The following is a list of recent resources for those focused on the professional improvement of teachers, principals, and other educational leaders.
Registration for the 2016 NNSTOY Annual Conference is now open to all educators! “Teachers Leading: Bridging Theory of Practice” is the theme of our conference, which will be held July 11-14, 2016, at the Loews Chicago O’Hare Hotel. Registration is now open for the conference.
Aspen Education & Society Program: public event to discuss Teacher Evaluation and Support Systems: A Roadmap for Improvement, a new report that provides recommendations on how states can continuously improve their teacher evaluation systems. The event will feature a panel of practitioners and state and district leaders who will explore these recommendations, offer their views on how teacher evaluation systems may take shape in the future, and take questions from the audience. The The event is on Friday, March 18. Learn more about attending the event in Washington, D.C., or view the livestream online.
Caring Leadership in Schools: Findings From Exploratory Analyses: This article (1) analyzes and synthesizes literatures from philosophy and education to propose a conceptual framework for caring in schools and caring school leadership and (2) reports the results of an exploratory analysis of the relationship of caring principal leadership to school-level supports for student academic learning.
What Districts Know—and Need to Know—About Their Principals. This report highlights limitations of school district-level data on principals encountered during data collection for a study on principal preparation programs. The authors describe the importance of improving the accuracy and availability of these data to explore questions about how to find, support, and keep the best leaders, and include highlights from three districts that have developed comprehensive leader tracking systems. Also included are guiding questions and a checklist of data elements for districts to consider in addressing key questions to support finding, supporting, and keeping the best leaders. (Source: George W. Bush Institute and American Institutes for Research).
The Wallace Foundation announced the launch of a five-year, $47 million initiative to help universities improve how they prepare future principals, especially for the nation’s highest-need schools. The new University Preparation Program Initiative will fund the redesign of up to six university programs, which will be asked to carry out their efforts in partnership with school districts. Such collaborations are viewed by many educators as key to high-quality training for aspiring principals. Read additional coverage of the initiative announcement in The Washington Post and Education Week.
