"The first priority for school leaders is to understand that problems cannot define a vision nor become its end point. Instead, they are opportunities to include stakeholders in formulating the vision." - Carmen Farina and Laura Kotch This updated edition of A School Leader's Guide to Excellence models exactly how current Chancellor of New York City Public Schools, Carmen Farina, and former Executive Director of Professional Development for the New York City Department of Education, Laura Kotch, transform struggling schools and make good schools great. Carmen and Laura "believe that conversations and collaboration work better than competition and isolation, and that excellence can be shared and replicated. The building blocks of what works well in one classroom or school can be exported to build consistency and community across classrooms and schools." Their plan shows precisely how to envision success and share your plan, collaborate inside your building and outside it to build the momentum for change then focus everyone's energy toward accomplishing even your highest goals.

This resource examines the Hierarchy of Instructional Excellence, which prioritizes the order of teacher development for ultimate success.

A laser-beam focus on improving instruction to improve learning If we want to change how students write, compute, and think, then teachers must transform the old “assign-and-assess” model into engaging, coherent, and rigorous instruction. The authors show school leaders how to make this happen amidst myriad distractions, initiatives, and interruptions. Unlike other books that stop at evaluating teachers and instruction, this work demonstrates how to grow schools’ instructional capacities with a three-step process that involves: Envisioning what good teaching looks like Measuring the quality of current instruction against this standard Working relentlessly to move the quality of instruction closer and closer to the ideal

Accurately report students’ academic strengths and weaknesses with standards-based grading. Rather than using traditional systems that incorporate nonacademic factors such as attendance and behavior, learn to assess and report student performance based on prioritized standards. You will discover reliable, practical methods for analyzing what students have learned and gain effective strategies for offering students feedback on their progress.

"Educational leaders are empowered by a 7-steps framework to move their schools and districts forward in a quest to create community consensus and build the professional capacity for preparing students for 21st century learning."--Book cover.

Ensure your school’s grading procedures are supportive of learning, accurate, meaningful, and consistent. Discover how the “seven essential Ps” can improve your effectiveness in supporting assessment and communicating student achievement. You will also learn how to avoid inaccurate grades caused by penalties for lateness or academic dishonesty; extra credit; group rather than individual work; and marking down for attendance.

Excellence Through Equity is an inspiring look at how real-world educators are creating schools where all students are able to thrive. In these schools, educators understand that equity is not about treating all children the same. They are deeply committed to ensuring that each student receives what he or she individually needs to develop their full potential and succeed. To help educators with what can at times be a difficult and challenging journey, Blankstein and Noguera frame the book with five guiding principles of Courageous Leadership: Getting to your core Making organizational meaning Ensuring constancy and consistency of purpose Facing the facts and your fears Building sustainable relationships. They further emphasize that the practices are grounded in three important areas of research that are too often disregarded: (1) child development, (2) neuroscience, and (3) environmental influences on child development and learning. You'll hear from Carol Corbett Burris, Michael Fullan, Marcus J. Newsome, Paul Reville, Susan Szachowicz, and other bold practitioners and visionary thinkers who share compelling and actionable ideas, strategies, and experiences for closing the achievement gap in your classrooms and school. Ensuring that all students receive an education that cultivates their talents and potential is in all our common interest. As Andy Hargreaves writes in the coda: "The opportunity for all Americans is to articulate and believe in an inspiring vision of educational change that is about what the next generation of America and Americans should become, not about a target or ranking that the nation should attain." From the Foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu: "Letting go of a system of winners and losers in favor of what is proposed in this book is a courageous leap forward that we all must take together. Let this bold, practical book be a guide; and may you travel into this new exciting vista, in which every child can succeed."