Education improvement tips

School Improvement Articles

1: "REMEDIES" 21st Century Approaches for Fixing Education

My article, "REMEDIES" 21st Century Approaches for Fixing Education introduces the reader to my personal recommendations for reforming the preschool and K-4 education system in the United States.

2: It's About the Quality, not Grades!

This article explores how the focus and emphasis for education must be on the quality of instruction, not grades. Grades are the outcome of specific benchmarks set by schools and teachers to encourage children to learn.

3: Education Reform for the Next Generation

In seeking to educate our young people, the educational community has failed to understand the significant changes; both cultural and linguistic, that have occurred in the last 10 years. We are no longer educating students who speak the same language we and our parents do. They have never “dialed” a phone number. They have never bought an “album”. When we read what they write, it is foreign to us “OMG, my BFF and my MS are 2tr WTF!” Is it any wonder that we have lowering test scores and a shrinking educational staff? What follows are a series of possible solutions to reach out to our now alienated youth to make a connection to their real need for education.

4: New book explains the crisis in the public schools, and how we fix it

I’ve been writing about education more than 25 years. It’s been a fascinating but puzzling journey. So much in education is counterintuitive. We would expect that there are quicker, more pleasan

5: THE REAL REASON TO TEACH

Retiring educator of thirty years describes his perspective of the state of education today and what the real focus should be for the future.

6: Anti-Bullying Skills and Techniques for Children

Anti-Bullying Skills and Techniques for Children


Bullying is a big problem in our schools today. However, bullying has always been a problem. The main differences between bullying today from the past are the nature of the bullying and the violence that occurs in the aftermath. Cyberbullying is becoming a popular and more destructive form of bullying than traditional bullying. More children today are bringing guns to school to seek revenge on others. Bullying has been around and will probably remain for years to come. Not only was I bullied as a child, but I continue to get bullied today as an adult. I do not believe that we have the power to rid the world of bullying. I believe the answer to the issue of bullying rests with all of us, especially the victims of bullying. I am not suggesting that victims of bullying are responsible for bullying. On the contrary, what I am suggesting is that victims of bullying have the power in themselves to think, behave, and react in ways that limits or eradicates bullying. As a society, we spend too much of our energy identifying and punishing the bully that we fail to spend enough time empowering the victims of bullying. We should spend more of our energy on the things that we can control rather than the things we have limited or no control over. We need to teach children about the power that they already possess. Let me elaborate on a few issues that parents should teach their children regarding the issue of bullying.

7: Designing a Communications Plan for Effective School Leadership

Communications Plan Want to develop a plan for communicating with your staff using a variety of methods? Interested in looking for a way to maximize your limited resources of time and energy to create an optimal school climate where communication is NOT your number one stumbling block? I have composed a “why and how to design” a plan, what key elements need to be considered in the plan design, and the different audiences and classifications of information that needs to be communicated. The work here has two components; the first takes a look at the semantics and systematic development of a communication plan. The second component is the direct application and transfer of plan development to the communication needs of the school setting.

8: Single Gender Education--Administrators, take a lesson

Let’s take a lesson from the results of the single sex California Pilot program or even from the ill-fated attempt by Georgia’s Greene County to implement a single sex initiative. Si

9: Why We Need a Teacher Liberation Front

Here’s a modest proposal: teachers should recall that their first loyalty is to children and parents, not the elite educators who manage the system. As I’ll show, these people are often indiffere

10: Moral and Values-Based Leadership

Criticism of public education today may be due, in part, to technological advances outpacing the ability of schools to compete and the ensuing ‘erosion of traditional authority;’ past successes leading to more educated, critical, and vocal complainants; a pervasive doubt that true change and improvement can be made; and a certain level of ignorance regarding the true state of performance compared to past performance of our educational system (Schlecty, 2001, p. 21).