Rebeckah Winans is the Principal of Fuller Elementary School in Tempe, Arizona. She is an active member of the NIUSI-LeadScape community of inclusive school principals, as well as a founding member of the Urban Professional Learning Schools Initiative to develop effective, dually-certified teachers to work in culturally responsive, urban school communities.

Ever walk into a classroom during a walkthrough or walk-by and immediately felt compelled to sit down?  A masterful teacher has just engaged you!  You already know the content; you can even guess what sub-objectives are about to be laid out in front of you – but because of the strategies being demonstrated– you must participate.  This is rigorous learning; urgency at its best – and this is what professional developers must use to change teaching.

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Carol Christine recently retired from her position as Clinical Associate Professor and Associate Division Director in the Division of Curriculum and Instruction in the Mary Lou Fulton College of Education at Arizona State University. She earned her Ph.D. in Language, Reading, and Culture at the University of Arizona in 1997. She worked in teacher education, primarily with faculty in preservice teacher education, from 1997 – 2009 at ASU. She was a founding member and Program Director of The Center for Establishing Dialogue in Teaching and Learning, a not-for-profit organization of teachers and schools, established in the Phoenix area in 1986. She has served as a member of the Board of Directors of Prospect Center since 1998. This work in Phoenix is described in a forthcoming publication from Teachers College Press, Jenny’s Story: Prospect’s Philosophy in Action by Patricia F. Carini and Margaret Himley — with Carol Christine, Cecilia Espinosa, and Julia Fournier.

Speaking of Children . . .

No matter what class I am teaching, at some time during the term I ask, “What is education for?” because I think the teachers who consider this question will look at the relationship they have with the other participants in the room accordingly. Is the purpose of education to prepare children for the work force or to be good citizens or is education for the personal growth and development of the individual? Or are all these interwoven? I want teachers to be aware of how different perspectives on the purpose of education influence curriculum, the role of teachers in classrooms, and how teaching and learning are assessed.
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Joellen Killion is the deputy executive director of the National Staff Development Council. She is the author of numerous books and articles about effective professional learning, evaluating professional development, coaching, and teacher leadership.

Whose child is this?

As I walked down the hall of the bustling middle school with young people scurrying through the halls dashing from room to room to get to their next class, I heard a female adult voice rise above the din call out, “Whose child is this?” Puzzled, I turned toward the voice to see an adult standing next to a thin, perhaps 6^th grade, student. The adult had a firm grip on the backpack strap that hung loosely from the young man’s back. Around the pair students flowed like water around rocks in a stream going about their business of getting to their next class.
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LeadScape principals are looking forward to the 2009 LeadScape Summer Institute, July 14-17 in Washington, DC. This year our professional learning activities focus on creating classroom practices that involve ALL children in learning, including examining issues of power and privilege, cultural responsive literacy, and creating resilient classrooms. Special guest Beth Doll will show how to create class maps to help improve relationships and outcomes using student and teacher input. Some of our principals will also have the opportunity to meet with their local Congressional representatives!

Register for the Equity Alliance at ASU’s Webinar, Building Inclusive Schools! Education that achieves equitable access, participation, and outcomes for all students involves much more than simply placing all students in the general education classroom and exposing them to curriculum designed for so-called typical students. Instead, inclusive education is grounded in the belief that there is no typical student, and is achieved by creating schools where curriculum, instruction, and assessment are universally designed for all students’ learning, and build upon their wonderfully varied backgrounds, experiences, interests, and learning styles. This one-hour webinar will present the multiple levels at which schools have to work to create inclusive learning communities and provide concrete suggestions and examples for doing so. Participants will be provided with activities to take and try in their own settings, so that they may engage others in learning about and creating inclusive schools where all students belong, are included, and are empowered.

The Building Inclusive Schools webinar will be on Thursday, May 28, 12 p.m. PST, 3 p.m. EST.

Dr. Carol Kindt, a founding member of our LeadScape community of inclusive school principals, has been selected as the new Senior Executive Director of Human Resources for Orange County Public Schools in Orlando, Florida. As principal of Chain of Lakes Middle School, Dr. Kindt has been transforming practices to support students of all backgrounds and abilities by focusing on rigor and relationships, including implementing Positive Behavioral Intervention Systems, training staff in effective strategies for English language learners, and continually increasing inclusive scheduling for students with disabilities. We applaud Orange County Public Schools’ excellent judgment in selecting Carol Kindt for this position, as she brings excellent understanding of how hiring talented staff members can help to create schools where all kids can be successful.

Whitney Oakley is the principal of Sylvan Elementary in the Alamance-Burlington School District in Snow Camp, North Carolina. She is member of the NIUSI-LeadScape community of inclusive school principals, transforming Sylvan’s practices to be equitable and inclusive of all students. Whitney’s current initiatives focus on meeting the needs of Sylvan’s changing population, with increasing numbers of culturally and linguistically diverse students and families struggling in the current economic downturn. This blog is a direct response to Dr. Randy Bomer’s discussion of Leadership in the interest of economically disadvantaged students.

As a principal of an elementary school with steadily increasing numbers of economically disadvantaged students, I have seen a shift in focus on academic as well as systemic strategies in our approach to student success. Randy Bomer’s discussion of deficit perspective is well-taken as political issues surrounding school performance have highlighted the fact that schools are struggling to achieve adequate progress within the economically disadvantaged subgroup. In a position as a school leader, I have acknowledged perplexities surrounding students that fall within this category including, student identity, priorities, and the role of the school itself.

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Sherman Dorn is a Professor of Education and an historian at the University of South Florida. His published work has included histories of debates over dropping out, dropout policies, special education, funding equalization in Florida, and high-stakes accountability.

Principals are more likely to keep their faculty focused on student learning if they can shift the everyday conversation in their schools away from assessment as testing students and towards talking about assessment as testing instructional decisions. It is very hard to change our historical uses of “student testing,” but principals have the power to do so in their own schools.

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Mica Pollock is an Associate Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Building on her experience investigating claims of discrimination in schools at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, Dr. Pollock studies how youth and adults struggle daily to discuss and address issues of racial difference, discrimination, and fairness in school and community settings.

A fundamental debate erupts whenever U.S. educators discuss “achievement gaps.” Do educators’ everyday actions really contribute that much to racial disparities? Or are such disparities caused by parents, by peers, by “society,” by “poverty,” by children themselves?

We need to get much better at discussing this issue in education. As I have shown in my research, simplistic debate over who is “to blame” for “achievement gaps” often keeps us from adequately serving children of color in particular. For example, when people argue that disparities are caused solely by particular players (e.g., “parents”), they miss out on potential collaborations that would support student success. When people relentlessly blame actors other than themselves for student outcomes, they fail to figure out which of their own actions might assist children better.

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Dr. Sally Nathenson-Mejía is an Associate Professor in the Literacy, Language and Culturally Responsive Teaching program at the University of Colorado Denver’s School of Education & Human Development. Her research in secondary education for English learners is conducted in collaboration with a team of professors and educators working on two National Professional Development grants. Her research in the field of K-5 English learners’ literacy development is conducted in collaboration with teachers and administrators in the Denver metropolitan area. Dr. Nathenson-Mejia is co-author, with Dr. Maria Uribe, of the book Literacy Essentials for English Language Learners (2008). Together they are researching building-wide literacy initiatives for schools with high English learner populations. She presents and does workshops nationally on K-5 English learners’ literacy development and instructional implications.

In this space, over the past several months, educators have discussed how we must attend to the needs of English language learners and to the professional development models we are using to build capacity among teachers for working with ELL students. I would like to build on the ideas and knowledge of previous contributors by discussing efforts we are making at the University of Colorado Denver to address both of these concerns.

What is the relationship between Professional Development and student engagement/achievement?

“…students’ achievement will not improve unless and until we create schools and districts where all educators are learning how to significantly improve their skills as teachers and as instructional leaders” (Wagner et al, 2006, pg. 23).

As university faculty who specialize in teaching English learners and providing professional development for teachers, we get excited about the prospect of working with districts to help all educators improve. We want to be involved with school administrators and teachers as they find ways to impact the engagement and achievement of ELL students. It is this excitement that led us to the work we are doing with two Colorado districts that have high populations of English learners.

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