By Hayes Mizell
Guest Blogger

For educators, "back-to-school" means slipping into familiar routines. There will be new students, new colleagues, and perhaps a new principal, but most teachers and administrators yearn for as little change as possible from the previous school year. Change, after all, requires new accommodation, new learning, or new practice, each of which increases possibilities for discomfort, mistakes, or embarrassment. There is security in the familiar, even if it is the handmaiden of the status quo.

Educators also return to school with unspoken hope.

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Rigorous Schools and Classrooms: Leading the Way 

by Ronald Williamson and Barbara Blackburn
(Eye on Education, 2010)

Reviewed by Renee Moore, NBCT
Guest Blogger

“Rigorous Schools and Classrooms: Leading the Way” is a follow-up to Barbara Blackburn’s 2008 book, “Rigor is Not a Four-Letter Word” (see Karen Molter’s review here), and the books should be studied together. Both authors are former teachers (Williamson is also a former principal) whose educational careers extend from classroom teachers to respected university researchers.

While Blackburn’s first book was aimed at teachers, this book shows school leaders how to navigate an entire school toward a more rigorous culture and ...
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Education News in Alabama - July 13, 2010

• Alabama launches mentoring for first-time principals;
• From our blog: Summer sources;
• Survey: Tell us what you think;
• Common core more rigorous;
• State not using data strategically;
• From our blog: Socratic 21st Century teaching

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Education News in Alabama for June 14, 2010

• RESEARCH FINDING: SREB hails work of Ala. Governor's Congress on School Leadership;
• State will bill BP for oil-spill related revenue losses;
• BLOG: Share your views;
• BLOG: Investing in teaching effectiveness to raise student achievement;
• A+ College Ready launches partnership with Impact Alabama.

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By Wes George

As a rising college senior approaching the proverbial precipice that is the real world, I face a dilemma with which many young people find themselves wrestling. Do I follow my heart and reenter the classroom... Read More...

By John Norton

It’s often been said by impatient, technology-minded school reformers that a teacher from the 1940s (or 1840s, for that matter) would find little changed if he or she entered the classroom today. But of course that isn’t true. Read More...

By Cathy Gassenheimer

Imagine educators having the opportunity to spend an entire day working with colleagues to discuss and clearly identify what effective teaching “looks like.” “Wait a minute,” I can almost hear you say, “Don’t educators already have a clear image of effective teaching?”

Apparently not, according to Tony Wagner and his colleagues at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.

“Achieving a shared vision of what is good instruction is much more difficult than most people imagine,” contends Wagner Read More...

By Cathy Gassenheimer

What if every school in every district in Alabama were a true learning organization? What if every adult in the building were a life-long learner, who collaborated with colleagues to ensure that every day every student was engaged in quality work that was rigorous and relevant … and that required them to do most of the work themselves?

What would that look like?

Well, that’s the question we asked of members of our Superintendents Leaders Network a few weeks ago ...

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By Sallie Owen Gowan

When education consultant Jackie A. Walsh, Ph.D, isn’t driving the work of the Alabama Governor’s Commission on Quality Teaching or delivering professional development for the Alabama Best Practices Center, she writes about effective questioning. Her latest effort is “Leading Through Quality Questioning” from Corwin Press, which Jackie co-authored with Beth D. Sattes.

“Questions are more transformative than answers,” according to author and community engagement evangelist Peter Block. With that in mind, Jackie and Beth have put together a practical, nuts-and-bolts book that explains not only why school leaders should work this way – but also how to do it.

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By John Norton

(We are delighted to welcome John Norton, the former vice president for communications at the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), to our new website and blog.)

A series of stories about districtwide accountability and reform in the magazine of the American Association of School Administrators has me thinking about the leadership of Roy Nichols in Mobile County.

The February issue of “School Administrator” features a cover article by Harvard professor Robert Kaplan, who co-created a progress-monitoring tool for business called “The Balanced Scorecard” and has since helped adapt it for school districts. In the story, Kaplan and co-author Dylan Miyake describe how the Atlanta Public Schools system has used the tool to drive many positive improvements in the past decade.

Over at the Public School Insights blog, Claus von Zastrow hailed the scorecard as an example of educators learning the right lessons from business. Claus also highlighted Atlanta’s progress using the Balanced Scorecard, but he could have looked to an Alabama example ...
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As we search for ways to help schools achieve more, it’s tempting to frame solutions as “either/or” choices. So often we take sides and expend a lot of time and energy insisting that our choice is the answer and must prevail. For example:

• Either we teach students to read using phonics OR we employ whole language.

• Either we teach kids to memorize important math facts OR we focus on the why and how of math. Read More...