their ways. Yet, those of us working in schools and districts know that … Read more »