Past News

IEL’s President Honors John Dornan of the NC Public School Forum

On October 26, 2010, Marty Blank, president for the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) awarded the North Carolina Public School Forum’s executive director, John Dornan with IEL’s National Leadership Award.

Blank traveled to the Public School Forum’s Annual Education Policy Fellowship Program (EPFP TM) graduation in Raleigh, NC to present the award. He thanked Dornan for his commitment to North Carolina EPFP and for his service to the pursuit of excellence in public education.

NCATE Blue Ribbon Panel Releases Report on Transforming Teacher Education Through Clinical Practice

On Nov. 16, 2010, a national Blue Ribbon expert panel convened and supported by NCATE called for teacher education to be "turned upside down" by revamping programs to prioritize clinical practice and partnerships with school districts. The changes will pave the way for more effective training that better addresses student needs and shifts accountability closer to the classroom.

The panel, comprising national education leaders, policymakers, education school deans, and vocal critics of teacher preparation – and which included IEL President, Marty Blank – set out a new direction for how we deliver, monitor, evaluate, oversee, and staff clinically based preparation to incubate a whole new form of teacher education. Its report, Transforming Teacher Education through Clinical Practice: A National Strategy to Prepare Effective Teachers, offers recommendations focused on strengthening candidate selection and placement; revamping curricula, incentives, and staffing; strengthening partnerships; and expanding the knowledge base.

The report received the support of Secretary Duncan, as well as a number of national education groups. Eight states – California, Colorado, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and Tennessee – have already agreed to implement the panel's recommendations. Read more…

Join IEL and AERA for the next Education Policy Forum Luncheon: " Accomplished Teachers: Institutional Perspectives” on Dec. 10th

The next AERA/IEL Education Policy Forum Luncheon on the topic of “Accomplished Teachers: Institutional Perspectives” will be held on Friday, December 10, 2010 from noon until 2:00 pm at the American Federation of Teachers.  Thirteen dollars for the subsidized lunch will be collected at the door. Required reservations may be sent by email (programasst@aera.net) to Christy Talbot at AERA. Limited available seating is assigned according to the order in which reservations are received.

Event Details:

December 10, 2010, 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm

The American Federation of Teachers
555 New Jersey Ave., NW, 9th Floor Conference Room
Washington, DC 20001
(near Union Station metro stop)

Since 1987 the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) has certified over 82,000 educators in 25 discipline areas and National Board Certification for principals has been announced and is currently in the pilot stage. Research provides that National Board certification enhances teacher performance on many measures, including student achievement.

A recent National Research Council report states that the National Board has produced a viable program for assessing teachers and certifying those who meet high standards. The report goes on to recommend that NBPTS continue to invest in its larger mission of influencing the teaching field in broad, comprehensive ways. To this end, NBPTS works closely with schools, school districts, colleges and universities as well as policymakers on a number of key issues, e.g., professional development and compensation.

Our forum will explore the education reforms associated with National Board Certification. Sabrina Hope-King, Chief Academic Officer, New York City Department of Education will present and Mary E. Dilworth, Vice President, Higher Education and Research Initiatives at NBPTS will moderate.

RSVP to attend this event. 

EPFP: 2010 Post-Election Update webinar recording now available

IEL held its first webinar in the Window to Washington series: 2010 Post-Election Update for participants of the Education Policy Fellowship Program (EPFP) on Thursday, November 18, 2010. Jamie Ekatomatis, National Program Manager of EPFP, facilitated the conversation between Joel Packer, Executive Director of the Committee for Education Funding and Michael Usdan, past President and Senior Fellow of IEL, about what the midterm election results could mean for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the future of the common standards movement, and other key education issues likely to come before the next Congress.

View the webinar recording.

IEL Congratulates the 2010 Full Service Community Schools Grantees, Including Two CCS Urban Network Communities

The federal Full Service Community Schools Program grantees for 2010 have been announced. There are eleven awards granted to communities from the following states: Arizona, Delaware, California, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, South Carolina and Texas. The Coalition for Community Schools would like to congratulate all of the winning communities!

The Full-Service Community Schools (FSCS) program, which is funded under the Fund for the Improvement of Education (FIE), encourages coordination of academic, social, and health services through partnerships among(1) public elementary and secondary schools; (2) the schools’ local educational agencies (LEAs); and (3) community-based organizations, nonprofit organizations, and other public or private entities. Congress appropriated 10 million dollars for this program, which is doubled from the previous appropriation. Each community will receive an average grant award between $483,560-$500,000 (U.S. Department of Education).

Two of the winning communities, the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation and Boston Public Schools, are part of the Coalition's Urban Network of Community Schools! See below for a list of all of this year's winners:

• Flowing Wells Full-Service Community Schools Program (Arizona)
• San Fernando Valley Full Service Community Schools Program (California)
• Locke Full-Service Community School Collaborative (California)
• Eastside Community Schools Initiative (ECS) (Delaware)
• Evansville Vanderburgh Full Service Community Schools (Indiana)
• The Martindale Brightwood Alliance for Educational Success (Indiana)
• Boston Public School’s Full Service Community School Grant (Massachusetts)
• South Lawrence East Full Service Community School Program (Massachusetts)
• Paterson Public Schools: A Renewed Commitment to Excellence through Full Service Community Schools (New Jersey)
• Family Circle: From Cradle to College (South Carolina)
• Community DREAM-Link (Delivering Resources for an Enrichment and Academic Mission) (Texas)

Find more information on the federal full service community schools program and read more about each of the winning communities and their abstracts.

21 Promise Neighborhood Award Winners Announced

On September 21st, the U.S. Department of Education announced its 21 Promise Neighborhoods planning grant awardees.

The Promise Neighborhood planning grants will help communities coordinate a web of services to improve the educational and health outcomes of children and youth. Services range from early learning to college and career, health care, safety, as well as, boosting family engagement in student learning. At the center of every Promise Neighborhood is a community school. Read more…

Policy Brief: CSBA and Community Schools

The California Schools Boards Association’s (CSBA) October 2010 policy brief focuses on the role school boards can have in implementing a community schools strategy, and it also reinforces the ways in which community schools maximize benefits and address multiple factors that influence students’ academic achievements.

The CSBA finds community schools to be of great importance because they meet the needs of students and work towards closing the achievement gap.  The article states that “the creation of “community schools” is a growing trend that is designed to support student achievement through service-based interventions, expanded learning time models and increased community engagement. When implemented together, the brief asserts that community school interventions maximize benefits and allow schools to address multiple factors in students’ lives.

Ed Honowitz, a school board Member from Pasadena Unified School District notes that, “school boards can play a pivotal leadership role in ensuring that schools are effective community centers that provide a hub for a wide range of coordinated services to help families and empower parents and their students. Truly effective community schools are... a strategic effort to link the academic program of the school with a set of support services driven by assessing the needs of school families.”

The school board’s role in implementing the community school strategy includes setting direction, establishing structure, providing support, ensuring accountability, and acting as community leaders. Read More….

Join IEL in Celebrating October as National Disability Employment Awareness Month

Congress has designated October as National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM). This effort to educate the American public about issues related to disability and employment actually began in 1945, when Congress enacted a law declaring the first week in October each year "National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week."

In 1962, the word "physically" was removed to acknowledge the employment needs and contributions of individuals with all types of disabilities. In 1988, Congress expanded the week to a month and changed the name to "National Disability Employment Awareness Month."

This year’s NDEAM theme from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Policy is “Talent Has No Boundaries: Workforce Diversity Includes People with Disabilities.”

Read the White House press release.

Read the message from Assistant Secretary of Labor Kathy Martinez.

AERA/IEL Education Policy Forum: "Promise Neighborhoods: Rethinking the Approach to Supporting Students from Cradle to Career"

On October 8, the Institute for Educational Leadership and the American Education Research Association co-hosted an Education Policy Forum on Promise Neighborhoods.  The Promise Neighborhoods Initiative has received major national attention as the federal government seeks to encourage other communities to adapt the work of the Harlem Children's Zone. More than 300 local leaders submitted applications for federal planning grants and 21 communities have now been funded. During the Forum, presenters offered a thorough understanding of the Promise Neighborhoods theory and strategy from the Department of Education perspective as well an examination of the challenges of adapting and scaling up such an approach in other communities.

Presenters:

• Larkin Tackett, Deputy Director, Promise Neighborhoods Program, Office of Innovation and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education
• Lisbeth Schorr, Senior Fellow, Center for the Study of Social Policy and Lecturer in Social Medicine, Harvard University

Teacher Incentive Pay Study Reveals No Effect on Student Achievement

EdWeek reported last week on the release of a new study out of Vanderbilt University that reveals little evidence in support of a Nashville teacher incentive pay program's ability to boost student achievement (as measured by standardized test scores). The PBS NewsHour also did a piece last week that describes the Nashville experiment. Though this is but one of many studies on teacher incentive pay plans, it is one of the most rigorous to-date.

Supporters of incentive pay plans were quick to mention in the EdWeek article that the "real" lever of change offered by these plans -- recruitment and retention of effective teachers -- wasn't covered by the three-year study. The article also noted that supplements to cash bonuses employed by other cities' teacher incentive plans, like professional development and differentiated roles for effective teachers, were not a part of this experiment. 

As the NewsHour segment points out, teacher incentive pay plans feature prominently in the Obama Administration's Race to the Top competition, with 11 of the 12 awardees having signed on to institute plans in their states. An un-named Education Department spokewoman quoted in the EdWeek article claims that the Vanderbilt study is too narrow to deter the hope that incentive pay plans will help to "change the culture of teaching by giving all educators the feedback they need to get better while rewarding and incentivizing the best to teach in high need schools and hard-to-staff subjects.”

View the NewsHour segment now.

Leadership Learning Community Report Looks to Develop Leaders for Racial Justice

A new report from the Leadership Learning Community examines the characteristics of leadership development programs that can either help solve racial inequalities or help exacerbate them. According to the report's authors, leadership programs with an individualistic focus can ignore the impact of structural racism (i.e. policy, culture, and institutional practices that limit opportunity).

The report recommends a more collective approach to leadership that encourages greater participation by people of color and an understanding of how race limits access to opportunity. Other recommendations include:

• Open Conversation about Race: Provide time and space for participants to talk about race and their racial identity. This gives participants an opportunity to transform their thoughts and feelings about race and how it impacts their work.
• Training: Incorporate elements of racial justice training, i.e. an analysis of structural racism. This is different from diversity training, which focuses on interpersonal relations and cultural awareness.
• Tracking: Monitor changes in whether or not people of color have increased access to leadership in communities and organizations, and more of an impact on policy making. Track the changes over the long term.
• Funding: Provide adequate funding to leadership programs that promote racial justice. Programs should also help participants understand how to access resources.

Download the full report…        

Join IEL President Marty Blank September 22 at Center for American Progress Event on Community Schools

IEL President and Director of the Coalition for Community Schools, Marty Blank, will be a featured speaker at the September 22nd Center for American Progress Event: Innovative Strategies for Community Schools. This luncheon event will take place from noon to 2:00 p.m. and admission is free. Space is extremely limited. RSVP required. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis and not guaranteed.

Event Details:

September 22, 2010, 12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Lunch will be served at 12:00 p.m.

Center for American Progress
1333 H St. NW, 10th Floor
Washington, DC 20005
Map & Directions

Opening Remarks:

Cynthia G. Brown, Vice President for Education Policy, Center for American Progress

Featured Speakers:

• Martin Blank, Director of the Coalition for Community Schools and President of the Institute for Educational Leadership
• Doris Terry Williams, Executive Director of the Rural School and Community Trust and Director of the Trust's Capacity Building Program
• Adeline Ray, Director, Chicago Community Schools Initiative

Moderated by:

Saba Bireda, Education Policy Analyst, Center for American Progress

Nationwide, educators and policymakers are increasingly looking to community schools to provide students with important in-school supports. The Obama Administration has shown support by encouraging schools and districts to implement wraparound services as part of reform strategies.

Community schools exist in districts across the country and utilize a variety of partnerships and services. Yet many consider community schools to be a strategy that only works in urban areas. In fact, rural community schools exist and can advantage rural students in many significant ways. Likewise, while most community schools keep the building open longer than traditional schools, few community schools have formally extended the length of the school day for all students.

Join us for a discussion on two new ways to develop and grow community schools—as a rural education strategy and through the use of expanded learning time. The Center for American Progress will release two new papers on these topics. The papers and event will encourage policymakers and advocates to consider ways that the community school strategy can be applied in settings not traditionally associated with the model.

Nearest Metro: Blue/Orange Line to McPherson Square or Red Line to Metro Center

RSVP to attend this event.

For more information, call 202-682-1611.

IEL and its Partners Receive $3 million Kellogg Grant for Community-based Leadership Program

IEL and the Center for Ethical Leadership have been awarded a $3 million, four-year grant by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to support the Community Learning Exchange (CLE) program.  The CLE is a growing national network of local communities, organizations and change agents who practice and promote the use of place-based, collective leadership to build local capacity of vulnerable communities to address issues and improve lives.

The CLE is an outgrowth of the Kellogg Leadership for Community Change (KLCC) project.  Under the place-based collective leadership model, community challenges are addressed, not by individual leaders, but by groups of local residents working collectively for sustainable change in 21st Century settings.  Non-traditional leaders from diverse backgrounds are included in the collective decision-making processes of their communities.  The CLE provides an opportunity for community leadership groups to openly examine their challenges, freely exchange successful approaches, and become familiar with tools that can enhance local change initiatives. Community organizations host learning exchanges that illuminate how local history and context affect approaches to addressing various social change topics such as educational equity, immigration reform, health, poverty, structural racism, etc. CLE participants are encouraged to attend learning exchanges as a team to make follow-up implementation of action plans more doable. 

The teams participating in the 3-day learning exchanges are all grappling with similar issues. The topics for each learning exchange emerge from the interests of communities in the network and other groups wanting to become part of the network. Participation is welcomed from new funder initiatives, communities who want to break their isolation, and groups/networks working on specific change initiatives. The most recent learning exchange took place in Washington, DC July 14-17, 2010 on the topic: Youth, Families and Immigration Reform.

Connect to this effort by joining the Community Learning Exchange network…

IEL Director of Leadership Programs Weighs in About Atlanta Board of Education Conflict

Kwesi Rollins, IEL Director of Leadership Programs, spoke with PBS radio station WABE on August 20, 2010 about the very public conflict between members of the Atlanta Board of Education. Rollins said many boards work with an outside consultant to undergo a board development process to clarify their role and build consensus about priorities. Elected members that are unwilling to focus on the important issues will face the consequences from voters.

Listen or read the entire story now.

IEL’s National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth Enters its 10th Year with Labor Department Support

The U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy recently announced that it will award IEL an additional $999,926 to continue funding the Youth Technical Assistance Center through the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth.

NCWD/Youth, now in its 10th year, focuses its technical assistance efforts on state and local workforce development systems and assists them in better serving youth with disabilities. NCWD/Youth and its partners, including experts in disability, education, employment, and workforce development, strive to ensure that policy makers, youth service professionals, educators, families and youth receive cutting edge information on the connection between education, employment and independent living.

Find out more about the work of the NCWD Youth National Technical Assistance Center.

Nine States and the District of Columbia Win Second Round Race to the Top Grants

From the Department of Education, August 24, 2010:
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced today that 10 applicants have won grants in the second phase of the Race to the Top competition. Along with Phase 1 winners Delaware and Tennessee, 11 states and the District of Columbia have now been awarded money in the Obama Administration's groundbreaking education reform program that will directly impact 13.6 million students, and 980,000 teachers in 25,000 schools.

The 10 winning Phase 2 applications in alphabetical order are: the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Rhode Island. Read more…

IEL’s NCWD/Youth Guide Charts a Course for Professionals Working with Youth with Learning Disabilities

A new guide developed by IEL’s National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth, Charting the Course, seeks to help youth service professionals better understand issues related to learning disabilities, so that they can help youth with learning disabilities develop individual strategies that will enable them to succeed in the workplace.

This Guide focuses on addressing the needs of youth with learning disabilities from a “disability rights” perspective—a model that concentrates less on remediation and more on skill acquisition through accommodated approaches. This includes ensuring appropriate and timely access to assistive technology; learning how to disclose one’s disability effectively; and understanding how to access civil rights protections in educational, vocational, and social settings.

It is intended to help practitioners, administrators, and policymakers in secondary and postsecondary education programs, transition programs, One-Stop Career Centers, youth employment programs, and community rehabilitation programs to improve services and outcomes for youth, ages 14 to 25, with diagnosed and undiagnosed learning disabilities.

Learn more and download the guide.

The Black-White Achievement Gap: How Community Schools can Help

A recent report, “A recent report, "The Black-White Achievement Gap: When Progress Stopped”, from The Educational Testing Service, by Paul E. Barton and Richard J. Coley, explores the persistence of the Black-White achievement gap for students in the United States. The report highlights contributing factors to the fluctuations in the gap and attempts to find reasoning behind the narrowing of it between the 1970’s and the 1980’s.  The researchers note the importance of “identifying approaches to uplift whole neighborhoods in terms of their economic and social capital, their school quality, and their recreational and health infrastructures.” Find out how community schools can help close the achievement gap.

IEL President Speaks to MO Administrators about School and Community Leadership for Student Success

The Coalition for Community Schools Searches for Common Ground Between Civil Rights Leaders and the Obama Administration

From the From the Coalition for Community Schools’ Blog…Education is a civil right. However, recently different groups have offered varying perspectives on how to secure this right. Responding to their perceptions that aspects of the President’s education agenda were moving in the wrong direction, several civil rights organizations released a counter proposal suggesting that the President abandon some of his policies (e.g., Race to the Top). The Obama Administration met with civil rights leaders about their concerns and both Secretary Duncan and President Obama publicly pushed back on the framework at the National Urban League’s conference. As the debates over manifestos and policy agendas continue, the Coalition for Community Schools feels it’s important to share the areas where we see common ground.

The civil rights framework cites community schools as strategy to provide opportunities to learn to ALL students. They state, "The best approach to school turnaround is to reinvent low-performing schools as community schools, offering high-quality programs, strong instruction, and wraparound services." (Click here for more.) We agree. Community schools across the nation (e.g., Cincinnati, Tulsa, Kansas City, New York City, Portland (OR), and South King County, WA) are producing positive results for our youth.

While the Administration isn’t always as explicit about their support for community-based strategies, we see areas of agreement between the Obama Administration’s education reform strategy with the aforementioned groups. Read more…

IEL Participates in Celebration of Landmark Disability Rights Legislation - American's With Disabilities Act

July 26, 2010 marks the 20th anniversary of the enactment of federal disability civil rights legislation known as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which bars discrimination based on disability in employment, public and private sector services, transportation, and recreation. The ADA also codified disability public policy to promote inclusion, integration, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for all youth and adults with disabilities. Over the past two decades, federal laws, programs, and services have been updated and aligned with the ADA.

To mark the historic nature of the ADA, organizations and government agencies are hosting a multitude of celebrations in Washington, DC and across the country. The Institute for Educational Leadership’s (IEL) Center for Workforce Development (CWD) is helping mark this anniversary by cosponsoring and participating in a number of these celebrations. Learn more...

New Cyber Disclosure Workbook for Youth with Disabilities Available from IEL’s National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth

IEL’s new Cyber Disclosure for Youth with Disabilities Workbook is a supplement to The 411 on Disability Disclosure: A Workbook for Youth with Disabilities which helps youth learn about disability disclosure and what it means for them. Since the original workbook was written in 2005, there have been many advances in technology that have changed what youth need to know about disclosing their disability.

Search sites like Google, social networking sites like Facebook, and micro-blogging sites like Twitter have added a new element to disclosure. Now it is possible to disclose your disability on the internet without even being aware of it. This can be as simple as a picture of you using a wheelchair, a comment on your friend’s blog about disability, or your profile posted on a disability organization’s website. The goal of this document is to provide suggestions for youth with disabilities about how to make an informed decision about your own disability disclosure and to manage your disclosure online. Learn more…

IEL President Marty Blank Chats with Building Neighborhoods Blogger Patrick Lester about the Similarities between Promise Neighborhoods and Community Schools

The Administration’s Promise Neighborhoods initiative has a lot in common with the community schools strategy.  During a June 19, 2010 interview with Patrick Lester, Policy Director of United Neighborhood Centers of America, Marty Blank highlights the commonalities and connections between Promise Neighborhoods and the community schools strategy:

Schools are at the center of the Promise Neighborhoods strategy… from a community school perspective every school in a Promise Neighborhood will be a community school. [They] represent a paradigm shift from previous policies that relied solely on accountability to get results. They recognize that community issues are school issues.

According to Blank, who is also the Director of the Coalition for Community Schools, all schools in Promise Neighborhoods should be community schools – regardless of the type of school (traditional public school, charter public school, magnet school, alternative school); regardless of who operates the school (local school district, community-based organization -CBO, higher education institution, educational management organization); and regardless of size or curricular focus. Read more…

IEL Releases Initial Summary of Individualized Learning Plan Study

States continue to refine graduation requirements to meet the now widely accepted goal that all students be ready for college and the workplace when they graduate from high school. In almost half of the states, one strategy employed is the requirement that all students develop an individualized learning plan (ILP) prior to graduation.  ILPs refer to both a document that is created and maintained as well as a process that helps students engage in the career development activities necessary for them to identify their own career goals.

Individual planning is not a new idea.  Since the 1970s, federal requirements for students with disabilities have included an individualized education program (IEP). The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), charged with the responsibility to find promising practices to     improve the employment outcomes for people with disabilities, is supporting a multi-year study to assess whether quality ILPs improve the readiness of all students, including youth with disabilities, for post-school outcomes. 

The ODEP study launched in the 2008-09 school year and targeted for completion in 2012-13, is the first longitudinal research and demonstration project designed to understand the effectiveness of ILPs. It looks at ILPs in 14 (rural, urban and suburban) schools in four states (LA, NM, SC, and WA).

The research is built around core features included in the Guideposts for Success, a publication of the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability/For Youth (NCWD/Youth), housed at IEL. NCWD/Youth and its partners, the Center for Education and Work at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and the Institute for Community Integration at the University of Minnesota are conducting the research project. Learn more…

American Federation of Teachers Passes Resolution Supporting Community Schools

Johnson is a community school that gets the important pieces in place and lined up—great teachers and staff, strong curriculum, fun and engaging activities for summer and after school, and an amazing array of services that remove barriers to success for the kids and their families. These things make a huge, huge difference.

At the July, 2010 AFT Convention in Seattle, the AFT passed Resolution #75, recognizing the principles of community schools as one of their main priorities. It calls for community school support which would include legislation, funding, and staff development. The Resolution passed with a unanimous vote. 

AFT advocates for five community school principles: a strong academic curriculum; partnerships that integrate services; a variety of providers and funders in those partnerships; multiple types of community service programs; and a written strategic plan. Read more…

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, calls for schools to become community havens.

View video

Community Schools featured on Fox 29 News in Philadelphia!

ED's Blueprint for Reform: ESEA Reauthorization

The Administration's Blueprint, based on feedback from their listening tour, provides incentives for states to adopt academic standards that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace and create accountability systems that measure student growth toward meeting the goal that all children graduate and succeed in college. Read the Blueprint and view President Obama's weekly address focused on the Blueprint.

Goffin Strategy Group (GSG) releases two new publications

Two publications from the Goffin Strategy Group (GSG) document that the field of early care and education (ECE) is at a crossroads, and assert that this defining moment calls for field-wide leadership. 

Field-Wide Leadership: Insights from Five Fields of Practice reports on a GSG’s study to determine whether and how other fields of practice exercise leadership related to issues that are of field-wide importance and necessitate a broad swath of the community to resolve.  Five fields of practice were explored ― Financial Planning, Nursing, Opportunity Finance, Quality Management,   Social Work ― and a new term was coined as a part of the work.  Field-wide leadership is internally directed leadership that has as its purpose the advancement of an overall field of practice in terms of coherence and effectiveness.  The GSG study found that field-wide leadership is a viable construct and that examples of field-wide leadership are widely available.

Leadership Development in Early Care and Education: A View of the Current Landscape assesses the field of ECE’s progress in attending to leadership development, and identifies how the field defines leadership based a surface review of 87 self-identified ECE leadership development programs.   The GSG found that the 87 programs fell into 3 primary categories:  teacher preparation; program improvement; and leadership skill development, and that the programs varied greatly in terms of robustness and viability.

IEL served as the fiscal agent for both reports which were funded by the McCormick Foundation.  The reports can be downloaded for free at www.goffinstrategygroup.com.  As well, additional information about the Goffin Strategy Group can be obtained at www.goffinstrategygroup.com.

IEL Sits on NCATE’s Blue Ribbon Panel for Clinical Preparation, Partnerships and Improved Student Learning

President Blank recently attended NCATE’s work group meeting which included experts in education research, policy, teaching and learning and leaders in higher education and P-12 schools at the state and local level. The panel will make recommendations for restructuring the preparation of teachers to reflect teaching as a practice-based profession akin to medicine, nursing, or clinical psychology.

Read more

Secretary Duncan Participates in DC VOICE Town Hall with IEL Staffers

Recently, as part of his Listening & Learning tour, Sec. Duncan paid a visit to Luke C. Moore Academy Senior High School in North East Washington, D.C., Ward 5.  He joined more than 100 educators, parents, students, policymakers, and community members in a town hall discussion on improving education. Conversation at each table focused on two major topics:  community schools and teacher quality. Read more and view video of this town hall.

IEL in partnership with ACES, Advanced Innovation, LSU, and SCSU will hold conference for Leaders in Education

This National Leadership Conference will be held on January 6-8, 2010 at the Cook Conference Center in Baton Rouge, LA. The conference will engage school leaders and school policymakers, who are working towards sustainable systemic change, in conversations about the leadership skills needed to navigate the politics and policies they encounter at a local, state and national level. Register.

NCWD/Youth Testifies at the U.S. Department of Labor on WIA Reauthorization

Joan Wills from the National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth (NCWD/Youth) testified before the Assistant Secretaries of the Office of Disability Employment Policy and the Employment and Training Administration at the Department of Labor’s Listening Session on the Workforce Investment Act (WIA).  WIA has been up for reauthorization for several years and the listening session was designed to collect input from expert in the disability employment field.  Wills laid out 5 broad strategy areas that need to be taken into account when improving the WIA.

Read the news release and testimony.

William “Bill” Turner (EPFP 77-78) receives Lifetime of Service Award from the  Appalachian Studies Association

Dr. William “Bill” Turner (EPFP 77-78), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) chair in Appalachian Studies at Berea College, received the Lifetime of Service Award from the Appalachian Studies Association for promoting the experience and histories of African Americans in Appalachia. For more information about Dr. Turner and his work read the Berea College Magazine.

How Can Schools Address Early Chronic Absence?

What is Early Chronic Absence? AERA and IEL invite you to the Education Policy Forum Luncheon on October 9th (12 pm ) to learn more about national and local early chronic absence data (New York City and Grand Rapids, MI).  Also, a middle school principal will share strategies that have worked for him in tackling this issue. Download the flyer now!

IEL Receives $3.5 Million for National Mentoring Program

The Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) announces its selection to receive approximately $3.5 million from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention for a 3-year national mentoring program to serve youth with disabilities at-risk of truancy or court-involvement.  Through this infusion of resources, research-based strategies, and cross-system collaboration, the RAMP program will match trained mentors to youth with disabilities to reduce court involvement and/or recidivism; increase career preparation and development work-readiness skills for the youth in the program.

Read the news release.

Youth Today names IEL's Education Policy Fellowship Program (EPFP) one of The Best Fellowships in Youth Work

Youth Today spotlights IEL's Education Policy Fellowship Program (EPFP), in their article: The Best Fellowships in Youth Work.  EPFP led the list of 10 leadership development opportunities identified across the country. This program helps broaden your professional, peer assistance network, and increases your knowledge base about “what works, where” to support the growth and development of all children and youth. Learn more now!

IEL Partners with PBS’ POV to Promote Important Story About Principal Leadership and Principals Making a Difference

The Principal Story by Tod Lending and David Mrazek will have its national premiere on September 15 at 10 PM on PBS (check your local listings)

The Principal Story tells two stories, painting a dramatic portrait of the challenges facing America's public schools — and of the great difference a dedicated principal can make. Tresa Dunbar is a second-year principal at Chicago's Nash Elementary, where 98% of students come from low-income families; in Springfield, Illinois, Kerry Purcell has led Harvard Park Elementary, with similar demographics, for six years. Tod Lending (Omar & Pete, POV 2005) and David Mrazek followed both women over the course of a school year, discovering each one's unique styles yet similar passions. The Principal Story takes the viewer along for an emotional ride that reveals what effective educational leadership looks like in the 21st century.

To find out more, visit: http://www.pbs.org/pov/principalstory/

IEL President Martin Blank quoted in AP story on St. Louis full-service schools

The St. Louis Public School District has revamped 13 schools to offer new academic, health and social services to students, their families and community members, ranging from onsite health checks for children to job support for the unemployed. For more information read the full article.

IEL Seeks Applicants for The Education Policy Fellowship Program (EPFP™): Deadline August 2009

IEL’s flagship leadership program is EPFP, a 10-month in-service professional development program celebrating its 46th year with the Class of 2009-10. With over 6500 alumni spread across the nation, it is designed to prepare mid-level leaders in public and private organizations to exercise greater responsibility in creating and implementing sound public policy in education and related fields. EPFP™ participants hold full-time positions in diverse organizations at the local, state, and national levels. The program currently operates through sites in Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, DC. For more information on the program and applying, please visit the EPFP™ website or contact the program associate at wilcoxs@iel.org.

Louis Fabrizio (EPFP 79-80) Appointed to National Education Task Force

Dr. Louis Fabrizio (EPFP 79-80), director of Accountability Policy and Communications at the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI), has been appointed to the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Reauthorization Task Force.  Fabrizio will join about a dozen federal government liaisons, state education officials and state education agency staff from across the country in a new effort to review, update and provide recommendations to Congress regarding the ESEA, which was reauthorized in 2001 by President Bush as the No Child Left Behind Act.  

For more information read the full press release . (Also available as a Word document .)

American Educator Spotlights Community Schools

Get your copy now of American Educator's most recent issue, Surrounded by Support, spotlighting Community Schools! Community school leaders: Richard Rothstein, Ira Harkavy, Jane Quinn, Joy Dryfoos, Marty Blank, and more, assert that coordinated partnerships between communities and schools is key to offering services to youth, families, and communities.

Email this issue to policymakers, school administrators, colleagues, and your networks!

IEL Names Martin Blank President

The Board of Directors of the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) has named Martin Blank (Marty) as its new President.  Blank has served as the Director of the Coalition for Community Schools at IEL for the past decade where he has skillfully crafted a vibrant national movement for deeper relationships between schools and communities.  That vision is shared by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Marty will continue that focus as part of his leadership of IEL.

For more information read the full press release.

Rebecca Cokley with President Obama

In honor of Women’s History Month and the key role women play in our economy, IEL Project Coordinator, Rebecca Cokley received a special invitation to the White House Wednesday, March 11th where President Obama signed an Executive Order to create the White House Council on Women and Girls. EPFP Fellow and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis was also in attendance.

Click image to enlarge.

NCWD/Youth Releases Guide on the Needs of Youth involved, or at risk of being involved in the Juvenile Corrections System

Making the Right Turn: A Guide About Improving Transition Outcomes for Youth Involved in the Juvenile Corrections System
(PDF or Microsoft Word)
Youth with emotional disturbances comprise over 47.4 percent of students with disabilities in secure care, while within public schools they account for only about eight percent of students with disabilities. Students with Learning Disabilities are also overrepresented in the juvenile justice system and account for 38.6 percent of students with disabilities in these settings. This Guide provides professionals with well-researched and documented facts, offers evidence-based research, highlights promising practices, and provides the Guideposts for Success for Youth Involved in the Juvenile Corrections System, in addition to pointing out areas requiring further attention by policymakers and identifying promising practices.

This Guide adds to the overall work that can be found on NCWD/Youth’s website which includes the National Association of State Directors of Special Education’s publication Tools for Promoting Educational Success and Reducing Delinquency and the National Evaluation and Technical Assistance Center for the Education of Children and Youth Who Are Neglected, Delinquent, or At-Risk toolkit Meeting the Educational Needs of Youth Exposed to the Juvenile Justice System.

The Community Agenda for America’s Public Schools

On September 24, 2008, the Coalition for Community Schools (CCS) announced The Community Agenda for America’s Public Schools at the National Press Club.  (The CCS is staffed by and housed at IEL.)  The Agenda already has garnered support from 120+ organizations and individuals from a variety of sectors.  Panelists at the briefing (see listed below) emphasized the importance of coordination and collaboration of support services and schools—and argued that schools need to once again become the “hubs of their communities.”  Panelists included:  Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers; Warren Simmons, Executive Director, Annenberg Institute for School Reform; Anne Bryant, Executive Director, National School Boards Association; Linda Juszczak, Interim Executive Director, National Assembly on School Based Health Care; Jodi Grant, Executive Director, Afterschool Alliance; Ira Harkavy, Director, Netter Center for Community Partnership at the University of Pennsylvania; Martin Blank, Director, Coalition for Community Schools.  For more information visit The Community Agenda for America's Public Schools at: www.thecommunityagenda.org