Happy Mother’s Day to those of you who celebrate it. It’s an odd holiday; as I learned from Wikepedia this morning, the woman who campaigned for Mother’s Day to become a national holiday, Anna Jarvis, was later appalled at how commercial it became, and campaigned to have it de-recognized. Plus it’s complicated for other [...]
Hello, I hope this finds you well. This Coaching Letter is about Acceleration, with a capital A, which has taken on much greater significance since we (the Center) started advocating that districts adopt a particular approach to schooling that encompassed prioritized content, challenging and scaffolded tasks, formative assessment, and self-efficacy. This Coaching Letter is [...]
Hi, I hope you’re doing well. Richard and I had an article published in the Kappan this month and Josh Starr took that opportunity to advertise the Coaching Letter; and I also had an article published in ASCD Express; and I think many of you took the suggestion in the last Coaching Letter to pass on the link to [...]
Hello, I hope this finds you well. It is cold, dull and rainy where I am. I don’t know why I write about the weather so much; I guess it’s because where I come from, the weather is an endless source of fascination. When I call my dad, I can rely on giving and [...]
Last Tuesday, eight people lost their lives in three Atlanta-area shootings. The victims’ names are Delania Ashley Yaun, Hyun Jung Grant, Soon Chung Park, Suncha Kim, Yong Ae Yue, Paul Andre Michels, Xiaojie Tan, and Daoyou Feng. Six of the victims were of Asian descent. This mass murder has captured media coverage, but violence [...]
We are three fourths of the way through the second Acceleration Workshop; Session 3, for which there were around 450 people registered, was on Tuesday. Our work on Acceleration has certainly garnered a lot of attention—in the last couple of weeks, we have been asked to present to several different groups, including superintendents, professional organizations, [...]
Events of the last year have many of us contemplating the future of public education. This is both healthy and necessary. A year into the pandemic, we’ve learned much about both technology and the centrality of schools in the lives of young people. But “returning to school” or “embracing instructional technology” in a post-COVID world [...]
Friends, I hope this finds you well. I am working to get ready for two workshops in March—Acceleration and Coaching for Equity—so I wanted to publish a Coaching Letter before March starts, because I’m not sure I will have time to write much during the next few weeks. I am both excited and daunted—hundreds of [...]
Hello, I hope you’re having a quiet, restful weekend. The view out my window is great right now: snow on the ground and along the branches, low winter sun, very Breughel. This Coaching Letter is ostensibly about the projects that I’m working on at the moment—because they are large and overwhelming and I can’t think [...]
In Memoriam: Richard F. Elmore (1953-2021) Last Wednesday, the field of education lost one of its most energetic champions as well as one of its most insightful and constructive critics. Richard F. Elmore, retired professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, passed away last week, leaving behind a rich and lasting legacy. Among his [...]