Paris has some great schools. An American friend of mine lives near the Bastille with her French husband and two primary school-aged kids. She likes her kids’ school. But she still wants to move her family back to the US when they get to high school.
School leaders in the next few years are going to face seismic disruptions in every aspect of teaching and learning. Before accepting a leadership position, the mindful leader needs to gauge the likelihood the school will absorb disruptions or be permanently disrupted by technological change.
Team success is organizational success. Capacity to build and deploy effective teams has repeatedly been shown to be more important than individual skill, procedural clarity or even well-defined performance targets in improving organizational outcomes.
If opening the US to international entrepreneurs is the solution to economic growth, what does it mean for innovation in education?
Big new grants announced recently by the feds seek to remedy fears of over-testing students. The current political fight misses the big picture. There is plenty of reason for optimism in more testing.
Education needs to be untethered from measuring success based on how long students spend in a chair. But the same logic applies to people working in schools. Top talent values being allowed to work at a time, place, path and pace of their choosing. Schools need to remember to untether its employees as well as its students.
Big data offers the biggest hope for schools since the invention of the abacus. Taking a moment to let the mind wander through the possibilities is a visioning exercise well worth the time.