Authors William H. Parrett and Kathleen M. Budge, who work with high-poverty schools and have researched their success, share key elements of such schools' "transformational journeys." Even during the pandemic and its aftermath, some high-poverty schools have kept building their staff's capacity and confidence and gradually lifted…

High school instructional leaders describe how they reframed professional learning around autonomy with structured support. The new system, guided by trust and teacher inquiry, sparked innovation that proved critical during the pandemic.

Knight, an author and consultant, writes on the importance of protecting teachers' autonomy and discretion in instructional coaching arrangements in the face of schools' tendency to presume a need for greater top-down control. He describes how valuing autonomy can change how coaches and school leaders think about traditional elements of…

Group work doesn't have to be a classroom management headache. At Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, where collaboration is one of five core values, students regularly participate in group projects. To support productive group work, the staff uses several strategies: apply these strategies to your next group project to ensure students…

Drawing on their research in creating the Vibrant School Scale, Megan Tschannen-Moran and Davis Clement describe the three characteristics of vibrant schools: enlivened minds, emboldened voices, and playful learning. The authors also detail a four-step, strengths-based process called appreciative inquiry that can help school members have…

In addition to excelling in subjects such as science, math, arts, and social studies, students must also develop skills like resiliency, adaptability, and collaboration in order to truly succeed in the world. But how do schools effectively measure those skills when they so often rely on standardized assessments? This article provides a thorough…

The impact of accountability on U.S. schools, for good or ill, is a subject of debate and research. The authors recently studied an aspect of accountability that had previously received little attention. They asked, do accountability reforms affect public schools' ability to retain their teachers? By analyzing data from the Schools and Staffing…