A Different Kind of AP Course

Across American high schools have added Advanced Placement classes. The program is booming. Those classes are known for their rigor and the way they help students prepare for college. But six years ago AP teachers in the Bellevue School District near Seattle teamed up with researchers from the University of Washington to make their AP government classes far more interactive and project based. Role plays and simulations are a central part of their curriculum. What began as a change in AP government and politics courses now includes AP environmental science and AP physics.

The results are impressive. Students in five dozen classrooms in Washington, California and Iowa score as well or better on AP exams compared to students in lecture-heavy traditional AP programs. For example, last year 88% of students in two high-poverty schools that are part of the program passed the AP US government test compared to 24% for comparable schools across the nation.

Here's a story from the Seattle Times describing the changes. You can also watch a short video about the program. I'd enjoy hearing from you about your AP program and what you think about this modification.

Interviewing for a New Job

It's the time of you when many school leaders think about looking for a new position. It's often a move to a larger school or a school at a different level. It might be a position in the central office or even the superintendency. I'm often asked by my students for advice about the process and how to be successful in that search. One of the resource I've found is the NW Jobs Career Center Blog. The posts offer really specific advice about how to be successful in your job search. Here are some recent posts that I found very helpful.

     A Job Interview is Simply a Conversation

     5 Tips for Creating a Positive First Impression

     How to Manage Job-Interview Anxiety

I'd enjoy hearing from you about your tips for being successful in the job market.

Intuition and Professional Learning

Great teachers and principals have an intuitive sense about both good instruction and their students. That's really valuable and important to nurturing and sustaining quality schools. But too often I've worked in schools where people want to rely solely on their intuition, or their experience, to make decisions about school improvement. Ever heard someone say "I've been teaching for 20 years and I know . . . " That's almost always an indicator that the conversation will focus on the individual and collective experience of the staff rather than on research, data and information about best practices.

In mid-January I read this blog post from the Center for Teaching Quality, What Role Do Hunches Play in Professional Learning Communities. It does an excellent job of advocating for deliberate reasoning when making school improvement decisions and challenges the idea of relying on "gut" reactions and hunches.

I hope you find this post helpful in your work as a school leader.

Parent and Family Engagement

The evidence about parental and family engagement with school is clear. When parents are active partners with their child’s school there is a positive impact on things educators care about, things like achievement, attendance and aspirations for the future (Epstein, et.al, 2002; Henderson & Mapp, 2002). Virtually all educators recognize the importance of parents being involved in their child’s school but still struggle to develop viable plans for promoting such engagement particularly among families of limited means or who may be recent immigrants. This brief will discuss parent and family engagement but the primary focus will be on how teachers and principals can develop and implement plans that increase parent and family engagement among all parent groups but especially among these underserved populations. 

Joyce Epstein from the Center on School, Family and Community Partnerships at John Hopkins University (http://www.csos.jhu.edu/p2000/center.htm) synthesized the research on parent engagement and found that:

• Just about all families care about their children and want them to succeed. They also want better information from their child’s school so that they can be good partners with the school.
• Almost all teachers and administrators want to involve families but many do not know how to go about building positive and productive partnerships with parents and families.
• Virtually all students at all levels, elementary, middle and high school, want their families to be more engaged with their school and knowledgeable about the schools programs. Students say they are willing to be active partners in supporting communication between home and school. (Epstein, et.al., 2002)

The research also shows that affluent communities have more robust family engagement than economically distressed communities. It also shows that schools in more economically distressed communities more frequently contact parent about problems and difficulties than positive accomplishments. Further, single parents, parents employed outside the home, parents living far from school, and fathers are generally less involved.

The Good News - However, when schools develop and implement appropriate grade and school level practices each of these barriers can be reversed. Parent and family engagement is strong in economically distressed communities when teachers and administrators build positive relationships with students’ families, develop balanced partnership programs including contacts about positive student accomplishments, and scheduling school activities and opportunities for involvement at times and places that fit the needs of diverse parent communities.

Here are two resources that provides tools and strategies for increasing parent and family engagement.

• I recently prepared a research brief for the Oregon GEAR UP Program on parent engagement.
• A recent edition of ASCD Express focused on Family-School Relationships. It provides useful information about home visits and how to guide parents in helping with homework. 

Nurturing Teacher Leadership

One of a principal's most important roles is to nurture leadership skills among school staff by creating a school with a variety of leadership roles, opportunity for inquiry and reflection, and the chance to learn and develop new skills.

There are many ways to help others develop their leadership capacity. They include:

• Inviting them to work on a project outside their area of expertise;
• Asking them to help screen and interview new hires;
• Encouraging them to attend district meetings with you;
• Asking them to work with you to deal with a challenging parent or instruction issue;
• Inviting them to lead a book study group;
• Asking them to serve on the school leadership team;
• Asking them to serve as a mentor for a new teacher;
• Encouraging them to become a member of a professional organization;
• Asking them to present information to the staff after attending a conference or other professional development activity;
• Inviting them to maintain a journal and reflect on the "good," "bad," or "flawed" leaders they know and observe.

These ideas and others are discussed in Practical Suggestions for Developing Leadership Capacity (NASSP, 2009).

I'd enjoy hearing from you about how you work to expand the leadership capacity in your school. I'm always interested in practical ideas I can share with my students and other leaders with whom I work.

Understanding Decision Fatigue

Recently there has been a lot of discussion about whether the time of day you make a decision impacts the quality of that decision. Well, the evidence is clear that there may be an impact. It is called decision fatigue and it describes a phenomena where the quality of one's decisions made later in the day deteriorates.

The research shows that during the day one's mental energy is depleted, particularly if you focused on complex tasks and decisions. Decision fatigue can cloud a person's judgment and explains undesirable behaviors such as losing focus during meetings, getting angry with colleagues, becoming impulsive or making decisions without consideration of the consequences.

There are things you can do to minimize the effect. They include:

• recognizing the problem and monitoring your behavior during the day;
• planning your day so that you schedule important meetings and decisions early in the day;
• avoiding back-to-back meetings so that you have time to recharge your 'mental energy' between meetings;
• taking short mental breaks;
• sleeping on decisions and avoiding making complex decision late in the day; and
• being clear about your goals so that you minimize the drain of energy associated with sorting through complex issues.

A Research Brief that describes this term more fully is available at the Resources page on my website at http://ronwilliamson.com. I would enjoy hearing from you about your experience with decision fatigue and ideas you may have for avoiding the impact.

Effective Teacher Evaluation

In virtually every state changes have occurred in the teacher evaluation system. Some are very directive. Others provide options. But in nearly every case the focus is on improving accountability for student learning and providing more explicit criteria to measure teacher performance. But changes in teacher evaluation are not the only changes. Laws are also being adopted to change the evaluation system for principals and other school leaders.

I'm always looking for helpful resources that can inform the work of principals and recently found an article on eSchoolNews that identifies six steps to effective teacher development and evaluation. Three ideas stand out from the others.

• include evidence of teaching and student learning from multiple sources
• use information to provide constructive feedback to teachers, not shame them
• adjust the system over time based on new evidence and feedback.

While principals legitimately struggle with the mandates around evaluation, it is critical that we recognize one of a principal's most important roles, to hire, nurture and retain high quality teachers. Sound evaluation systems support these efforts and include a way to recognize the incredible contributions that most teachers make to student learning.

I'd enjoy hearing from you about how you're dealing with the changing expectations about teacher evaluation.

Successful Meetings: Standards and Norms

During my career I've attended lots of meetings, some successful and some less successful. I've been fascinated by the difference in outcomes and the way some meetings engage participants and others don't. From my observations I've come to appreciate the way "norms" can shape the work, the way participants interact and ultimately the outcomes.

• A crucial part of an effective meeting is being clear about outcomes (results) and the process you will use to achieve your outcomes. 
• It includes basic decision like seating arrangements. If you want open discussion, try and arrange for participants to face one another, perhaps around a table or in a semi-circle. 
• Set a firm start and end time and stick to them. That shows respect for participant's time. 
• If the meeting is lengthy, take a break, but again, set a time and adhere to that. 
• Ask yourself how the group will maintain a "group memory" about decisions. Plan for recording decisions on chart paper or in some other way. 
• Use a "Parking Lot" to capture ideas that emerge but could be distracting. It allows participants to identify questions and discussion items that can be returned to later.

Perhaps my favorite tool is to have "Norms of Collaboration" that assure the use of open-edned questions, and provide everyone with an opportunity to speak. Garmston & Wellman (1999) wrote about seven norms of collaboration to help facilitate discussion. They include pausing, paraphrasing, probing gently, putting ideas on the table, presuming positive intentions, paying attention to your own needs and those of others, and pursuing a balance between advocacy and inquiry.  More information about these norms is available from the Center for Adaptive Schools.

Ultimately, successful meetings are interactive and provide for balanced participation. They don't just happen but instead are thoughtfully planned. I'd enjoy hearing from you about your ideas for conducting successful meetings.

Rethinking the Structure of Your School

The structure of the school day can either support your learning program or be an impediment to its success. Too often we think of the school schedule, and other organizational arrangements, as merely a "fact of life." We take them for granted. But, in reality, they are useful tools for helping a school leader make their school a powerful place for learning. Here are a few things to consider.

• A common way to promote collaboration in elementary school is to locate classrooms of the same grade together. Teachers can work with one another, share materials and support the work. But in one elementary school I visited each wing contained a classroom from each grade level. This arrangement provided for interaction among the grades and eased grouping and regrouping for instruction.
• Many middle schools, and some high schools, organize teachers into instructional teams, a group of teachers who share students and have common planning time. Teams do not magically achieve results but when teachers use the majority of their common plan to work on curricular and instructional issues it can have a positive impact on student learning and school climate.
• Some large schools organize into schools-within-a-school. Teachers often have common planning and time to work on instructional improvement. There's real evidence that small schools can positively impact student learning and sustain positive relationships among students and with adults.
• One high school I visited in suburban Chicago reorganized departmental offices. Math and science teachers shared an office and their classrooms were adjacent. Similarly, language arts and social studies teachers shared an office and adjacent classrooms. The principal found that proximity created opportunities for teachers to learn from one another and to build relationships, relationships that led to interdisciplinary activities across content areas.

Too often the focus of a school's schedule is on the logistics of the day. More important is to take time to create a shared vision of what your schedule might achieve. Clarity about vision and purpose means that you can design a schedule to achieve that vision. Otherwise your schedule is merely a plan for the organization of students and teachers.

I'd enjoy hearing from you about the structure of your school and how you use structure to positively impact student learning.

College Readiness Resources

In a recent study from ACT more than 80% of students said they planned on attending college or some form of post-secondary education. But many students and their families don't do the planning necessary to realize that goal.

Several studies have identified the components of a comprehensive college readiness program. They agree on four major activities:

• Take the Right Courses - Assure that students are taking the right courses to gain college admission. This includes taking high-level courses in middle school so that they have access to advanced courses in high school.
• Develop Cognitive and Metacognitive Skills - While taking rigorous courses is important, students also need to develop the cognitive and metacognitive skills that will be needed to succeed in college. These include things like intellectual openness, inquisitiveness, reasoning, argumentation and proof, precision and accuracy and problem solving (Conley, 2007). Such skills are embedded in nearly all college courses.
• Surround Students with Support for College Attendance - Assure that every student is expected to develop a postsecondary plan. Surround them with caring adults who provide the mentoring and support necessary to achieve the plan and build support for their college aspirations.
• Plan for College Costs - While most families believe college education is important many are uncertain about the costs or how to manage the costs. Developing a plan to pay for college is a critical part of planning.

There are three helpful resources that provide greater detail on this issues. I hope you find them useful.

Pathways to College: What High Schools Can Do to Prepare Students for College Admission and Success in Higher Education

http://gearup.ous.edu/sites/default/files/Research-Briefs/ResearchBriefPathwaystoCollege.pdf

College Readiness Begins in Middle School (2005)

http://www.act.org/research/policymakers/pdf/CollegeReadiness.pdf

Redefining College Readiness (David Conley, 2007).
http://www.epiconline.org/publications/documents/RedefiningCollegeReadiness.pdf

Vision Letters - Setting the Course for the School Year

A friend and colleague, Barbara Blackburn, works with lots of teachers on ways to strengthen their instruction and assure that each student has a rigorous academic experience. One of her favorite tools is the Vision Letter. A Vision Letter is a way for a teacher, or principal, to think about the outcomes they want to achieve that school year. Barbara asks teachers to imagine it is the last day of school and that the year turned out to be their best ever. She then asks participants to draft an e-mail addressed to a colleague described everything that students accomplished, and ways the teacher supported student learning. Finally, she encourages people to share their letters with a colleague and to identify ways they can support one another so that this vision becomes a reality. At one school she had teachers put their letters into an envelope to be opened at the end of the school year.

You can learn more about Vision Letters in two books that Barbara and I wrote - Rigor in Your School: A Toolkit for Leaders and Rigorous Schools and Classrooms: Leading the Way. Both books have a whole collection of tools that principals can use with to build shared vision and promote collaboration.

Elevator Talk - An Advocacy Tool

There are times when you only have a brief opportunity to make a personal contact with someone, perhaps a key decision maker in your community or school district. There's an old adage that says "you only have one chance to make a good first impression." In those cases, you want to be prepared to share a personal story about your school or about an issue you care about.

These short, often no more than 30 seconds, stories are called "elevator talks" because they occur quickly, on the spur of the moment and don't last long. People tire quickly of tedious talk but they can be motivated to action by a short, engaging story about some event, some success, some person at your school. When I was a principal I quickly learned the importance of having a whole set of "elevator talks" that I could use when casually meeting parents or community members. The encounters were often in the aisles of a grocery store, in the parking lot after church, on the sidelines of a soccer game, in the stands at a basketball game or many other places. And it often started with a questions such as "how  are things going?" Each encounter provided a unique opportunity to share about my school.

Advocating for their school, for their students and staff, and for assuring that every child has an engaging academic experience is one of a principal's most important roles. And one of the most compelling ways to advocate is through the use of stories or short "elevator talks." I'd encourage you to develop your repertoire of stories and would enjoy hearing from you about your success advocating for your school.

A Force Field Analysis

I'm always looking for tools that can help teachers and principals think more deeply about an issue. My favorite tools are those that provide for solid analysis and provide an opportunity for people to work together during the analysis.

A Force Field Analysis is just such a tool and it allows a group to identify the factors working for an issue as well as those working again the issue (opposing forces). One of the benefits of the discussion is that it can help you plan for, or reduce, the impact of the opposing forces, and strengthen or reinforce the supporting forces.

Conducting a Force Field Analysis is pretty straightforward.

• First, state the problem or the desired state in clear, concrete terms. 
• Discuss and list the factors working for, and those working against, the desired state. 
• Review and clarify the items to make sure there isn't repetition and overlap. 
• Once there is agreement on the factors assign a score to each force from 1 (weak) to 5 (strong) or high, medium and low. 
• Finally, discuss the factors and their scores. This helps to identify next steps. 

The factors working against a plan often become the focus of a plan of action. This level of analysis can  help you, as a leader, set priorities and goals. Additional information about a Force Field Analysis is available here.

A Principal's Blog - Brag About Your School

One of a principal's most important roles is to advocate for their school. That includes sharing information with staff, students, families and community. Communication occurs in many ways but increasingly various forms of social media technology are used to spread the "good news" about your school.  One tool is a blog, basically a website that functions as an online journal. What's good about a blog is that you can control the content and make it what you want.

Partrick Larkin, 2012 NASSP Digital Principal, identified reasons for beginning a blog. Principals are generally pretty proud of their school. They want to share newsworthy things about students and co-curricular activities. They have great teachers who are doing great things in their classroom. And they want to improve communication with both families and community.  Once you begin your blog you can add a link from your school's website and you can share it with teachers and other staff. Here's a link to Larkin's article about how to get started. And here are some other examples of blogs maintained by school leaders.

• A Principal's Reflections - Eric Sheninger, New Milford HS (NJ) - http://esheninger.blogspot.com
• Learning in Burlington - Patrick Larkin, Burlington (MA) - http://LearningInBurlington.blogspot.com

I'd enjoy learning from you about how you communicate with families and community and what you think about starting a principal's blog.

Importance of Shared Vision

As another school year gets underway I'm reminded of how important the principal's vision is in setting the direction for their school. Often a vision is thought of as just words on paper, but a vision is a dynamic roadmap for strengthening a school. I often refer to it as a compass. A compass provides direction but can also help you to get back on track when events pull you away from your vision. A compass is always on target, pointing toward "true" north.

Here are four of my favorite resources on the importance of the principal's vision and how a principal can work with their faculty and community to create a shared vision.

• Southwest Educational Development Lab (SEDL) on the importance of vision. 
• Maryland Department of Education’s website on the importance of vision.  Read the material on the “Principal’s Role in Creating a Vision.” You may find the two exercises on identifying core beliefs and creating a shared vision useful as you develop your vision for your school. 
• Marzano Center - Setting the Direction for a School-Wide Vision 
• Association for Middle Level Education - Read an article that discusses Peter Senge's discussion of learning communities and building shared vision.

I'd enjoy learning about your personal vision for your school and how you work with your community to nurture and sustain that vision.

What Makes a Principal?

My current job at Eastern Michigan University is all about the preparation of school leaders. I really enjoy my work and watching students learn and grow. In my course on the principalship I'm often asked "what makes a principal?" I must admit that's a challenging question because I believe that leadership emerges when a principal has a clear vision for their school but at the same time recognizes the importance of developing shared vision; when a principal understands the importance of nurturing and developing teachers and other adults who work at their school; and when a principal has the skills to build consensus and help their school community chart a path forward that includes a "laser" like focus on improving the educational experience for students.

Now I'm not nieve. I understand there are a whole set of management duties and I recognize the political role of a school principal. But, I believe if these characteristics are present a principal can have a dramatically positive impact on their school.

I'm fascinated by the complex interplay between the personal characteristics of individuals and the contextual present in a school community. I recently read an article from 2009 from Educational Leadership that described three important roles of a principal---becoming an effective consultant to help identify actionable strategies for teachers; a mediator and consensus builder to facilitate and coach individual colleagues and groups; and a person who values relationships.

I'd enjoy hearing from you about what you think "makes a principal."

Beginning the School Year - Part 2

The start of another school year is rapidly approaching. When I was a principal I began every year with lots of anticipation and a little bit of anxiety. I always focused on assuring that my school was a welcoming place for students, families and staff. And I was always looking for new ideas for how to get the year off to a good start.

This week I was searching for some resources for a friend and found this blog post from The Connected Principal. It provides 15 great ideas for new principals but as I read them I found them to be helpful for experienced principals as well. So, I want to share them and hope you find them helpful.

As always I would welcome your feedback and thoughts about other tips you have for the beginning of the school year.

Beginning the School Year - Part 1

The start of every school year is filled with the promise of a new beginning and more than a little nervous anticipation. Every year, whether a teacher or a principal, I had a restless night just before the year began. A principal's job is two-fold. You must help everyone feel safe and secure as they anticipate and begin the year and you set a tone that reflects your vision for your school. It's sort of Leadership 101---what the principal does and pays attention to becomes important.

The tone of beginning activities and the signals they send about the tenor and tone of your school are important signals about what you value. One Michigan high school welcomes new ninth-graders by lining the hallways with teachers, staff and tenth, eleventh and twelfth graders. Everyone applauds as the new students arrive. Another school takes photos of new students during registration and then posts the photos along with a little biographical information in the main entrance to the school.

Of course, don't forget to plan opening day activities to support both parents and students. Have lots of helpful adults available to assist students and their families locate classrooms, lockers and other facilities. Have plenty of directional signs, clearly posted in the languages of your student population. And have every student assigned to a classroom and a teacher. One of a parents worst nightmares is to site in the office on the first day of school feeling like they don't really belong. Finally, encourage everyone to smile. For anyone walking in the door it sends a powerful, welcoming signal.

I'd enjoy hearing from you about how you begin the school year so that students and families feel welcomed.

Summer Hiring

Summer always includes unexpected personnel changes. Teachers transfer, they move or may take another position. Finding the right people can occasionally be a challenge. When I was a principal I once conducted an interview with a teacher who called from a phone booth in a campground. It was a great interview and I ultimately offered her a job but it certainly was one of the most unique interviews in which I've participated.

Hiring is often guided by district policy but there are some important things you will want to consider. First, develop your selection criteria. Each criterion should be relevant to the work. Differentiate between the skills or characteristics that are required and those that are simply desirable.

Second, create and use a set of standard interview questions. They should be linked to your criteria but open-ended enough so that they provide in-depth information about the candidates. Principals I've worked with have suggested these examples because they don't lend themselves to a single answer and allow you to assess how the candidate responds.

• What do you see as your strengths and how will they help you in this position?
• As you think about your past work experience, what has been your biggest challenge?
• Talk with me about the things you consider when designing a lesson.
• When you're teaching a lesson how do you monitor whether students are learning?
• Imagine you were hired for this position and it is a year later. What was the best part of your first year and what was your biggest challenge?

Finally, follow the same process for every one you interview. Even when you realize early in the interview that a person is not the best fit for the job, you need to respect the candidate and finish the interview. Otherwise they can suggest that they were not given an equal opportunity to share their background and skills.

I also like to send everyone who interviewed a short written note thanking them for applying and considering my school. Even if the person is not a fit for a particular job they might be right for another position in the future.

Schools are basically people places. So it is important to hire the right people and nurture talented employees so that they feel part of the school. That can begin during the interview and hiring process. Asking about student learning and professional growth sends a signal about their importance to you.

I'd enjoy learning from you about your experience with hiring and look forward to hearing from you.

Staring Down Poverty

I recently read a report about the increasing number of school-age children who are raised in poverty. It's a real national problem and we know that students from families in poverty often struggle in school. They're more likely to be absent, more likely to change schools, and more likely to lack the materials and other resources necessary for school success.

The May issue of ASCD's Educational Leadership looks at the issue of poverty and provides useful strategies for teachers and principals to assure that students from families in poverty are successful in school. One of my favorite articles is written by a friend, Carol Ann Tomlinson, from the University of Virginia. Carol is best known for her work on differentiated instruction but in this article discusses her experience with poverty. She identifies the personal beliefs and attitudes that are present when educators help students from poor families create a better future for themselves. She describes it as "staring down poverty" and I find it a powerful way to describe the work.

I'd enjoy hearing from you about your response to Carol's suggestions and what you've learned about how to support students from poverty so that they are successful in school.