Teacher Leadership Today

TLN member receives PD Book of the Year Award

They're still NSDC to us (smile) but we're beginning to adjust to the new name of the National Staff Development Council: Learning Forward. At their annual conference in Atlanta this week, the professional development association honored TLN  charter member Bill Ferriter and co-author Parry Graham with their award for Staff Development Book of the Year.

Building a Professional Learning Community at Work: The First Year is — as Bill says in this blog post commenting on the award — "a practical book designed to support schools in their first year of PLC implementation by sharing stories, approachable research and a heaping cheeseload of handouts." And that's so true - the book is supported by 30 reproducibles that any teacher or principal can download free from the website. You don't even have to buy the book.

Bill, by the way, is a middle grades teacher in the Wake County (NC) Public Schools, where he and his principal Parry Graham led the development of a high-functioning professional learning community at newly opened Salem Middle School. The resulting book from Solution Tree (publisher of the DuFour series on PLCs) grows out of that authentic experience. Or, as Bill might say, it has cred. The folks at Learning Forward obviously thought so.

Triple-Blogging the Equation for Student Success

Our fellow Teacher Leaders Network member Heather Wolpert-Gawron has been writing for some time about what she calls the "Equation of Student Success" –  some simple but profound math that goes like this:

Family + Student + School + Policy = Student Success.

Heather currently blogs at three locations: Edutopia, The Huffington Post, and her own teacher blog TweenTeacher. This blogging trifecta recently provoked "this crazy idea" to address the various elements of her equation in posts at her various blogs.

She somehow managed to have all three go live at about the same time (no small feat since HP has to approve and post, on a secret schedule).

She instructs us to start at TweenTeacher with a post about the Top 10 Ways Teachers can Help Avoid Student Failure.

Embedded in the article are links to Edutopia's post which covers the "Top 10 Ways Students Can Avoid Their Own Failure" and to the Huffington Post article covering the "Top 10 Ways A Family Can Avoid Their Student's Failure." Each article includes links to the others, and each post ends in a call to action about what voters and policymakers can do to hold up their end of the equation.

Is there an EduBlog award for this? If not, how about next year?

Transforming School Conditions to Boost Achievement in Urban Schools

In a bold new report describing the conditions in many high-needs schools that interfere with student and  teacher success, 14 accomplished teachers are proposing a policy and practice framework they believe will move America beyond the achievement gap "blame game" toward meaningful and sustainable school reform.

Drawing on the latest research and their own experiences in urban schools across the nation, this TLN TeacherSolutions team has put together a dynamic blueprint that runs counter to the narrowly focused, test-driven reform strategies that currently control efforts to educate an increasingly diverse student population in undersupported schools.

 The report, Transforming School Conditions: Building Bridges to the Education System That Students and Teachers Deserve, is the product of more than a year of close study and debate, including virtual conversations with leading scholars representing a variety of perspectives. It is the latest in a series of TeacherSolutions reports supported by the Center for Teaching Quality that showcases reform proposals developed by outstanding teachers.

An e-magazine version of the report, with embedded video and audio commentary by the teachers, can be accessed here. Or download the PDF version here.

The teacher-authors include: Eldred “Jay” Bagley (Philadelphia); Glenda Blaisdell-Buck (Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC); Mitzi Durham (Clark County, NV); Larry Ferlazzo (Sacramento, CA); Brian K. Freeland, Jr. (Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC); Lori Fulton (Clark County, NV); Leona Bost Ingram (Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC); Kristoffer Kohl (Clark County, NV); Mona Madan (Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC); Kathie Marshall (Los Angeles); Delores Maxen (Charlotte- Mecklenburg, NC); Susan “Ernie” Rambo (Clark County, NV); Taylor Ross (Birmingham, AL); and Gamal Sherif (Philadelphia).