Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

EmpowerU Secures Funding for National Launch of Tech-Powered Solution to Address Student Anxiety and Depression

EmpowerU today announced that the company has secured $1 million in seed funding to launch its highly personalized, tech-powered, social-emotional learning solution nationwide. The funding will fuel EmpowerU’s efforts to bring much-needed mental health support to students beyond Minnesota, where more than 1,000 students have already benefited with improved wellbeing, confidence, and hope.

This round of financing was led by Capita3, a Twin Cities venture firm with a focus on women-led organizations. Additional investment partners include ECMC and GreatNorth Labs.

A recent EdWeek survey indicated that 66% of high school principals are actively searching for effective solutions to battle the escalating levels of student anxiety, avoidance and depression. With EmpowerU, student growth happens one day at a time, one small step at a time through engaging, online skill-building lessons supported by daily 1:1 motivational coaching. This daily blend of support results in significant improvements in emotional wellbeing, school attendance, and grades, while decreasing the need for more costly interventions.…Read More

Study finds successes, challenges in shift to intensive principal preparation

A report released from the Illinois Education Research Council (IERC) at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, in partnership with the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research (UChicago Consortium), assesses the progress of sweeping legislation to redesign the way school principals in Illinois are prepared, with the goal of improving schools statewide through higher quality leadership. The report summarizes findings from a two-year study assessing the progress of these ambitious reforms and describing the changes that occurred as a result of the new policy.

“This in-depth look at principal preparation programs is the latest in our series of studies of Illinois’ school leadership and provides insights into the challenges programs face after major reforms and the innovative ways that they have navigated through these challenges,” says IERC Executive Director Janet K. Holt.

Illinois’ new principal preparation policy required universities across the state to shift from a general training model geared toward multiple school administrative positions to more targeted and selective principal-specific preparation beginning in the 2014-15 school year. As a result, the study finds that preparation programs experienced substantial, but not unexpected, declines in enrollment.…Read More

These 3 policy areas could help principals become more effective

New report details how state policymakers can help strengthen, support principals

principals-policyWhile school principals are often low priorities on state education policy agendas, a handful of states have taken steps to strengthen the role principals play in schools, according to a new report commissioned by the Wallace Foundation.

After analyzing how principals are supported and prioritized in a number of states, Paul Manna, professor of government and public policy at the College of William & Mary and the report’s author, suggests that those states’ actions focus on three areas in policymaking.

1. State leaders can move principals higher on policy agendas. Teachers typically have the larger share of agendas and professional development investments, according to the report. But when principals are elevated in state policy agendas, it can strengthen other state education efforts. “Numerous state education policy initiatives developed during the last two decades depend heavily on excellent principals for their success,” the report notes.…Read More

5 resources to help principals excel

This free web-based toolkit is based on years of research about principals’ practices

Principal-GuideSchool principals juggle a multitude of responsibilities each day, as they attempt to balance building-level tasks with administrative and district-level duties.

Now, school leaders have access to a free online learning guide, based on research about principals’ best practices, to help them strengthen their skills and leadership.

Launched by Learning Forward, a professional learning association, the online learning guide pairs excerpts from the PBS documentary, The Principal Story, with educational leadership research from The Wallace Foundation.…Read More

Here’s why great principals matter

Effective principals reach all corners of education

principal-leadershipStrong leadership is essential to any school’s success, and school principals play a vital role in ensuring teachers and students are successful in the classroom.

With strong and flexible leadership, teachers say they feel they have freedom to explore new teaching techniques and approaches.

Principals who foster positive school cultures see the returns of such efforts in student achievement, engagement, and teacher satisfaction.…Read More

4 steps for supporting, strengthening principals

A number of actions can bolster school principals and set them up for success

principal-stepsEnsuring that principals are prepared for success via access to resources, solid evaluation systems, and other measures will lead to successful teachers and students, according to a new report from the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit institution that aims improve policy and decision-making through research and analysis.

Laying the Foundation for Successful School Leadership offers four recommendations to build a foundation that will support school leaders.

“It’s widely known that teachers influence student achievement more than any other aspect of schools,” said Susan Gates, a senior economist and director of the Kauffman-RAND Institute for Entrepreneurship Public Policy. Gates co-authored the report along with Laura Hamilton, a senior RAND behavioral scientist specializing in teacher and principal evaluation, educational assessment, and accountability, and other RAND researchers. “Research focuses a lot on teachers, but far less on school principals—but actions of principals directly influence teachers. One effective principal can promote the improvement of dozens of effective teachers. One terrible principal can drive dozens of talented teachers to leave the field.”…Read More

Six districts get creative to find the principals of their dreams

At a time when the job of principal has become more demanding and less attractive to some aspiring leaders, a new report details how six urban districts are training and retaining school leadership talent.

“The importance of principals to lead education reform, such as the Common Core State Standards and teacher evaluation, has been documented in research and demonstrated in these six districts,” said Jody Spiro, The Wallace Foundation’s director of education leadership. “There is much that they can and should do to support principals, including setting high performance standards, ensuring that leaders are well prepared and supported.”

The report, “Building a Stronger Principalship: Six Districts Begin the Principal Pipeline Initiative,” is the first of several reports that are part of a multi-year evaluation conducted by Policy Studies Associates and the RAND Corporation.…Read More

Are you ready to be a school principal?

Effective school leaders involve themselves in all levels of a school’s operation.

Modeling excellence, building a team of dedicated educators, and instilling a sense of pride throughout the school community are all essential when it comes to establishing and maintaining a successful school culture, according to effective school principals.

“In my experience, it’s about people who are community builders…[who] have high expectations of themselves but also of others, where they believe that excellence is the standard,” said Jimmy Casas, principal of Iowa’s Bettendorf High School in the Bettendorf Community School District, during an edWeb webinar about how school administrators can prepare themselves to be effective school leaders.

“You can’t just talk about excellence—you have to model it, all the time, in behavior, decisions, and expectations of others,” he said.…Read More

School principals share keys to success

Five strategies can help school principals boost teacher confidence and student performance.

What does it take to be an effective school leader, and how can school principals best support teaching and learning in their buildings? A new video series, built around the Wallace Foundation’s “The School Principal as Leader: Guiding Schools to Better Teaching and Learning,” examines these questions and more, through the eyes of school principals around the country.

The Wallace Foundation Perspective focuses on five practices that, when “done really well,” make for effective school principals: shaping a vision of academic success for all students, creating a climate hospitable to education, cultivating leadership in others, improving instruction, and managing people, data, and processes to foster school improvement.

“After more than a decade of investment in school leadership, we can confirm the empirical link between school leadership and improved student achievement,” said Will Miller, president of the Wallace Foundation, when the report was released. “No longer seen as glorified managers of buildings and bus schedules, today’s principals must be their schools’ chief improvement officers, strengthening instruction, building a culture of high achievement, and marshaling the skills of other educators to boost student performance.”…Read More

‘Principal pipeline’ project targets six major districts

A new initiative will train effective school principals to determine if this boosts student achievement.

Six school districts will receive funding from a $75 million initiative that will help them develop a much larger corps of effective school principals and determine whether this improves student achievement across the districts, especially in the highest-need schools.

Based on 10 years of research, the Wallace Foundation, the nonprofit educational group spearheading the project, has identified four key parts of a “principal pipeline” that can develop and ensure the success of a sufficient number of school principals to meet district needs: rigorous job requirements, high-quality training, selective hiring, and on-the-job evaluation and support.

The six districts, which serve thousands of low-income students, are Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C.; Denver; Gwinnett County, Ga.; Hillsborough County, Fla.; New York City; and Prince George’s County, Md.…Read More