Leading Schools

A new report encourages counselors to talk to high school freshmen about college.

The influence of a counselor was especially critical in influencing the behaviors of first-generation college students, the NACAC report found.

A few elite institutions at both the grade-school and college levels are doing better than ever. But their health conceals the collapse of private-sector options in the U.S.

Private K-12 enrollments are shrinking -- by almost 13 percent from 2000 to 2010.

Many school leaders believe that virtually all students can learn at higher levels given skillful teaching, time, and persistent effort. But I’m not sure, however, that all leaders believe that vir...

A teenager's IQ can rise or fall as many as 20 points in just a few years, a brain-scanning team found that the intelligence measure isn't as fixed as once thought.

Schools and school systems must provide the leadership, conditions, and resources that facilitate the ongoing development of social capital, and achieving this vision will take skillful collaboration.

Human capital is about the qualities of individuals. In the context of schools, human capital is a teacher's cumulative abilities, knowledge, and skills developed through formal education and on-the-job experience. Many reform efforts have focused on improving just this aspect of capital. In some situations, accountability becomes the primary driver for improvement, while in others, support and capacity building play that role.

Social capital is an idea Hargreaves and Fullan explore in-depth, informed by the work of Carrie Leana around this concept. They define it as the capacity of groups to work collectively toward school improvement. Social capital resides in the relationships among teachers. Social capital can raise individual human capital; a good team, school, or system lifts everyone. But higher individual human capital does not necessarily improve the overall team.

' (...) evidence from psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience suggests that when students multitask while doing schoolwork, their learning is far spottier and shallower than if the work had their full attention.'...

By Walt Gardner

Practices that try to repair the harm caused by student misbehavior are more promising than punishment.

Here is a great collection of web-based resources relating to successfully transitioning students at every level, K-16.

High school rankings by popular media usually take into account how many students take AP exams. Some high schools push students to take AP courses whether or not they are prepared, just to satisfy...

Teacher evaluations that are being perpetrated on teachers by politicians and reformers are wrong-headed. Peer Assistance and Review programs offer the best method that assure teacher quality.

Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) programs have been the exemplar for strong teacher evaluation systems

New techniques are letting researchers look at the activity of the whole brain at once. Most brain areas multitask, and the brain is dynamic. It can respond differently to the same events in different times and circumstances.

Latinos are entering colleges and universities at higher rates than whites and blacks but still lower than Asian Americans. This is an all-time high for Latinos, according to a recent Pew Hispanic Center report.

What does research say about use of ability groups/tracking, and how have you seen it used or misused? What are workable alternatives?

Researchers continue to strengthen the link between positive school climates and student achievement.

After a decade or more of NCLB, some schools in California are hoping Michael Fullan can help them find the right drivers.

Fullan writes, "As an advance organizer, I suggest four criteria - all of which must be met in concert - which should be used for judging the likely effectiveness of a driver or set of drivers.
Specifically, do the drivers, sooner than later, 

1. Foster intrinsic motivation of teachers and students;
2. Engage educators and students in continuous improvement of instruction and learning;
3. Inspire collective or team work; and
4. Affect all teachers and students - 100 per cent?"

One in six high school students (16.2 percent) reported being electronically bullied within the past 12 months, according to a new study.

Girls were more than twice as likely to report being a victim of cyberbullying than boys (22.1 percent vs. 10.8 percent).