Is Jeff Bliss a Rotten Apple or a Gold Star?

Reblogged from The Internaut:

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On Monday, an incident occurred between a student and teacher in a social studies class at Duncanville High School in Dallas, Texas.  The incident was caught on video, posted on YouTube, and quickly went viral with 3 million views:

Now that you've seen the clip, you'll notice why I described the above video as an "incident."  It's because words such as "argument" and "fight" don't really accurately reflect what happened. 

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Devious Political Tactics: Mis- and Disinformation

by Rick Brenner

Practitioners of workplace politics intent on gaining unfair advantage sometimes use misinformation, disinformation, and other information-related tactics. Here’s a short catalog of techniques to watch for. READ MORE….

REBLOGGED FROM: Point Lookout – Chaco Canyon Consulting

Richard Brenner

Chaco Canyon Consulting
700 Huron Avenue, Suite 11J
Cambridge MA, 02138Phone: (617) 491-6289
Toll-free: (866) 378-5470 in the continental US
Fax: (617) 395-2628
Email: rbrenner@ChacoCanyon.com

Advantages of Conflict At Work

Reblogged from Practical Practice Management:

Conflict in itself is neither good nor bad, it is just conflict.  It is how people handle the conflict that will determine if it leads to a positive or negative outcome.

Conflict is bound to happen at work.  We have our own ideas and personalities that play into our everyday encounters with our co-workers, and at times they may conflict.

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What we can learn from the rise and fall of Michelle Rhee

by Jason Stanford on April 17,2013

At some point, we need to stop believing in miracles, at least in education. While we’re still getting over the RICO indictments handed down in the Atlanta cheating scandal comes the revelation that the success Michelle Rhee achieved as the “no excuses” superintendent of Washington, D.C.’s public schools was the product of massive cheating.  READ MORE…

Taking the Dread Out of Performance Reviews

Reblogged from The Hot Toddy: On Living Fully & Leading Well:

When it comes to performance reviews, there are two absolute truths for every organization:

1. No manager wants to write it or give it.

2. Every employee wants feedback.

It it the balancing of these two truths that I find plagues most organizations that I serve. Managers dread performance reviews because they take up an inordinate amount of time to write and give thoroughly, and the potential legal liabilities surrounding the written review can make the task all the more taxing because of the need to cross every "t" and dot every "i" in the review.

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"I Don't Trust You": Ending Employee Policies That Communicate Distrust

Reblogged from The Hot Toddy: On Living Fully & Leading Well:

Bloomberg Businessweek posted an article today here by Liz Ryan that sarcastically expresses in actual language what so many management policies communicate through their origination and enforcement: We don't trust you. From blocking employee access to the Internet, to penalties and fines, companies often build elaborate policies and punishments that all add up to one message to employees: We hired you, but we don't trust you.

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The First Race to the Top

Opinion

By WILLIAM J. REESE

Published: April 20, 2013

FOR the nearly 50 million students enrolled in America’s public schools, tests are everywhere, whether prepared by classroom teachers or by the ubiquitous testing industry. Central to school accountability, they assume familiar shapes and forms. Multiple choice. Essay. Aptitude. Achievement. NAEP, ACT, SAT.

To teachers everywhere, the message is clear: Raise test scores. No excuses. The stakes are very high, as the many cheating scandals unfolding nationally reveal, including most spectacularly the recent indictment of 35 educators in Atlanta.

But we should also be wondering, where did all this begin? It turns out that the race to the top has a lot of history behind it.  READ MORE…..

Building and sustaining trust

Reblogged from Higher EDge:

Trust is an essential ingredient in successful workplaces.  When I’m working with a team that has high mutual trust we work more smoothly, more quickly, and toward better results.  Equally important, when things don’t go as hoped, a high-trust team is more easily able to learn from the experience and move forward.

One of the challenges for leaders is how to build and sustain trust. 

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Suffocating in Data

Reblogged from Hubbell's eMusing:

Metric myopia and benchmark blindness may unconsciously result in not only an explosion of data, but becoming so suffocated by the volume that one fails to translate it fully into information, then into knowledge, and ultimately into the wisdom which true adaptive capacity requires. Zolli and Healy applaud the wide use of data, believing that resilience benefits accrue to organizations that prioritize the collection, collation, presentation, and sharing of data (emphasis added).1 Data transparency and sharing are key to renewal and transformation—aka, resilience—of systems.

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Running Records on the iPad

Reblogged from iTeach with iPads:

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Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.-Harry S. Truman

Powerful teaching happens when teachers take information gained from observations and assessments of children's literacy development into consideration when planning instruction.  Since observations can be subjective, it is important to include data from more formal observations as well.

We use running records as assessment tools to assess students literacy progress. 

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