We're in the midst of an exciting time in education as schools are adjusting their trajectory to ensure they're future-ready. Educators are infusing creative programs and innovative teaching practices to move our schools forward. With a goal to push student thinking and advance teaching and learning, school leaders need to consider strategies to leverage innovation in their schools, including the development of meaningful professional learning through...

You've probably heard the advice "put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others." This is true both in airplanes and in classrooms-you have to take care of yourself before you can help someone else. If teachers are stressed out and exhausted, how can they have the patience, positive energy, and enthusiasm to provide the best instruction for students? Author Mike Anderson asked that question as a teacher himself, and the answers he found form...

In The Freedom to Fail, veteran educator Andrew K. Miller explains the many benefits of intentionally designing opportunities for students to "fail forward" in the classroom. He provides a raft of strategies for ensuring that students experience small, constructive failures as a means to greater achievement, and offers practical suggestions for ensuring that constructive failure doesn't detrimentally affect students' summative assessments. He also...

In this provocative and well-researched book, Alfie Kohn builds a powerful argument against "teaching to the test" in favor of more child-centered curriculums to raise lifelong learners. Drawing on stories from real classrooms and extensive research, Kohn shows parents, educators, and others how schools can help students explore ideas rather than just fill them with forgettable facts and prepare them for standardized tests. Here, at last, is a book...

"For generations, schools have aimed to introduce students to a broad range of topics through curriculum that ensure that they will at least have some acquaintance with most areas of human knowledge by the time they graduate. Yet such broad knowledge can't help but be somewhat superficial--and, as Kieran Egan argues, it omits a crucial aspect of true education: deep knowledge. Real education, Egan explains, consists of both general knowledge and...

Ninety-five propositions for creating more relevant, more caring schools There is a growing desire to reexamine education and learning. Educators use the phrase "school 2.0" to think about what schools will look like in the future. Moving beyond a basic examination of using technology for classroom instruction, “Building School 2.0: How to Create the Schools We Need” is a larger discussion of how education, learning, and our physical school spaces...

When Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin signed up for Teach for America right after college and found themselves utter failures in the classroom, they vowed to remake themselves into superior educators. They did that—and more. In their early twenties, by sheer force of talent and determination never to take no for an answer, they created a wildly successful fifth-grade experience that would grow into the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), which today...

"The author of Six Secrets of Change describes how and why the principal's role must change to maximize student achievementPrincipals are often called the second most crucial in-school influencers (after teachers) of student learning. But what should the principal do in order to maximize student achievement? One of the best-known leadership authors in education, Fullan explains why the answer lies neither in micro-managing instruction nor in autonomous...

Focus on the right things An education leader's job can seem overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be that way. Research shows that by spending time on just a few high-payoff strategies, leaders can bring about the meaningful change their schools and districts need. “High-Payoff Strategies” helps administrators lead successful change initiatives by focusing on the three top priorities identified by research and practitioners alike: fostering a...

"Clint Bolick and Kate J. Hardiman begin with a thought experiment: how would we structure a 21st-century K–12 school system if we were starting from scratch, attending to contemporary parental needs and harnessing the power of technology? Maintaining that the status quo is unacceptable, they take a forward-thinking look at how choice, competition, deregulation, and decentralization can create disruptive innovation and reform education for all students....