If you really want to see how innovative a school is, inquire about its thinking and practices regarding assessment. For the students, does the mere thought of assessment trigger stress? Do the teachers rely heavily on high-stakes, multiple-choice, Bell Curve-generating tests? Or do the students seem relaxed and engaged as teachers experiment with…

Independent schools--and their teachers and administrators--are, as the name suggests, fiercely independent. So when the Common Core State Standards hit the national stage in March 2010 and became the center of the national conversation on education, it was no surprise that the majority of independent schools dismissed the standards as another…

Today, independent school leaders operate at the fault line of pundits, parents, teachers, staff, students, board members, researchers, consultants, and more. They need to lead key constituents while weighing constituent expectations. They need to know how to sift through the increasing flow of evolving practices, research, and viewpoints…

Independent schools are, for the most part, exempt from mandatory participation in standardized tests designed for state and federal comparisons, nor are they required to take part in comparative international assessments. The anxiety in the broader culture, however, is driving a growing interest among independent school parents (and prospective…

Helping all students find academic success is a central tenet of independent schools. But at many independent schools, mounting anecdotal evidence indicates that a persistent achievement gap exists between white and Asian-American students and their Latino and African-American counterparts. In 2007, Rebecca Upham, head of school at Buckingham…

Author Jonathan Howland writes here that he is hardly the first to suggest that much of the testing going on in the educational system today appears dumb. The tidal change that brought schools the Common Core standards is a maneuver born of an admission: educators took their eye off the ball, testing for too much of the wrong thing--thin skills…

Thinking critically about the future is a mainstay of best practice in any organization, and an important aptitude for school leaders, yet many feel as if the world is changing too rapidly for traditional methods and timelines to be effective. As a result, many organizations are transitioning away from discrete moments of strategic planning and,…

Since the late 1920s, diversity initiatives at the "Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School" (LREI) in New York City have centered on strategic conversations related to equity, justice, and inclusion. In this article, Sandra Chapman, Director of Diversity and Community, and Phil Kassen, Head of School, decided that they…

Overwhelmingly, independent schools are embracing mobile devices--laptops, iPads or other tablets, and smartphones--to enhance teaching and learning. This article describes the results of the "NAIS 2012 Mobile Learning Survey." Among its findings were that 75 percent of NAIS-member schools currently use mobile learning devices in at…

Times are tense for schools. While they want their students to be well prepared for the coming years of the 21st century, there is an almost ceaseless anxiety caused by unrelenting news and data illustrating how children can get hurt--physically or emotionally. Beyond underscoring the challenges of providing physical safety, data also reveal the…

This article notes that building bridges between school and home is not easy for anyone--even those who understand the value of such efforts. For all parents, the struggle lies in figuring out how open to be with the school. At some point, every parent wonders how much personal information needs to be revealed and whether or not that revelation…

Nationwide, the Great Recession arrived as independent schools entered various stages of strategic planning, building projects, fund-raising drives, enrollment efforts, and programmatic reforms--and all schools needed to consider how best to proceed. In order to understand the actual effects of the economic downturn, the authors undertook a…

The authors of this article describe the Personal Awareness and Wellness Seminar (PAWS) program, which they developed at Ashley Hall (South Carolina), an all-girls K-12 school. PAWS is designed to incorporate three main areas of school and personal life: academic management and study skills, general wellness and life skills, and the college search…

All schools have the capacity to become great schools. All they need is the focus and leadership to create the proper conditions for the board, school leadership team, staff, and constituents to do so. In this article, the author presents 25 elements that are central to great independent schools. These include: Create and perpetuate an intentional…

In this article the author demonstrates the importance of school safety audits and describes what schools should focus on in a safety audit. Ultimately, each school should determine its own safety audit strategy based on its unique circumstances, including the type of community within which it is located, the age of the students it serves, and the…