Links to My “Most-Liked” Blogs: Effective Practice, Questionable Policies, and Unproven Bandwagons
Dear Colleague,
Since 2003, I have been writing this Blog. . . analyzing essential policies and critical issues, research studies and commissioned reports, federal pronouncements and state procedures. . . all focused on the educational and psychological elements that improve schools, guide teachers, and enhance student outcomes.pronouncements and state procedures. . . all focused on the educational and psychological elements that improve schools, guide teachers, and enhance student outcomes.
In doing this, I have supported my positions using data-based and research-driven principles. . . identifying, when appropriate, ineffective or questionable practices that are based more on politics than science, while emphasizing and discussing field-tested and staff-friendly alternatives.
Every day, I look at handfuls of new reports, studies, and controversies. And, twice per month, I write about the most important ones. . . detailing the research, applying it to my 30+ years of experience in the schools, and validating my thinking.
My goal is to present balanced, objective, conscientious messages that are relevant and meaningful to all educators- - from those working in the most segregated of our inner-city schools, to those in the most extreme of our rural, isolated schools.
And through it all. . . I continue to learn. Yes. . . I periodically get frustrated with the slow rate of change in schools across the country, and the undocumented or invalid bandwagons that some colleagues climb onto. But, I do hope that my messages resonate with readers, get them to think about the process of change, and motivate them to actually begin that change.
My Bi-Annual Look Back
Last March, I reviewed the Blog messages (some back to 2014) that have received the most “Likes” and Comments from colleagues across the globe. These “Likes” were registered on this Blog-site (and two others where I post), on my LinkedIn site, on my Project ACHIEVE Facebook site, and from the handful of other professional listservs that I distribute to.
In March, I organized the Blogs into the following topical areas:
- Strategic Planning and Shared Leadership
- School Discipline, Classroom Management, and Student Self-Management
- Student-Centered Practices and Solutions
- Federal Legislation and Other National Reports: Questioning the U.S. Department of Education’s Agenda andApproaches
- National “Trends” that Should Concern All Educators
Now, six months later, I think that it is a good time to integrate my more-recent work (with some overlaps) into these same categories. I have organized each category in chronological order- - with the most-recent Blog messages first.
NOTE: TO LINK TO A SPECIFIC BLOG MESSAGE, CLICK on the DATE Preceding Each Title.
I hope that this updated review will help you to focus on and study some of the important national, state, school, and schooling events and trends that have occurred (with my comments) over the past number of months.
School Success: Strategic Planning and Shared Leadership
July 24, 2016 Rethinking School Improvement and Success, Staff Development and Accountability, and Students' Academic and Behavioral Proficiency: Using ESEA/ESSA’s New Flexibility to Replace the U.S. Department of Education’s Ineffective NCLB Initiatives
March 4, 2016 The New ESEA/ESSA: Discontinuing the U.S. Department of Education's School Turn-Around, and Multi-Tiered Academic (RtI) and Behavioral (PBIS) System of Support (MTSS) Frameworks
January 17, 2016 The Seven C’s of School Success (Parts I and II): The Ultimate Staff Strategies to Build Strong, Cohesive Relationships and Effective, Productive Teams
October 3, 2015 Is Your Strategic Plan Focused on Outcomes. . . or Just a Direction? There are “Many Roads to Rome”- – But You Need an Address and a GPS to Get There
July 25, 2015 The Seven Sure Solutions to School Success: How Many do You Need?
May 31, 2015 School Improvement? The Questions your Department of Education Needs to Know
March 28, 2015 March Madness: How Effective Schools are Like Successful Basketball Teams
October 26, 2014 School Improvement Succeeds only with Shared Leadership: A Field-Tested Blueprint
School Success: School Discipline, Classroom Management, and Student Self-Management
September 25, 2016 U.S. Department of Education Reminds Educators about Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports for Students with Disabilities: But. . . Watch Out for Their Recommendations and References
August 20, 2016 From One Extreme to the Other: Changing School Policy from “Zero Tolerance” to “Total Tolerance” Will Not Work. . . Decreasing Disproportionate Discipline Referrals and Suspensions Requires Changing Student and Staff Behavior
August 7, 2016 Effective School Discipline, Classroom Management, and Student Self-Management: The Five Components that Every School Needs. . . Reflections on a National Survey of Administrators and Teachers
July 9, 2016 Teaching Students Self-Management Skills: If We Want Them to Behave, We Need to Teach Them to Behave
June 28, 2016 ADHD Students in Schools: New CDC Data and Their Implications for Intervention
May 30, 2016 The Difference between Social Stories and Social Skills Training? A BIG Difference!
May 15, 2016 Student Engagement (Down), Teacher Satisfaction (Down), School Safety and Academic Expectations (Down)-- How Do We Raise Up our Students and Schools to Success?
April 17, 2016 School Resource Officers: Helping or Hurting Students and School Discipline? The Need to Integrate Criteria for Hiring, Training, and Involving School Resource Officers, School-based Police, and Security Guards in Our Schools, and into the ESEA/ESSA’s Required Bullying, Restraint, and Suspension Plans
November 1, 2015 Research to Practice: How do Teachers Influence Students’ Classroom Self-Management? New Report says that Positive Classroom Climates and Relationships Most Influence Student Motivation
September 19, 2015 Why Students Don’t Behave? Because We are not Teaching Them the Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skills that They Need
August 22, 2015 New National Education Association (NEA) Policy Brief Highlights Project ACHIEVE’s Positive Behavioral Support System (PBSS) as an Evidence-based Model for School Discipline, Classroom Management, and Student Self-Management
July 8, 2015 The Unfulfilled Promise of Education: Students’ Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skills
June 21, 2015 School Disproportionality and the Charleston Murders: Systemic Change vs. State Statutes
September 6, 2014 New Superintendents’ Survey: Suspensions Do NOT Change Behavior— What does?
April 6, 2014 Preschoolers Most Suspended Age Group: New Report and What It Means for You
March 9, 2014 Approaches to Eliminate Disproportionality: New Study Reinforces State-wide Student Discipline Inequities
School Success: Student-Centered Practices and Solutions
September 5, 2016 Political Doublespeak, Students with Disabilities, and Common Sense: A Legal Case Study on Students’ Rights and Standards-based IEPs. . . How Departments of Education Use Language, Fear, and Ignorance to Get their Way
June 28, 2016 ADHD Students in Schools: New CDC Data and Their Implications for Intervention
June 12, 2016 How to Improve your Chronically Absent Students' Attendance... During the Summer
March 20, 2016 Grade Retention is NOT an Intervention! How WE Fail Students When THEY are Failing in School
May 9, 2015 The Beginning of the New School Year Starts in April
November 22, 2014 Academically Struggling and Behaviorally Challenging Students: Your Doctor Wouldn’t Practice this Way
August 17, 2014 Beginning the New School Year on the Right Foot: Why Classroom Routines, Behaviorally Disordered Students, and the Brain Matter
Federal Legislation and Other National Reports: Questioning the U.S. Department of Education’s Agenda and Approaches
September 25, 2016 U.S. Department of Education Reminds Educators about Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports for Students with Disabilities: But. . . Watch Out for Their Recommendations and References
September 5, 2016 Political Doublespeak, Students with Disabilities, and Common Sense: A Legal Case Study on Students’ Rights and Standards-based IEPs. . . How Departments of Education Use Language, Fear, and Ignorance to Get their Way
July 24, 2016 Rethinking School Improvement and Success, Staff Development and Accountability, and Students' Academic and Behavioral Proficiency: Using ESEA/ESSA’s New Flexibility to Replace the U.S. Department of Education’s Ineffective NCLB Initiatives
March 4, 2016 The New ESEA/ESSA: Discontinuing the U.S. Department of Education's School Turn-Around, and Multi-Tiered Academic (RtI) and Behavioral (PBIS) System of Support (MTSS) Frameworks
November 14, 2015 New U.S. Department of Education Report: Students in RtI Tier II Interventions are Losing Ground. What the Report Says. . .Why RtI is Not Working. . . Recommendations for Improving the RtI Process
September 7, 2015 When Kids Can’t Read: Policy and Practice Mistakes that Make it Worse
February 15, 2015 Your State’s Guide to RtI: Some Statutes Just Don’t Make Sense- – What your Department of Education isn’t Sharing about its Multi-tiered/Response-to-Intervention Procedures
National “Trends” that Should Concern All Educators
August 20, 2016 From One Extreme to the Other: Changing School Policy from “Zero Tolerance” to “Total Tolerance” Will Not Work. . . Decreasing Disproportionate Discipline Referrals and Suspensions Requires Changing Student and Staff Behavior
June 28, 2016 ADHD Students in Schools: New CDC Data and Their Implications for Intervention
June 12, 2016 How to Improve your Chronically Absent Students' Attendance... During the Summer
May 1, 2016 Parents and Students in Jail: How do Schools Support Students with Parents in Jail, and Students who--Themselves--are Incarcerated?
April 17, 2016 School Resource Officers: Helping or Hurting Students and School Discipline? The Need to Integrate Criteria for Hiring, Training, and Involving School Resource Officers, School-based Police, and Security Guards in Our Schools, and into the ESEA/ESSA’s Required Bullying, Restraint, and Suspension Plans
March 20, 2016 Grade Retention is NOT an Intervention! How WE Fail Students When THEY are Failing in School
March 4, 2016 The New ESEA/ESSA: Discontinuing the U.S. Department of Education's School Turn-Around, and Multi-Tiered Academic (RtI) and Behavioral (PBIS) System of Support (MTSS) Frameworks
Reviewing Mindfulness and Other Mind-Related Programs: Have We Just Lost our Minds? (Parts I and II). Why Schools Sometimes Waste their Time and (Staff) Resources on Fads with Poor Research and Unrealistic Results.
November 28, 2015 Start the School Day Later? How Students Use their After-School Time, Media and Smartphones, and Opportunities to Sleep
April 25, 2015 Extending the School Day? Is it Due to Ineffectiveness, Disengagement, or Enrichment?
March 15, 2015 Restorative Practices and Reducing Suspensions: The Numbers Just Don’t Add Up
October 11, 2014 Another Federal Push… What’s the Deal with Trauma Sensitive Schools?
Summary
With the recent passage of the reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA; also known as the Every Student Succeeds Act - - ESSA), education in this country is at a significant cross-road.
One of the clear mandates written explicitly into ESEA/ESSA is that our state departments of education will have (when the law is fully implemented on July 1, 2017) far more self-determination in planning and executing the most-essential facets of the law (with approval and oversight by the U.S. Department of Education, of course).
While this is a positive, the reality is that state departments of education most often look to the US DoE for “guidance.” This is because of:
- Oversight Pressure. The US DoE still approves the annual ESEA plans submitted by the state departments of education, and the state departments largely do what is recommended by the US DoE in order to get their plan approved the first time (thereby also avoiding the political and public embarrassment of a rejected plan).
- Financial Pressure. Without US DoE approval, federal funds are/can be withheld to the states whose plans are unapproved or in limbo.
- Time Pressure Relief. Most state departments of education are grossly understaffed. Moreover, because of the salaries, many of the employees are generalists- - and not experts in their fields.
Given this, many state department of educations do not have the staff and time to thoroughly research the many field-based ESEA/ESSA areas that they need to address. Moreover, many of the generalists do not have the skill or expertise to critically analyze- - from a research-based perspective- - what is good research-to-practice, and what is unrealistic or simply “bad” research.
This creates an “expertise gap” that many state departments of education bridge by using the US DoE’s many National Technical Assistance (TA) Centers.
The problem with this is: that- - based on a past history of national reports, and even U.S. DoE Inspector General investigations the US DoE uses its National TA Centers to promote its own- - often untested- - agenda, frameworks, and strategies (see the Blogs in the “Federal Legislation and Other National Reports: Questioning the U.S. Department of Education’s Agenda and Approaches” section above).
- Financial Relief. In addition to the “expertise gap” above, state departments of education often also use the National TA Centers to save money (because consultation from these Centers is “free”).
But consumers need to understand that these TA Centers are funded using taxpayer money! Thus, our tax money is sometimes being used to fund educational programs and processes at the state and local levels that sometimes have not been appropriately field-tested and validated for use with our students.
The Take-Away is: that we all need to be good consumers of what is occurring- - and should occur- - in our schools.
I am not saying that everything that is recommended from a federal or state level is inappropriate.
I am saying that we need to use a critical, research-based “eye” on what we are doing- - and not assume that our federal and state colleagues “know better.”
I hope that one or more of my past Blogs are useful to you. I appreciate everything that you do for student learners across our country.
As always, if I can help your school(s) or district in any of the areas, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Feel free to forward this Blog link to your colleagues.
Best,
Howie
