As the competition between private and public schools intensifies each year, it is not always the luxuries or differentiators associated with attending a private school that become more critical. Rather, the basic but vital The ISM 37-School Parent Survey: Why Families Can Afford Your Schools Tuition is of immense concern to private school parents and students. While clearly one of the most difficult and unpleasant topics to attempt to get one's head around, there are no more important issues for you to address than potential misconduct and bullying toward your students. At issue here is not only concern for the student's physical and emotional safety, but the reality that students simply cannot learn effectively when they do not feel safe.
Use Rally Points to Turn Winter Doldrums Into Morale Boosters
It’s January going into February, and everyone feels the winter slump—the big crash after the holidays when the weather is bleak in a lot of places, and it’s a long haul to spring. Moods and morale are probably looking as bleak as the landscape. Even if you are fortunate to be in a temperate climate, you probably are still experiencing some doldrums as the humdrum routine has settled in.
ISM’s 20 Success Predictors for the 21st Century
ISM has for 15 years published—at five-year intervals—its list of the prime correlates necessary to sustain mission-specific excellence. This periodically revised, evidence-based list, known as the ISM Stability Markers®, has been in widespread use as both a lens through which to self-evaluate and as a means by which to strengthen a school’s longest-term financial and organizational stability and excellence.
Understanding Faculty Culture Differences Across School Divisions
While ISM has long written about faculty culture, and there has been the sense of a monolithic culture, the reality is that each division in our schools seems to have a particular character. Of course, if your school only has one division, then unity is a much simpler concept to understand.
Advanced Placement: A Critical Study
Harvard Education Press has brought out a new book, AP: A Critical Examination of the Advanced Placement Program,1 which is an interesting collection of essays from a variety of viewpoints, and the findings demonstrate the controversies in this area. Although it is not ISM’s primary interest, social equity is a prominent element of the book. While ISM is sensitive to social issues, we are more directly concerned with the appropriateness of Advanced Placement for private-independent schools. We have consistently opposed its use. How does this new book advance the conversation?
The Head’s Five Major Priorities
The extent and (perceived) urgency of the daily demands on you, the School Head, could easily render the job impossible without a reliable sense on your part of the validity of the priorities you hold. Institutional success, personal/professional success, and an actual sense of joy in the role can all be within plausible reach if your priorities are “right,” and provided:
New Faculty and Your School’s Purpose and Outcome Statements
The Board, faculty, and administration have worked diligently to develop the three Purpose and Outcome Statements that ISM recommends. The Characteristics of Professional Excellence and Portrait of the Graduate have been especially noteworthy in that they are documents probably created by the faculty (with the administration’s acceptance before implementation). Thus, the faculty “owns” these two statements and how they are fulfilled programmatically and pedagogically.
LIVESTRONG Foundation Curriculum Helps Kids Learn About Cancer
You can’t deny that seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong is probably the most recognizable cancer survivor in the world. His LIVESTRONG Foundation pioneered the support bracelet, the little yellow wrist band that millions of people wear every day to show their support. Now LIVESTRONG is bringing cancer education into the classroom.
According to the LIVESTRONG Web site, “one in three people in the United States will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. That means children in your classroom are likely to be dealing with cancer right now—whether through a grandparent, parent, family member, friend, or teacher.”
Dancing Through Science … and Math … and More?
When budgets get tight, one of the first things cut is the arts. “For decades, arts education has been treated as though it was the novice teacher at school—the last hired and the first fired with times get tough,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
Thinking Differently, Change the “Rules”
Star Trek fans, remember the Kobayashi Maru (how could you forget—it’s got its own Wikipedia entry)? It was no-win scenario test that Kirk beat during his Academy training by “changing the conditions of the test.” Well, the band Atomic Tom did the same thing–and its innovation video has gone viral. Everyone sharing Atomic Tom’s subway ride! Yes, it is marketing, but it demonstrates how changing the conditions, the tools, the delivery can generate the spark of new thinking and new learning. Back in 1997, Apple’s slogan was “Think Different.” Well, Apple has become the innovator of the information/music delivery system, coming up with the “coolest” products—the iPhone and the iPod—that everyone wants. It's all part of the same thinking as the 21st Century School concept.