Quotes of the Week

“You have people saying the same two things to you all day long, which is, ‘Look what I did.’ And you say: ‘It’s really good. Do some more.’ Or they say, ‘He took my stuff.’ And you have to say, ‘Tell him to give it back.’
Nell Minow on similarities between being a mother and being a manager (see item #10)

“The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It’s not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it’s deliberate practice.”
David Brooks (see item #1)

“Public discussion is smitten by genetics and what we’re ‘hard-wired’ to do. And it’s true that genes place a leash on our capacities. But the brain is also phenomenally plastic. We construct ourselves through behavior… [I]t’s not who you are, it’s what you do.”
David Brooks (ibid.)

“Children advance when challenged just beyond their current level of mastery.”
National Association for the Education of Young Children report (see item #3)

“We’ve suspended him 12 times and there’s no change.”
A school administrator quoted by George Sugai (see item #5)

“Fidelity to a flawed program is not a virtue.”
Peter Dewitz, Jennifer Jones, and Susie Leahy on basal reading programs (see item #9)

Return to headlines

1. David Brooks on How Geniuses Are Made

In this thoughtful New York Times op-ed column, David Brooks contrasts the “romantic” view of genius – a “divine spark” in a few remarkable individuals like Mozart and Einstein – with the modern scientific view, which he says is “more prosaic, democratic, even puritanical” and “pierces the hocus-pocus.” According to Brooks, “What Mozart had… was the same thing Tiger Woods had – the ability to focus for long periods of time and a father intent on improving his skills. Mozart played a lot of piano at a very young age, so he got his 10,000 hours of practice in early and then he built from there… The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It’s not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it’s deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft.” Here is how Brooks describes the developmental trajectory of a highly accomplished writer:
• In childhood, verbal ability is slightly above average – just enough to gain some sense of distinction.
• The child happens to meet a writer with whom he or she shares some biographical traits and a sense of affinity – perhaps having the same birthday or coming from the same town or ethnic group. This gives the child “a glimpse of an enchanted circle” he or she might someday join.
• Brooks says an early loss like the death of a parent could have the effect of infusing “a profound sense of insecurity and fueling a desperate need for success.”
• With this ambition, the child reads novels and biographies, providing a core of knowledge in the field, creating mental groupings such as Victorian novels, Magical Realists, Renaissance poets, and so on. “This ability to place information into patterns, or chunks, vastly improves memory skills,” says Brooks, allowing the budding adolescent to “see new writing in deeper ways and quickly perceive its inner workings.”
• The next stage is focusing intently on technique, in this case, on getting better at writing through constant practice. “By practicing in this way,” says Brooks, “performers delay the automatizing process. The mind wants to turn deliberate, newly learned skills into unconscious, automatically performed skills. But the mind is sloppy and will settle for good enough. By practicing slowly, by breaking skills down into tiny parts and repeating, the strenuous student forces the brain to internalize a better pattern of performance.”
• At this point, it’s important for the maturing writer to have a mentor who provides a constant stream of feedback, correcting even the smallest errors and pushing tougher challenges. By now the writer is redoing problems dozens of times, ingraining habits of thought that will be crucial to understanding and solving future problems.
Brooks admits that this view of how genius develops “takes some of the magic out of great achievement,” but he believes we need to be redirected from the old, innate-ability paradigm. “Public discussion is smitten by genetics and what we’re ‘hard-wired’ to do,” he says. “And it’s true that genes place a leash on our capacities. But the brain is also phenomenally plastic. We construct ourselves through behavior… [I]t’s not who you are, it’s what you do.”

“Genius: The Modern View” by David Brooks in The New York Times, May 1, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/opinion/01brooks.html?scp=1&sq=Genius:%20The%20Modern%20View&st=cse
Brooks recommends two recent books on the development of genius: The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle and Talent Is Overrated by Geoff Colvin.

Return to headlines

2. Mike Schmoker on 21st-Century Learning

(Originally titled “Measuring What Matters”)
In this Educational Leadership article, author/consultant Mike Schmoker warns about the dark side of data use. “In many schools,” he writes, “it has morphed into an unintended obstacle to both effective instruction and an intellectually rich, forward-looking education.” At its worst, data-driven instruction comes down to rigid accountability formulas rather than preparing students from all backgrounds to be successful in college, the workplace, and our democracy. What are the key factors?
- Knowledge of essential content
- Reading, writing, and presentation skills
- Authentic intellectual skills
- Critical thinking and problem-solving
- Being able to argue and analyze others’ arguments
- Being able to conduct research
- Being able to invent and synthesize information.
College professors and business executives say that K-12 schools are not producing students with these attributes. Are schools too fixated on test scores and not working on the right stuff? Visiting schools with good reputations, Schmoker found poorly-designed lessons, aimless group activities, busywork, worksheets, and movies galore, with little emphasis on critical thinking, problem solving, reading, discussion, or writing. He thinks that the fact that these schools had decent test scores “created a ceiling on instructional improvement.”
Schmoker has found a better model. New York State’s Performance Standards Consortium is a group of 28 high schools exempted from all but one of the state’s Regents exams (English). Instead of doing test prep, students prepare four or more final projects:
- A literary analysis
- A science experiment and related research project
- An extended mathematics problem-solving project
- A research paper in social studies using argument and evidence.
Students read, think critically, write, discuss, do research, construct an argument, and present their work publicly. (See http://www.performanceassessment.org/performance/index.html).
Consortium schools track two data points: How many students are on track to successfully complete their major graduation projects, and students’ individual performance on key rubrics. This informs teachers’ conversations and PD, much of it taking place in teacher teams and focusing on what it will take to get students over the bar.
Quality control? Every summer, groups of teachers, college professors, and other professionals look at samples of student work from each school and provide feedback. One school, for example, was told that students’ writing was merely summative and didn’t contain enough analysis, which lit a fire under its PD for the next year.
And during each year, teacher teams meet regularly to compare student work to anchor papers and graduation requirements, and departments give interim assessments and use the results to fine-tune teaching and give students feedback on their status vis-à-vis graduation requirements.
Schmoker sees the New York consortium’s work as a model for what can happen K-12. His dream is liberating teachers from the obsession with test scores so they can truly educate students for the 21st century.

“Measuring What Matters” by Mike Schmoker in Educational Leadership, December 2008/January 2009 (Vol. 66, #4, p. 70-73); this article can be purchased at
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/dec08/vol66/num04/toc.aspx; Schmoker can be reached at schmoker@futureone.com.

Return to headlines

3. Preventing the Early Grades from Becoming an Academic Boot Camp

In this Harvard Education Letter article, education writer David McKay Wilson reports that high-stakes tests are leading many schools to displace play and developmentally appropriate practices in the primary grades with narrowed-down learning goals, scripted curriculum programs, and inappropriate expectations (for example, that all children know how to read upon entering first grade). Joan Almon of the Alliance for Childhood says that studies show teachers spending two or three hours a day “hammering in their lessons, with little time for play. The brain is eager to learn at this age, but the kids are more eager to learn from things they can touch and feel.”
Wilson quotes 12 principles of child development from a recent study by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC):
- All domains of development and learning – physical, social and emotional, and cognitive – are related.
- Children follow well-documented sequences to build knowledge.
- Children develop and learn at varying rates.
- Learning develops from the dynamic interaction of biological maturation and experience.
- Early childhood experiences can have profound effects, and optimal periods exist for certain types of development and learning.
- Development proceeds toward greater complexity and self-regulation.
- Children thrive with secure, consistent relationships with responsive adults.
- Multiple social and cultural contexts influence learning and development.
- Children learn in a variety of ways, so teachers need a range of strategies.
- Play helps develop self-regulation, language, cognition, and social competence.
- Children advance when challenged just beyond their current level of mastery.
- Children’s experiences shape their motivation, which in turn affects their learning.
The NAEYC report recommends that children play outside every day, have regular physical education classes, and use their large muscles regularly for balancing, running, jumping, and other vigorous activities.
Another study from the University of North Carolina, “Using Developmental Science to Transform Children’s Early School Experiences,” identifies four key factors for K-3 students:
- Self-regulation – This is often developed through play, through which children can learn to relate to peers and make decisions on their own.
- Secure attachment – Children make the most progress when they are able to cement secure, consistent relationships with responsive adults.
- Representational thought – This is the ability to use a word, gesture, or drawing to depict an idea.
- Memory – This is a crucial part of learning, and teachers can help students develop strategies for remembering what they have learned.
Sharon Ritchie, a co-author of this study, reports that the amount of classroom time devoted to hands-on projects drops from 136 minutes a day in pre-K classrooms to 16 minutes a day in kindergarten and 12 minutes for second and third graders. Developing enthusiasm for school and learning is crucial, says Ritchie: “You can walk into a classroom and see kids who by third grade are done with school. They are angry and feel school is not a fair place or a place that sees them as the individual that they are.”
Robert Pianta of the University of Virginia agrees on the importance of play time for young children, but has this caution: “It’s a misinterpretation to think that letting students loose for extended periods of time is going to automatically yield learning gains. This is particularly true for students struggling to self-regulate and communicate. Teachers need to engage with students and structure play experiences so they are optimally helpful.”

“Developmentally Appropriate Practice in the Age of Testing” by David McKay Wilson in Harvard Education Letter, May/June 2009 (Vol. 25, #3, p. 4-6);
http://www.edletter.org/current/index.shtml#ageoftesting

Return to headlines

4. “Warm Demanders” and “Compassionate Disciplinarians” in High School

In this article in Theory Into Practice, University of Virginia psychology professors Anne Gregory and Dewey Cornell say there is a false dichotomy between being tough and soft with high-school students, and advocate a middle ground. Zero-tolerance policies are not effective at deterring school violence and misbehavior, they say, and have a negative effect on students. The biggest problem is the lack of flexibility – administrators not being allowed to take into account each student’s individual circumstances. Gregory and Cornell liken the rigidly punitive nature of zero tolerance to authoritarian parenting, which is associated with a number of negative consequences for adolescents, including low social competence and high psychological distress.
Authoritative parents, on the other hand, balance enforcement of rules with emotional support, respect for autonomy, and responsiveness to individual circumstances. This approach is much more effective, say the authors. Why? “Adolescents need sufficient structure to feel safe, but not so much structure that they cannot exert their growing desire for independence and self-direction. They also want to feel supported, but not at the expense of their sense of autonomy and self-sufficiency.” Similarly, teachers who provide structure and support elicit more student cooperation, engagement, and achievement. Gregory and Cornell studied 296 Virginia high schools and found that authoritative schools were safer and more secure, with lower rates of student victimization, aggression, and theft, and had a more welcoming and less hostile peer culture.
What does school support look like? The school establishes positive student-teacher relationships, helps students with non-academic problems, and offers programs that are helpful. It can be measured by asking questions like these:
- Do all staff communicate to students that they care about them and want them to succeed?
- Can all students identify at least one adult in the school that they could turn to with a personal problem or concern?
- Are all students willing to seek help from an adult if there is a threat of violence?
- Do students have an opportunity to express their opinions and feel heard?
- Do all staff understand the need to be strict, fair, and consistent in their enforcement of school rules?
- Are rules and expectations communicated clearly throughout the school?
- Do students actually know the expectations for behavior and the consequences for violations?
- Do the consequences for violations seem fair and fit the seriousness of the offense?

“‘Tolerating’ Adolescent Needs: Moving Beyond Zero Tolerance Policies in High School” by Anne Gregory and Dewey Cornell in Theory Into Practice, Spring 2009 (Vol. 48, #2, p. 106-113); magazine information available at http://ehe.osu.edu/tip/. Gregory can be reached at agregory@virginia.edu.

Return to headlines

5. A Schoolwide Prevention Program for Student Behavior

In this Harvard Education Letter interview conducted by Mitch Bogen, University of Connecticut professor George Sugai describes the key features of Schoolwide Positive Behavioral Supports (PBS), a program that has been adopted by about 7,500 U.S. schools and has, according to Sugai, a solid research track record for improving student behavior and school climate in elementary and middle schools. Some highlights:
• Schoolwide PBS has three tiers: (a) All students are exposed to a formal social-skills curriculum that supports the academic mission of the school and is implemented in classrooms, public spaces, cafeteria, and buses; this gets about 70-80 percent of students on the right track; (b) Students who are not reached by the first tier (they have difficulty following directions, don’t participate appropriately in classrooms, need to be reminded over and over again to follow procedures, and repeatedly break rules) get additional, intensive social-skills instruction, cognitive-behavioral counseling, and conflict management, often in small groups; (c) Students who are still misbehaving get high levels of individualized contact and monitoring, for example, meeting one on one with a counselor or special-education teacher, getting frequent positive reinforcement, reminders, and prompts around desired behavior, or meeting with a mental health specialist who works with the student, family, and school staff. Students in all three tiers are helped with conflict management, bullying prevention, respect, and cooperative learning.
• Sugai cautions against labeling students (She’s third-tier). Instead, he suggests statements like this: “Timothy needs tier two supports because of noncompliant behavior.” The key is being descriptive and diagnostic; for example, a student might be doing well overall but have problems responding aggressively to teasing.
• Sugai says that most schools try to be proactive but end up spending inordinate amounts of time reacting to negative behaviors (Stop that! You’re not following my directions! Why aren’t you listening to me!) and hardly any time teaching positive behaviors. Adults’ anger escalates and eventually the offending student is removed from the classroom or the school. Most schools realize that removal isn’t effective. “We’ve suspended him 12 times and there’s no change,” they say.
• Zero-tolerance policies and making the discipline code stricter (One more time and you’re gone!) are not the solution, says Sugai – although, of course, the school needs to be safe and limits must be set. “The code of conduct is for students who have learned the rules and expectations and are basically doing OK socially,” he explains. “We argue that the code of conduct is really a screening tool for knowing which students need more than what is typically available.” Noncompliant students who are having trouble getting along with adults are highly resistant to threats from adults. “Being sent to the office is actually a way to get more peer and adult attention or get out of class,” says Sugai. “Suspension gives them ‘permission’ to go home to be with friends, watch TV, or play computer games.”
• To implement Schoolwide PBS successfully, Sugai recommends a systematic approach:
- Setting up a leadership team with the principal, grade-level staff, specialists, non-classroom staff (e.g., a bus driver and cafeteria worker), and a parent.
- Coming up with a common purpose statement and articulating a short list of values, skills, and expectations for everyone, e.g., respect, responsibility, safety, cooperation, and problem solving.
- Teaching these positive behaviors as seriously as reading, math, or music; elementary students need role-playing, middle-school students need practice, and high-school students need discussion.
- Publicly recognizing students who are behaving well, including “positive office referrals.”
- Publicizing a continuum of consequences for rule violations in a discipline handbook.
- Monitoring discipline referral rates to see if they go down as the new policy is implemented. It’s also helpful to gather survey data to see how students, staff, and parents perceive the policy.

“Beyond the Discipline Handbook – A Conversation with George Sugai” by Mitch Bogen in Harvard Education Letter, May/June 2009 (Vol. 25, #3, p. 8, 6), available for purchase at
http://www.edletter.org/current/index.shtml#sugai (scroll down)

Return to headlines

6. The Value of a Comprehensive School Climate Survey

(Originally titled “The Challenge of Assessing School Climate”)
“Common sense tells us that students who feel safe, connected, and engaged in school are more likely to learn well,” say Jonathan Cohen, Terry Pickeral, and Molly McCloskey in this Educational Leadership article. A healthy school climate also promotes teacher retention, an important factor in student achievement.
But what exactly is school climate, and how can it be measured? The authors suggest doing a comprehensive survey such as one developed by the Center for Social and Emotional Education (CSEE), available at http://www.csee.net/climate/csciassessment. Its key points:
• Safety
- Rules and norms: Are there clearly communicated rules about physical violence and verbal abuse and clear and consistent enforcement?
- Physical safety: Do students and adults feel safe from physical harm in the school?
- Social and emotional security: Do students feel safe from verbal abuse, teasing, and exclusion?
• Teaching and Learning
- Teaching: Are supportive practices in place, including constructive feedback and encouragement for positive risk-taking, academic challenge, individual attention, and opportunities to demonstrate knowledge and skills in a variety of ways?
- Social and civic learning: Is there support for the development of social and civic knowledge and skills, including effective listening, conflict resolution, reflection and responsibility, and ethical decision making?
• Interpersonal relationships
- Respect for diversity: Is there mutual respect for individual differences at all levels of the school – student-student, adult-student, and adult-adult?
- Social support, adults: Are there collaborative and trusting relationships among adults and support for students in terms of expectations for success, willingness to listen, and personal concern?
- Social support, students: Is there a network of peer relationships for academic and personal support?
• Institutional environment
- School connectedness and engagement: Do students have a positive identification with school, a sense of belonging? Are there norms for broad participation in school life for students and families?
- Physical surroundings: Are there adequate resources and materials, and is the facility clean, orderly, and appealing?

Gathering data on these criteria (in a written or online survey, focus groups, interviews, etc.) can provide baseline data on how healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged students are. The information can be used to:
- Guide school improvement efforts; discrepancies between the perceptions of different groups can be especially informative (for example, staff and parents think bullying is not a serious problem but students say it is).
- Supporting shared leadership and learning – Data like this can involve key staff members in discussion, further research, goal setting, and action planning; it’s especially helpful when students get involved in the assessment and analysis.
- Promoting school-family-community partnerships – Sharing and discussing school climate data can bring parents and community members into the improvement effort, with the school taking a humble posture about the areas that need work.

“The Challenge of Assessing School Climate” by Jonathan Cohen, Terry Pickeral, and Molly McCloskey in Educational Leadership, December 2008/January 2009 (Vol. 66, #4, online only) http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/dec08/vol66/num04/toc.aspx
The authors can be reached at jonathancohen@csee.net, t.pickeral@comcast.net, and mmccloskey@ascd.org.

Return to headlines

7. Should Schools Teach Empathy?

In this letter to the editor of the New York Times responding to an article on teaching empathy in middle schools (see link below), Alicia Ramirez of Chicago agrees that the social scene at this age level can be “harsh, hyper-critical, and sometimes just plain mean,” but disagrees with explicit teaching of social skills. “Children of that age group should be allowed to like or dislike whomever they please,” she writes, “and simply because another child is excluded does not mean that he or she is being bullied. It could very well mean that the excluded child does not have the social skills necessary to make or keep friends… By forcing children to merely ‘get along’ with everyone for the sake of empathy, the school could be doing just the opposite. It could be instilling resentment for higher authority, and even for the children who are supposed to benefit. Simply put, empathy should be cultivated from real experiences, not from a teacher telling you what should and should not be done.” Ramirez believes that schools would do better to teach excluded and shy students how to make friends in an unwelcoming environment.

“Learning to Be Nicer in Middle School” – Letters to the Editor, New York Times, Apr. 10, 2009; the original article is at
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/education/05empathy.html?scp=1&sq=Schools'%20Gossip%20Girls%20and%20Boys%20Get%20Some%20Lessons%20in%20Empathy&st=cse

Return to headlines

8. “Instructional Rounds” in Schools

In this Harvard Education Letter article, Harvard Education School lecturer and administrator Lee Teitel describes “instructional rounds,” a way for teams of educators to look at classrooms that is “focused, systematic, purposeful, and collective” (rounds are an adaptation of a common medical practice, [and are similar to “learning walks” developed at the University of Pittsburgh and used extensively in District 2 in New York City in the 1990s]). Teitel believes that instructional rounds are a better way of addressing issues like rigor and critical thinking skills in schools – not placing blame on teachers, students, or parents but seeking new ways that educators can work together to improve teaching and learning. Teitel and his colleagues are working with a number of schools and districts to develop instructional rounds, and have broken the process into four steps:
• Identifying a problem of practice – The host school identifies an issue it wants to focus on to improve teaching and learning. The problem needs to be directly observable in classrooms, actionable (it’s within the school’s or district’s power to make changes), high-leverage, and connected to a broader strategy of improvement. An example: Why isn’t a newly introduced literacy program producing gains in student learning? In this case, visitors were given a list of 14 literacy strategies that teachers had been trained to use on an on-going basis.
• Observing practice – Groups of 4-5 visitors spend about 20 minutes each in 5-6 classrooms (selected as exemplars of the issue the school has identified), taking descriptive notes, with particular attention to what students are actually doing (versus what they are being asked to do).
• Debriefing – At the end of the day, the touring group meets and: (a) Describes what they actually saw in classrooms (refraining from sharing reactions, judgments, or inferences); (b) Analyzes patterns within and across classrooms; and (c) Looks for causal connections (or disconnects) between teaching and learning with an eye to predicting what students are learning based on the instruction observed. Visitors should ask themselves, “If you were a student at this school and you did everything you were expected to do, what would you know and be able to do?”
• Thinking about the next level of work – The visitors then look at the district’s theory of action, resources, professional development, and other initiatives and brainstorm the resources and supports teachers and administrators need to move instruction to the next level. For example, the team might suggest that teachers should be more explicit with students about using the literacy program’s strategies in their own reading, writing, and thinking – and giving them the tools to do so. Recommendations are aimed not at “fixing” individual teachers or groups of teachers but at helping administrators make system changes that will support and develop teaching in all classrooms.
“The rounds process,” concludes Teitel, “provides a key source of data and a powerful feedback loop to tell educators whether their systemic improvement efforts are actually reaching students.”
[Instructional rounds and learning walks are a useful process for gathering information on what is happening in classrooms and getting an overview of instruction in a school. But they are missing a crucial element: hard evidence about what students actually learn. Without looking at interim assessment results, visitors can only make an educated guess about whether teaching is effective. A much more powerful strategy for improving teaching and learning is getting teacher teams engaged in hard-hitting analysis of interim assessment results and following up with reteaching, helping struggling students, and reflecting on practice.]

“Improving Teaching and Learning Through Instructional Rounds” by Lee Teitel in Harvard Education Letter, May/June 2009 (Vol. 25, #3, p. 1-3);
http://www.edletter.org/current/index.shtml#instructionalrounds

Return to headlines

9. How Good Are the Five Most Popular Reading Basals?

In this Reading Research Quarterly article, Virginia educators Peter Dewitz, Jennifer Jones, and Susan Leahy report on a thorough analysis of the 2005 editions of the five best-selling commercial reading programs:
- Harcourt Trophies
- Scott Foresman Reading
- McGraw-Hill Reading
- Houghton Mifflin Reading
- Open Court Reading
They focused on how well the programs teach reading comprehension, based on an examination of the teachers’ manuals. These were the specific research questions:
- What comprehension skills and strategies are taught?
- Are the skills and strategies the same ones that are recommended in the research?
- How much direct instruction, guided practice, and independent practice does each program use?
- What is the instructional design of each program? Specifically, does it gradually release responsibility to students?
- Does each program teach skills and strategies with the thoroughness found in the original research studies that validated them?
Dewitz, Jones, and Leahy were quite critical of all five programs. Their findings:
- The comprehension skills and strategies are “wide but not terribly deep.”
- The structure of the programs is “often incoherent so that students and teachers do not know how skills and strategies relate to one another or how acquiring these sets of skills leads to becoming a better reader.”
- The programs “do not provide enough practice to ensure that any given skill will be learned, and this probably jeopardizes the weakest readers in the room.”
- The programs “do not provide sufficient support or scaffolding so that students can learn to use these skills on their own. Too often the instructional lessons move from teach to question or assess, without guided practice.”
- “Although validated comprehension strategies are taught, thus partially justifying the label ‘scientifically-based reading research,’ they are not taught with the rigor, persistence, or design principles to ensure students’ acquisition of these strategies.”
- “Looking across a year’s curriculum, there is no overall rationale for how comprehension expertise is being developed in children. Instruction in core programs looks pretty much the same the first weeks of the program and the last weeks of the program.”

How can these reputable publishers produce such flawed products? Dewitz, Jones, and Leahy believe it’s because reading textbooks are the products of three competing interests: those of the authors, the editors, and the marketing/sales people. Previous research has shown that author teams have the least influence on the final shape of the program; marketing forces and internal dynamics within the companies come to the fore.
What are the implications of this study for schools? “Much of what exists in core programs is useful,” say Dewitz, Jones, and Leahy, “but schools and their teachers need to know that all core programs have flaws. Fidelity to a flawed program is not a virtue.” Teachers need to supplement reading textbooks by modeling comprehension with more examples, giving students more guided practice, and ensuring that students learn each skill or strategy before moving on. In short, teachers should see reading programs as a structure and a guide, but not the whole reading curriculum. Crucial factors in students’ reading achievement are leadership, expectations, a regular assessment system, and staff development.

“Comprehension Strategy Instruction in Core Reading Programs” by Peter Dewitz, Jennifer Jones, and Susan Leahy in Reading Research Quarterly, April/May/June 2009 (Vol. 44, #2, p. 102-126), no e-link available; the authors can be reached at pdewitz@cstone.net, jjones292@radford.edu, and sleahy@richmond.edu.

Return to headlines

10. Similarities Between Managing and Mothering

In this New York Times interview conducted by Adam Bryant, corporate governance expert Nell Minow says that a key leadership characteristic is expanding the notion of “we” (versus “them”) to include as many people as possible. She also says she learned a lot about being a manager from being a mother. “You have people saying the same two things to you all day long, which is, ‘Look what I did.’ And you say: ‘It’s really good. Do some more.’ Or they say, ‘He took my stuff.’ And you have to say, ‘Tell him to give it back.’ You’re constantly trying, whether you’re raising children or dealing with employees, to get them to take responsibility for their own issues. In both cases, you’re trying to make people more independent and bring them along.”

“Think ‘We’ for Best Results”, an interview with Nell Minow by Adam Bryant, New York Times, Apr. 19, 2009,
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/business/19corner.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Think%20%22We%22%20for%20Best%20Results&st=cse

Return to headlines

11. Short Item: Literacy Cookbook website;

This website has a number of free items about literacy, as well as more via subscription. Try the “sneak preview” page: http://www.literacycookbook.com.

Return to headlines