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…

Confident that understanding and employing new approaches to assessment is a top priority for admissions professionals, the Secondary School Admission Test Board (SSATB) recently launched a Think Tank on the Future of Admission Assessment, with a two-year timeline and a charge to educate its membership and inspire greater innovation in admissions…

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…

As recently as five years ago, educators politely listened to, and largely ignored, suggestions that the world is changing at a dramatic rate and that education must adapt. Today, many educators agree that the traditional Industrial Age model of learning no longer adequately prepares students for their futures. As a result, many schools, and…

"Who cares?" and "Why do I need to know this?" are not just tired student mantras to be brushed aside by frustrated teachers. They are the questions about significance that lie at the heart of their work. At a time of both international economic recession and unprecedented global competition, educators and policy-makers too…

Even the most traditional independent schools have a starting point for expanding or integrating experiential education. Hawken was founded in 1915 as an alternative to existing traditional private education options for boys in Cleveland. James A. Hawken, a progressive New York educator, founded the school in a small house on the edge of…

Great teaching and passionate teachers are the heart and soul of St. Anne's-Belfield School (Virginia). Guided by the goals found in their new strategic plan, Head of School David Lourie decided in 2011 to restructure the academic leadership of the school. This new configuration includes an assistant head for instruction (AHI) in each…

Amid all the controversy about how to improve America's schools, the importance of strengthening collegial collaboration among teachers has drawn almost unanimous support. However, what schools have instead of collegiality is congeniality. Congeniality is about getting along well, being friendly, warm, and supportive. Schools are full of good…

People are confronted with escalating, interrelated global problems: climate change, growing extinction rates, economic instability, a looming energy catastrophe, depletion of resources, and an ever-growing population of people, each of whom requires food, water, shelter, and a job. Clearly, people need to create better, sustainable, and…

In the middle of the author's doctoral coursework in the spring of 2002, he had a discussion with the head of the upper school at Montclair Kimberley Academy (MKA) (New Jersey) about a potential dissertation topic that would benefit their community. In no time at all, the conversation turned to the daily schedule. In August 2004, the author…

People tend to do things because that's how they have always done them or because that's the way others have done them. Schools are no different. The rigid factory model of education--a conveyor belt that moves children through a standard curriculum of books and lessons in a strict sequence--assumes that all brains are basically the same. They…

Lucinda Lee Katz, head of Marin Country Day School (California), received the 2009 NAIS Diversity Leadership Award. This article presents an edited excerpt of her acceptance speech. In this speech, she outlines what is necessary to move school communities ahead in one's diversity work.