Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “Thoughts”
It’s August. The plan is on the wall, the team is in the room, and every person in it means it. That isn’t naivety — it’s the best part of this work. In August, every strategic plan still looks possible. Fast forward and it’s the third week of October. The plan hasn’t failed, but it just hasn’t come up in …
A basketball coach once spent two hours explaining a decision that took him four seconds. Four seconds. A timeout, a play drawn up, a call made. Waving off the star and putting the ball in a teammate’s hands. On tape it looks like instinct. But when the researchers behind a recent HBR IdeaCast sat down with that coach, what came …
It’s 7:12 on a Tuesday morning, and I’m not saying a word. Aiden works down the list taped to the fridge: teeth, bed, lunch packed, reading folder, shoes. Then, without my asking, he turns to his brother: “Owen, you didn’t check off your folder.” Owen goes back and gets it. Two boys, one laminated card, and somehow I’ve been written …
A pathologist leans over a body on a cold steel table. Heart failure, complicated by decades of quiet neglect. The report will be meticulous. Every organ weighed. Every artery traced. The diagnosis will be unimpeachable — and it will tell us absolutely nothing about how to live a long, vibrant life. Now swap the morgue for a “turnaround” school. Same …
The district team sat across from the principal and her instructional leadership team. On one side of the table: early literacy data showing second-graders finally reading on grade level at rates the school hadn’t seen in five years. On the other side: a budget memo. Three positions eliminated. Title I allocation reduced. A curriculum training and coaching contract up for …
The principal supervisor looked tired. Not the “long day of walkthroughs” kind of tired, but the deeper fatigue that comes from trying to steer schools through a storm with no clear weather report. She had a Blueprint coordinator meeting on her calendar, a union conversation about collaborative planning time later that week, and three different emails from state agencies sitting …
It was January 2006, and I sat in a conference room in Baltimore City Hall, watching Mayor Martin O’Malley pull up a dashboard on the screen. Red, yellow, and green indicators tracked everything from pothole repairs to crime statistics. “Show me your data,” he’d say to department heads. “What’s working? What’s not? What are we doing about it?” This wasn’t …
The chef grabbed the boiling pot with her bare hand. No pot holder in reach. Just instinct and urgency. In that split second, I saw what happens when even experts lose their mise-en-place. “How we prepare and organize our space is how we prepare and organize our minds.” — Dan Charnas, Work Clean Introduction For Father’s Day, I was given …
The Blueprint is Historic and Comprehensive Historic Legislation and Investment The Blueprint for Education reform is historic, both in legislation and investment in public education. This past legislative session faced unprecedented policy and budget challenges (see MACO podcasts on education and funding). District superintendents proposed thirty policy considerations for the Blueprint legislation. States and counties around the country are paying …
A lesson from Boston Celtics Coach Joe Mazzulla “The challenge coming into this season is a closed mindset… just because something worked before doesn’t mean it’s gonna work again. Where do we gotta grow? Where do we gotta change?” What struck me about this press conference — sent to me by my father — was the humility and awareness of …
We all know the value of feedback (although we all struggle to provide it with consistency and rigor). At our last EdScale retreat, we reviewed our core values of ease, fun, and impact, and then our continued emphasis on embracing learning through mistakes. In fact, feedback is the biggest gift you can give to someone in support of their growth …
You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. — Jon Kabat-Zinn Transitions can feel like a time of rapid change; in fact, sometimes they are. They are a time leaders step up and stand for their values and beliefs. And a time when fear, loss, and unknowns can impact our actions and decision making. Leveraging research and …
The Gift The boys opened the present together, revealing an Amazon box. Inside the box…was another box. And inside the envelope in the box was a ticket to a tour of Baltimore Ravens stadium. After my wife explained to me and the boys that the players (especially quarterback and MVP candidate Lamar Jackson) would not be there, the excitement continued …
Standing in the pool, I had to steady myself. I could do one more. Visions of beating my son’s 10-year-old friend and tackling a long-standing swimming goal of mine flooded my body. I could do one more. After, it was clear it was time to take a break. Doing somersaults back-to-back in the pool and landing on my feet was …
“Small is beautiful” is the sweet spot where a small organization maximizes strategy and operations with great results for partners (from Engine of Impact). We reached that spot in SY2324 with the flywheel Jim Collins describes in “Good to Great” continuing to turn for EdScale. In SY2324, we were thankful to have the opportunity to expand our team to support …
In working with partners over the last eight (yes, eight!) years at EdScale, the art of guiding leaders to support implementation has become keystone to getting better results for students. I keep coming back to what we are calling the “4Ps of Leadership” in strategic advising sessions with with leaders, in addition to the lessons in my book “How to …
I signed up to coach my son for the second year in a local basketball league; it was one of the most challenging and rewarding things I’ve done. Core to the role of coach is to support each player and the team as a whole to play up to their potential, consistently. I learned five key lessons from this season …
My mom was an educator for her entire career, trained and worked as an elementary and special education teacher. She had the privilege at the end of her career to be part of a school recognized three times as a National Blue Ribbon School. The school, in Southern Delaware, had over 70% Hispanic and low-income students, as well as a …
During the Covid lockdown, something happened. I got lots of grey hair and gained weight. As I claw my way back to a healthier weight (and embrace the grey), I’ve found humor a helpful tool. Recently, I’ve been working with many of my partners to support the onboarding and development of their teams, both managers and individual contributors. These are …
There is always space for improvement, no matter how long you’ve been in the business. – Oscar De La Hoya Whether you are new in your role or an expert, there is always room to improve. The question is “where should we invest time and resources to get the best improvement and results for our students?” The answer to this …
