The Alabama Literacy Act of 2019, a comprehensive approach to improving literacy, includes a provision that districts must provide summer reading camps for third grade students struggling with reading. Before the Literacy Act, state supports for summer learning were described as ad hoc. That changed when the state department set out to implement the new […]
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Much like elsewhere in the country, Utah Governor Spencer Cox and State Superintendent of Education Sydney Dickson announced school buildings would be closing due to the pandemic on Friday, March 13, 2020. By the following Tuesday, schools across Utah were ready to start delivering instruction online. This was largely due to the Digital Teaching and […]
Read More… from Changing Behavior at Scale in Utah to Expand the Use of Technology in the Classroom
The Connecticut State Department of Education used a portion of its federal pandemic relief funding to create a new program, Voice4Change, that empowered students to contribute ideas on how to improve education in the state. High school students could submit ideas for how they would spend $20,000 to address a challenge at their school. Approved […]
Read More… from Authentic Engagement Between the State Agency and Students in Connecticut
One of the key priorities for Missouri in its pandemic recovery efforts was to find ways to attract teachers into the profession and help retain high-quality educators. Using federal pandemic relief funding, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education created recruitment and retention grants for local education agencies, educator preparation programs and community colleges […]
Read More… from Building Focus and Coordination in Missouri to Address Teacher Shortages
Understanding the impact of the pandemic on students’ wellbeing, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) partnered with Lurie Children’s Hospital to launch the Resilience Education to Advance Community Healing (REACH) Statewide Initiative in December 2020. Using federal pandemic relief dollars, ISBE established regional hubs to implement REACH and train educators, school mental health professionals […]
Read More… from Cultivating Trusting Relationships in Illinois to Support Student Wellbeing
Gene Pinkard, Director, K-12 Leadership for the Aspen Institute Education & Society Program Think of a school principal. Depending on your age, you’re likely to conjure up Saved by the Bell’s Principal Belding, The Simpsons’ Principal Skinner, The Breakfast Club’s Dean Vernon or even Captain Underpants’ stodgy alter-ego. These characters are reliable comedic relief whose […]
Read More… from Coherent Central Systems and Rethinking the Principal Role
Victoria Ballerini and Dana Milakovic, Pennsylvania Department of Education The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) participated in the Coherence Lab Fellowship from 2020-2021. After the Fellowship, members of the PDE leadership team wanted to build the knowledge and skills of additional PDE team members to develop and sustain coherence and embarked in the Coherence Lab […]
Joselin Padron-Rasines, Consultant, Education First, & Sophie L. Ferrer, Principal, Education First The following blog synthesizes information first published in Education First’s report, Addressing Fragmentation in Public Education, which is the foundation of the Coherence Lab. Fragmentation in education is the lack of integration, coordination and collaboration that occurs within and across education organizations and […]
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Isabel Rahm, Director of Leadership Academy, Council of Chief State School Officers When the COVID-19 pandemic closed school buildings, there was a lot of fear and uncertainty. Education leaders across the country shifted into crisis response to ensure the health and safety of their students, and to get students and teachers set up for remote […]
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Dr. Debora Carrera, Executive Deputy Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Education, & Dr. Marva Kay Jones, Assistant Chief of Organizational Effectiveness, Ohio Department of Education There’s a deep motivation that grounds the work of teachers, principals, state superintendents and education officials at all levels: improving the learning experience of the students they serve. Yet, their ambition […]
Read More… from Coherence Reshaped the Pennsylvania and Ohio Departments of Education