The Discipline Crisis That's Breaking Teachers (and
What Schools Can Do This Summer)
72% of educators reported this year
that student behavior is WORSE than before the Pandemic. Teachers are quitting
mid-year. Office Discipline Referrals have tripled. Classroom instruction stops
daily for disruptions. Some students are not even showing up for school.
The brutal truth? The discipline strategies
schools are relying on are failing spectacularly. . . including the PBIS and
SEL frameworks. . . and suspending MORE kids this Fall is NOT the solution.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
This Blog article (and accompanying
Podcast) provides a proven lifeline by describing:
📊The 5 Pillars of Safe & Effective Schools -
The exact model used by award-winning principals nationwide.
⚡The 5-Component Solution for Classroom Management and Student
Self-Management -
Dr. Howie Knoff's evidence-based framework that's transformed 1000s of schools
nationwide over the past 40 years.
🔍How Teachers and Support Staff fit in –
What teachers and related service professionals need to do - this Fall - to
turn things around.
📋Your Summer Action Plan - Exact
steps to implement before August (includes Needs Assessment Questions to ask
NOW).
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
FACT: This isn't another education Blog
or Podcast with feel-good theories. This is a survival guide, backed by hard
data and proven results.
Don't let another school year slip
away while your teachers burn out and students fall behind. The research is
clear. The solution exists.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The question is: Will you act?
Every day you wait, you lose another
great teacher.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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Classroom Management Lessons for Teachers from the
Detroit Lions’ Shocking Playoff Loss
[The Improving Education Today: The Deep Dive podcast,
hosted by popular AI Educators Angela Jones and Davey Johnson, provides an
engaging and enlightening synopsis and analysis of this Blog on Spotify... CLICK HERE]
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[CLICK HERE to read this Blog
on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Dear Colleagues,
Introduction
I am not from Detroit, nor do I
live there.
Heck. . . I’m not even from
Michigan, much less the Mid-West.
But. . . I am a Dan
Campbell fan. . . the four-season Head Coach of the National Football League’s
(NFL) Detroit Lions!
And. . . even if you are not a
football fan, every educator in the country should know about Dan Campbell, his
success, and—most importantly—why he has been successful.
_ _ _ _ _
This year, Dan led the Lions to a
15 Win – 2 Loss record. . . which made his Team the Number 1 playoff seed in
one of the NFL’s two Conferences.
Critically, as the Lions’ Coach,
Campbell’s record over the past four years has progressively improved from 3
wins in 2021, to 9 wins in 2022, to 12 wins in 2023, to 15 wins this year (all
out of 17 regular season games played each season).
Can you spell: I-M-P-R-O-V-E-M-E-N-T?!
_ _ _ _ _
In the Playoffs this year, given
their talent and regular season play, the Lions were favored to go to the
Superbowl.
But in their first playoff game,
they lost 45-31 to the Washington Commanders in a game that was not really even
that close.
But I respect and admire Dan
Campbell because of how he stood up and publicly handled the loss.
Just moments after walking off
the field, he faced the “harsh glare of the lights” and the “unforgiving
scrutiny of the Media” in a televised press conference geared to dissecting the
minutiae of a game that will trigger a deluge of nightmares-to-come.
And under these lights, Campbell
taught us a lesson in candor, humility, perspective, strength, realism, and
vulnerability.
But the Lions’ remarkable
improvement over the past four years, their loss in the Playoffs, and Coach
Campbell’s contribution to both provides many other extraordinary lessons for
all educators, and especially classroom teachers, relative to their leadership,
their students’ success, and how to handle the times when things “don’t go as
planned.”
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Students’ Classroom Behavior is Not Improving
Critically, now three years after
our “full return” (Fall, 2021) from the pandemic, students’ classroom behavior
is not getting better.
Indeed, a January 8, 2025 Education
Week article reported on a mid-December 2024 survey of 990 educators
(134 district leaders, 97 school leaders, and 759 teachers)—chosen as a
nationally-representative sample by the EdWeek Research Center.
The results of
this survey indicated:
·72% of educators said that the students in their
classroom, school, or district have been misbehaving either “a little” (24%) or
“a lot” (48%) more than in the fall of 2019, the last semester before the
COVID-19 pandemic began.
In contrast:
·A year ago (early 2023), 70% of educators said that their students
were misbehaving either “a little” (36%) or “a lot” (33%) more than in the fall
of 2019; and
·In 2021, 66% of educators said that their
students were misbehaving a little or a lot more than in the fall of 2019.
_ _ _ _ _
The Education
Week article went on:
Student misbehavior has routinely topped teachers’
lists of concerns and most pressing challenges in recent years. There’s been a
pronounced spike in behavior problems, ranging from minor classroom disruptions
to more serious student fights broadcast on social media, since students
returned to school buildings. Teachers have also reported a drop in
students’ motivation in that time period.
Student misbehavior is hurting staff morale, some
survey respondents said.
Indeed, past surveys have documented this overall dip
in teacher morale. An annual report released in August by the EdWeek Research
Center showed that just 18 percent of public school teachers said they are
very satisfied with their jobs, a much lower percentage than decades ago, and a
slight drop from the year prior when 20 percent of teachers said the same.
In that same report, many elementary and middle school
teachers said they need more support in dealing with student discipline, and
that the additional help would improve their mental health. Eighty percent of
teachers reported they have to address students’ behavioral problems “at least
a few times a week,” with 58 percent saying this happens every day, according
to a Pew Research Center report from April 2024.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Students are Not Going to “Fix” Themselves: School
Staff Need to Function as a Team
While it is easier
to “just blame the students, the parents, residual pandemic trauma, and social
media” for students’ persistent behavioral challenges, this externalization is
not going to solve the problem.
The students are
not going to fix themselves.
Moreover, there are
no quick fixes (otherwise, this problem would have been solved long ago).
Instead, let’s look
at schools. . . and solutions. . . from a “team” perspective.
And while the
students are certainly part of “the team roster,” school teams consist of
administrators, related service professionals, teachers and instructional
specialists, and support staff—like secretaries, custodians, cafeteria workers,
bus drivers, and paraprofessionals.
All of them should
be contributing members of “the team.”
Comparatively, an
NFL football team typically has 12 coaches, 53 men on its “game-day” roster,
and another 16 players on the practice (or taxi) squad... in addition to
staff who, for example, include advanced scouts, athletic trainers, game
videographers, data analysts, and others.
The essential team questions—whether
we are talking about a school or the Detroit Lions—are:
Does your Team
have:
·The interdependent talent with the skills,
experience, motivation, and commitment to succeed?
For schools, this ultimately involves
the Teachers in the classrooms.
For an NFL Team, this ultimately involves
the Players on the field.
_ _ _ _ _
·The evidence-based blueprints to facilitate
success?
For schools, this involves the
academic curricula with their scope and sequences, as well as the social,
emotional, and behavioral components that focus on student self-management.
For an NFL Team, this involves the
playbooks for the offense, defense, and special teams, respectively, and how
they are applied to specific opponents.
_ _ _ _ _
·The leadership to guide player development?
For schools, this involves the Administrators,
Supervisors, Instructional Coaches, and Related Service Consultants.
For an NFL Team, this involves the
Head Coach and the different Position Coaches.
_ _ _ _ _
·The culture, belief, dedication, persistence,
and resilience to consistently act as a Team for “the greater good”?
For schools and NFL teams, this
involves everyone. . . but for schools, it also necessarily involves the
students, their voices and needs, and their active commitment and involvement.
_ _ _ _ _
Significantly,
success for an NFL team is measured in wins and championships.
Success for a school
is measured in students’ academic and social, emotional, and behavioral
learning, progress, proficiency, and graduation with the skills needed for
post-graduation success.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Classroom Behavior and Teachers
As noted above,
everyone on a successful team needs to have (a) the skills, experience,
motivation, and commitment to succeed (b) in an organizational culture that (c)
nurtures and reinforces everyone’s “team-first” beliefs, dedication,
persistence, and resilience to consistently act for “the greater good.”
Thus, to truly
address the student behavior and classroom management challenges also noted
above, schools need to strategically apply their organization’s culture and
team talent to (a) analyzing and understanding their present social, emotional,
and behavioral challenges in order to (b) address, diminish, or resolve them.
In most cases, this
necessarily starts in every classroom, and involves every teacher—individually,
within their grade-level team and/or academic department, and as a member of
the entire school community.
Individually,
teachers must recognize that—as an extension of their grade-level, department,
and school teams—they are responsible for:
·Creating and sustaining positive, safe, and
productive classroom learning environments;
·Identifying, teaching, prompting, and
reinforcing students’ expected social, emotional, and behavioral skills; and
·Analyzing and strategically addressing—once
again, individually, within their grade-level teams or departments, or through their
administrative and/or related service supports—the students who are not
conforming or responding to classroom norms.
While even veteran
teachers periodically struggle with classroom management (needing coaching and
other supports), it is important that schools with the student, peer,
classroom, and schoolwide challenges especially analyze the classroom
management skills and student interactions of teachers who are (a) new to the
profession, and/or (b) new to the school.
There are at least three reasons for this
recommendation:
·Teacher Training. Decades of published
studies analyzing colleges of education across the country have consistently
found that the instruction and supervision of graduates’ classroom management
knowledge and skill is sorely lacking.
These knowledge and skill gaps are
even more pronounced for many teachers certified through alternative education
programs.
_ _ _ _ _
·Teacher Research. As but one example, a
methodologically well-done study in Educational Researcher
(“Troublemakers? The Role of Frequent Teacher Referrers in Expanding Racial
Disciplinary Disproportionalities;” June 14, 2023) analyzed the characteristics
of the referring teachers and the “misbehaving” students from over 75,000
office discipline referrals (ODRs) in a large, racially-diverse urban school
district in California during the 2016-2017 through 2019-2020 school years.
Analyzing the teachers responsible for
the top 5% of the district’s ODRs, the study determined that (a) this involved
only 1.7% of all teachers; (b) Black and Hispanic students were overrepresented
among the students referred by these “top referrers”; (c) teachers who were
White, early career, and serving in middle schools did the most referring; and
(d) after 3 years of classroom experience, the likelihood of being a top
referrer quickly dropped—except in Middle schools where the top referrers’ ODRs
did not decrease until they had at least 11 years of experience.
_ _ _ _ _
·Teacher Supervision and Evaluation. As
but one example here, another well-done study in Education Evaluation and
Policy Analysis (“’Refining’ Our Understanding of Early Career Teacher
Skill Development: Evidence from Classroom Observations;” January 10, 2025) analyzed
the instructional progress of 25,000 novice teachers in Tennessee, based on their
principals’ observational data from Tennessee’s teacher-evaluation system.
In this system, principals’
classroom observations had to identify one focus area for improvement from
among 19 instructional skills—including, for example, teacher questioning,
presenting content, behavior management, and problem-solving.
Critically, the researchers found,
among the 25% of new teachers who received the lowest overall evaluation
scores, administrators were most likely to identify weak behavior management skills.
By contrast, the highest-performing
new teachers looked more like veteran teachers when it came to these skills.
_ _ _ _ _
Taken altogether,
once again, schools whose staff report continuing student behavior and
classroom management challenges should first analyze where these challenges are
occurring and with whom.
Without blaming
these teachers, these analyses should especially look at new or novice (less
than three years of experience) teachers.
Critically: Why
should anyone be surprised that new teachers sometimes have the most classroom
management problems?
While most schools.
. . and NFL teams. . . have teachers and players, respectively, who are emerging
or seasoned veterans with five or more years of successful team experience, they
also have new teachers or new players (“rookies”), respectively.
To be successful,
new teachers and rookie NFL players, respectively, need to embrace the organization’s
positive, “team-first” culture while learning (a) the “plays” and how to
execute them; (b) how to be good teammates; and (c) how to contribute—in the
classroom or on the field—to student (for schools) or championship (for NFL
teams) outcomes.
For teachers, part
of this contribution is classroom management.
Moreover: Just as
NFL rookies get more instruction, coaching, evaluation, and feedback before
they participate in actual games, new and novice teachers need the same
opportunities.
The problem is:
Many times, they don’t.
In fact, new and
novice teachers are almost always immediately put “into the game.”
That is, these
teachers are independently placed in charge of their classrooms on the first
day of school. . . with little “pre-season” training, coaching, evaluation, and
feedback.
Kind of scary. . .
isn’t it?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Classroom Behavior and the Evidence-based Blueprint
that Facilitates Success
Successful NFL teams
have well-designed and proven offensive, defensive, and special teams’
playbooks.
Relative to student
behavior and classroom management, many schools. . . not so much.
The ultimate goal
of a “student behavior and classroom management playbook” is to motivate, teach,
prompt, and reinforce or correct students’ social, emotional, and behavioral
self-management skills.
Just as an NFL
team’s best defense is a good offense, a school’s Tier 1 prevention system
helps minimize students’ behavioral challenges and the need for more intensive Tier
2 and 3 services, supports, and interventions.
Across ten years of
Blogs (and many publications), we have discussed the five proven, evidence-based,
and interdependent components that schools need in their playbook.
Let’s listen to AI
Educators Angela Jones and Davey Johnson on their Improving Education Today:
The Deep Dive podcast of this Blog as they integrate our discussion thus
far and expand on the school blueprint more specifically.
When you “FOLLOW”
this podcast, you are automatically notified when each bi-monthly podcast is
posted.
Briefly, the
evidence-based blueprint for school discipline success has the following five
interdependent components:
·Positive School and Classroom Climate, and Staff
and Peer Relationships;
·Explicit Prosocial Behavioral Expectations in
classrooms and common school areas, and Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skill
Instruction;
·Student Motivation and Accountability;
·Consistency and Fidelity—relative to the
implementation of all the above components; and
·Special Situations—the application of the components
above to all school settings, all peer interactions, and those students who
need more strategic or intensive services and supports.
Critically, these
same components are present in a sound and successful NFL football team. They
are introduced and taught especially during the preseason and reinforced and
extended during every practice before a regular season or playoff game.
More specifically, sound
and successful NFL teams ensure that their offensive, defensive, and special
team units:
·Develop positive relationships in the midst of a
supportive, but competitive climate;
·Learn and master their playbooks to automaticity;
·Are motivated and self-accountable;
·Demonstrate consistent play during each game, as
well as those across the entire season; and
·Apply their skills in different weather
conditions, at both home and away games, when different players are injured and
are unable to play, and after disappointing losses.
_ _ _ _ _
To expand the
school blueprint more specifically:
·Positive
School and Classroom Climates, and Staff and Peer Relationships
This component focuses on building strong, positive
relationships across same-grade and cross-grade students, across teachers and
other staff and administrators in the school, across students and staff, and
across students and staff and parents and others in the community. It also
includes activities and expectations that build and sustain support for
students from different backgrounds (relative, for example, to gender, race,
culture, religion, sexual orientation).
_ _ _ _ _
·Explicit
Prosocial Behavioral Expectations in the Classrooms and Common School areas,
and Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skill Instruction
This component is anchored by an evidence-based social
skills program that is taught by classroom teachers at every grade level, and
that focuses on teaching, modeling, practicing, and applying social and
behavioral skills (e.g., Listening, Following Direction, Asking for Help,
Ignoring Distractions, Dealing with Teasing, Accepting Consequences). It also
includes student training in emotional awareness, control, communication, and
coping so that students can demonstrate or perform their social skills even under
conditions of emotionality.
_ _ _ _ _
·Student
Motivation and Accountability
This component focuses on the
developmentally-appropriate incentives and consequences, respectfully, that
motivate appropriate, prosocial student behavior, and the differential
responses needed to hold students accountable for inappropriate, anti-social
behavior. This area includes the development (if needed) of a progressive,
tiered school Behavioral Code of Conduct, and how to implement it in equitable
ways, eliminating disproportionality—especially for students of color and with
disabilities.
_ _ _ _ _
·Consistency
and Fidelity
This component focuses on how to train and reinforce
staff and students in the consistent implementation of the activities and
processes in the three component areas above. . . so that they are used and
applied as empirically designed and with fidelity. Clearly, if evidence-based
processes are not implemented with the consistency (across, for example, time,
people, settings, and situations), integrity, and intensity needed to
facilitate or change behavior, then they will not work or will take longer to
work. This can create a resistance or distrust of the change process that
potentially undermines current and future change efforts.
_ _ _ _ _
·Special
Situations
This component addresses the more complex,
multi-dimensional behaviors related to (a) the school’s Common Areas; (b)
peer-driven psychosocial interactions (including teasing, taunting, bullying,
harassment, hazing, and physical aggression); and (c) the multi-tiered services,
supports, and interventions needed by students who are not responding to
effective school discipline and classroom management approaches.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Classroom Behavior and Administrators
Finally, leadership
skills are essential whether you are the Head Coach of an NFL football team or
a School Principal. Critically, neither leader simply “talked” their way into
the position.
Many head coaches
played in the NFL themselves. And they spent many years coaching different
parts of a football team. . . often under the tutelage of a Head Coach who saw
their potential and mentored them.
Many school
principals were classroom teachers. And they spent many years in
different school leadership positions. . . again, under the tutelage of
Principals and others who saw their leadership potential.
But as reinforced
above, both Head Coaches and School Principals need to have a great support
staff, a sound playbook, and players or teachers, respectively, who are skilled,
experienced, motivated, and committed.
One leader does not
a team make.
_ _ _ _ _
Relative to the
continuing student discipline and classroom management challenges noted by many
schools across the country, school principals need to actively and consistently
do the following:
·Be Present—at staff problem analysis and intervention
planning meetings, at professional development and coaching and feedback
sessions, interacting in the classrooms and the common areas of the school, and
working side-by-side with staff who are working with students to make things
better.
·Be Knowledgeable—about the school’s
discipline and classroom model, and the components and activities being
implemented by staff with or on behalf of students. Here, principals need to
have the knowledge and skills such that they could walk into a classroom or
situation and implement the model fluidly and with integrity.
·Be Respectful and Empathetic—when
interacting with classroom teachers, students, other instructional and support
staff, and other administrative colleagues. High levels of emotionality or
disregard only increase the chances of the same reactions in others.
·Be Humble—by knowing when to take the
lead and when to delegate, when to make a decision and when to defer to others,
when to give encouragement and when to express disappointment, and when to
press ahead and when to back off and regroup.
·Be Aware of and Comfortable with—the
difference between a student’s discipline problem, and the problem that reflects
a social, emotional, or behavioral student challenge. Discipline problems
usually change when strategically-chosen disciplinary actions are implemented.
Social, emotional, or behavioral challenges are only responsive to strategically-chosen
services, supports, and/or interventions.
Once again—as
embodied by Lions’ Head Coach Dan Campbell—these characteristics explain how
his team went from 3 to 9 to 12 to 15 wins over the past four years. . . but
also why he reacted to his team’s 45-31 loss last week.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
A Final Lesson
There’s one more
lesson to learn from Coach Campbell.
If you watch the
video of his press conference again, you see him say:
·“We fell short;”
·“It just hurts to lose;”
·“It was just one of those odd days;”
·“Things were just off” right from the beginning
of the football game;
·“It was a ripple effect;”
·“We just didn’t play great;”
·“We couldn’t get over the hump;”
·“I wish I had a better answer;”
·“I’ve got to spend some time to look at it and
figure it out;” and
·“It’s my fault—I didn’t have them ready.”
_ _ _ _ _ _
Whether we are
talking about classroom teachers, school administrators, or any staff group in
between. . . there are times—even with the best players, playbook, past, and
potential—that things just don’t go as planned.
Sometimes, the
students are just “off”. . . it’s just an “odd day”. . . teachers can’t “get
over the hump.”
For these days,
tomorrow is another day.
But if there are
too many of “these days,” the school needs to analyze (a) the talent; (b)
evidence-based blueprints; (c) leadership; and (d) the culture, beliefs,
dedication, persistence, and resilience of the school and its teams.
Remember: Students
rarely fix their own social, emotional, or behavioral problems, and they rarely
“mature” out of these challenging patterns.
While they need to
be part of the solution, educators (and parents) need to take the lead.
A school may not
have a “winning record” right now relative to student behavior and classroom
management.
But—like the
Detroit Lions—we can turn things around. . . if we just “listen” to Dan
Campbell.
_ _ _ _ _
Summary
This Blog described
a recent nationally-representative Education Week Research Center survey of
educators across the country that found that student discipline and classroom
management continues to get worse post-pandemic.
We then asserted
that students are not going to fix themselves (and that there are no quick
fixes), and that everyone in an affected school—especially teachers and
administrators—needs to be part of the problem analysis and strategic
solutions.
The remainder of
the Blog used Dan Campbell, the Head Coach of the National Football League’s
(NFL) Detroit Lions, and how he handled his recent press conference after his team
lost a playoff game that they were overwhelming favorites to win.
We used his
reaction to the loss—even in the face of his team’s significant improvements
under his leadership the past four years—to compare the characteristics of a
successful football team specifically to what schools need to do to solve their
current student behavior and classroom management problems.
In short, we
discussed school leadership and “player development,” the talent and training
needed, the “playbook” toward effective school and classroom discipline, and the
importance of school culture and commitment.
We closed by encouraging
schools to start now on this road to improvement. . . again emphasizing that
there are no quick fixes. . . you’ve got to put in the work to earn the rewards.
_ _ _ _ _
A New Podcast
and Professional Development Resource for You
At the beginning of this month,
we announced a new partnership and resource for you.
The partnership is with popular
AI Educators, Davey Johnson and Angela Jones. . . and the resource is
their Podcast:
Improving
Education Today: The Deep Dive
For each bimonthly
Blog message that I publish, Davey and Angela will summarize and analyze the
Blog in their free-wheeling and “no-holds-barred” Podcast. . . addressing its
importance to “education today,” and discussing their recommendations on how to
apply the information so that all students, staff, and schools benefit to “the
next level of excellence.”
Davey and Angela
have already created a Podcast Archive of more than 35 additional and separate
podcasts reflecting involving all of our 2024 Blogs (Volume 2), and 14 of our
most-popular Blogs from 2023 (Volume 1).
The Podcasts are
posted on Spotify, and you can “Follow” the Podcast Series so that you will be
automatically notified whenever a new Podcast is posted.
Many districts and
schools are using the Podcasts in their Leadership Teams and/or PLCs to keep
everyone abreast of new issues and research in education, and to stimulate
important discussions and decisions regarding the best ways to enhance student,
staff, and school outcomes.
If you would like
to follow a Podcast up with a free one-hour consultation with me, just contact
me and we will get it on our schedules.
I hope to hear from you soon.
Best,
Howie
[CLICK HERE to read this Blog
on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]
_ _ _ _ _
[To listen to a synopsis and analysis of this Blog on the “Improving
Education Today: The Deep Dive” podcast hosted by popular AI
Educators, Angela Jones and Davey Johnson on Spotify: CLICK
HERE for Angela and Davey’s Enlightening Discussion]
The Themes that Captured Our Time, Attention, Concern,
and Consternation
[CLICK HERE to read this Blog
on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]
Dear Colleagues,
Introduction
Today’s Blog closes out my 10th full
year of writing these bi-monthly Blogs.
Over the past 231 Blogs—with
topics ranging from research to reflections to rants—I have tried to analyze
current topics, reports, and practices in education, psychology, and
organizational change, emphasizing effective practices that improve student,
staff, school, and systems-level outcomes.
I have done this in the spirit of
“paying it forward”. . . and while it may result in a keynote invitation or a workshop
presentation or a needs assessment or on-site consultation. . . the time I
spend thinking about and writing these pieces really is the best
“compensation.”
The world has dramatically
changed over the past ten years. . . our country has seen significant
challenges and advances. . . and education—in its widely diverse areas—has
selectively experienced innovation, inertia, stagnation, and regression.
Rather than review an entire
decade, let’s reflect instead just on the past year, and the “top areas” that
caught my (and, hopefully, your) attention.
Below, I have clustered (with
some reordering) all 24 of this past year’s Blogs into organizational areas. While
each cluster has a brief introduction, I will leave it to you to personally and
professionally reflect on these areas. . . perhaps, revisiting a full Blog
message or one that you missed.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
This Year’s Blogs: Themes and Clusters
While some Blogs
could have been clustered into more than one theme, and the theme titles below
are broad, this year’s 24 Blog messages can be organized in the following
areas:
·Theme 1: School Improvement: Changing
Thinking, Processes, and Practices to Change Outcomes
·Theme 2: Choosing Effective School-Wide
Programs and Practices: Avoiding Media Hype While Facilitating Staff Consensus
·Theme 3: Students’ Engagement, Behavioral
Interactions, and Mental Health
·Theme 4: Improving Multi-Tiered and
Special Education Services: Bridging the General Education and Special
Education Wall
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Theme 1: School Improvement: Changing Thinking, Processes,
and Practices to Change Outcomes
Districts, schools,
and other educational agencies or settings must continually evaluate their
student, staff, school, and system outcomes—especially in the continually
changing social, political, economic, and demographic world that we live in.
Education is not a
“one size fits all” undertaking. It needs to be responsive to many different
stakeholders, constituencies, and consumers, and yet it also needs to be
effective and efficient.
Strategic planning,
needs assessments, resource analyses, and formative and summative evaluations
are conscious, continual processes that are essential for school improvement
and success.
But these processes
need to be grounded in innovative thinking, evidence-based blueprints, and proven
practices and strategies.
Our 2024 Blogs in this area
were [CLICK DATE to Link to Blog]:
·November
23, 2024 School Improvement Requires Changing Thinking, Not Just Changing
Programs: The “Moneyball Thinking” Needed in Education
Using
the movie “Moneyball” as a metaphor, we suggest that many districts and schools
are locked into antiquated data analysis and school improvement thinking. We
advocate that they use “Moneyball Thinking” to rethink and revolutionize their
thinking and practices, applying these to linking Needs Assessment results to
more successful strategic planning and action.
_ _
_ _ _
·July
13, 2024 The Seven Sure Solutions for Continuous Student and
School Success: “If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going, Any Road Will Get You
There” (Part I)
This
Blog discusses the Seven Sure Solutions to school improvement and students
success as significant numbers of students continue to academically
under-perform and demonstrate social, emotional, and behavioral challenges in
the classroom and across their schools. Too many schools still focus on how
many students “pass the state test.” While they avoid school improvement
status, millions of students are not proficient and unprepared after
graduation.
_ _
_ _ _
·August
10, 2024 Will Your School “Win the Gold” for Your Students This
Year? Why the U.S. Women’s Gold Medal Olympic Gymnastics Team is a Model for
All Schools (Part III)
This
Blog discusses the courage, characteristics, and conditioning that educators
need to consider so that their schools are successful for all
students—especially as a new school year approaches. This Blog uses the Gold
Medal-winning Women’s Olympic Gymnastics team—at this year’s Paris Olympic
Games—as a model and analogy of what schools need to do to “Win the Gold” in
these three areas for every one of their students.
_ _
_ _ _
·October
19, 2024 Speed Counts When Making Successful Changes Across Your
District or School—When to Go Slow and When to Go Fast
This
Blog emphasizes that the success of a district or school’s change process or
initiative often rests on the speed of its implementation. We review ten
variables that help determine if a change process needs to be implemented
slowly or quickly, and provide two Case Studies that apply these principles and
practices.
_ _
_ _ _
·November
9, 2024 Delegating Duties and Decisions in a Shared Leadership
School: Avoiding Staff Reservations or Resentment
This
Blog discusses the significant benefits of having a Shared Leadership structure
and process in every school across the country. The structure is defined by
seven research-to-practice components evident in all successful schools. These
are aligned to six school-level committees—each responsible for their part of
the school success operation. The process is defined by describing the
different ways to make school and schooling decisions, and the importance of
staff training in this area.
_ _
_ _ _
·January
13, 2024 While Grades May Be Meaningful, It’s Still About the Skills.
“Resolving” to Recognize that Report Cards are Less Meaningful than Student
Mastery
This
Blog reviews a major study demonstrating that high school grades across the
country have been inflated from 2010 through 2022. At the same time, it
emphasizes that grades are less important than the mastery of specific academic
skills when predicting success in the next course, the next level of education,
or a graduate’s performance once employed.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Theme 2: Choosing Effective School-Wide Programs
and Practices: Avoiding Media Hype While Facilitating Staff Consensus
Anyone can buy a
website, garner some testimonials, collect some “data,” post a TikTok, and
claim that their “new and improved” curriculum, intervention, application, or
product has “changed the life” of a student or school.
That is not
research. It is marketing.
In our quest for
educational innovations that work, we need to apply sound, objective social
media and product evaluation principles and skills to cut through the hype and
get to the heart.
We need to
recognize and reject the fads, and embrace the fact that success in school
takes time, resources, training, and persistence. . . and that it does not
often occur immediately or without periodic challenges and temporary setbacks.
It takes at least
12 to 14 years to educate a qualified high school graduate.
Surely, we—the
educators—can invest the time to validate the approaches that we select and
deliver to these students. . . to ensure the optimal readiness for their
post-graduation lives.
Our 2024 Blogs in this area
were [CLICK DATE to Link to Blog]:
·March
16, 2024 Helping Schools Pick and Implement the Best
Evidence-Based Programs: Avoiding Mistakes, Best Practices, and Pilot Projects
(Part II)
Continuing
this two-part Series, this Blog Part II discusses the evaluative criteria used
by the What Works Clearinghouse and Evidence-Based Practices Resource Center to
rate the validity of curricula and approaches in educational settings. We then
summarize the five “mistakes” that educators should avoid when choosing
evidence-based programs, and explain why education should change the term “Best
Practices” to “Effective Practices,” and “Pilot Projects” to “Field-Testing.”
_ _
_ _ _
·September
7, 2024 How Fad or Flawed School Programs Increase Poor Teacher
Morale and Resistance to Change: When Education Keeps Adopting the Same Shaky
Stuff, It Will Keep Getting Repeated Rocky Results (Part V)
This
Blog reviewed and integrated recent articles reporting that (a) teachers’ job
satisfaction and mental health worsened last year, as did the need for student
supports and interventions; and (b) districts and schools continue to adopt
unproven programs and practices as part of a fad-driven decision-making
process. . . with no end in sight. An analysis emphasized the need for
data-driven decision-making, and suggested that ineffective practices
negatively impact teacher morale and create a resistance to future practices
that will effect change.
_ _
_ _ _
·February
24, 2024 What Super Bowl Commercials Teach Education About Media
and Product Literacy: The Language and Process that Helps Schools Vet New
Products and Interventions (Part I)
Metaphorically
using the commercials at the Super Bowl as a guide, this Blog emphasized and
outlined (applying the goals and questions within a sound middle school Media
Literacy program) why educators need to be both Media and Product Literate when
reviewing and evaluating the marketing materials or on-line reviews of new
products or services.
_ _
_ _ _
·March
30, 2024 How Cognitive Biases Affect Student Perceptions and
Educator Decisions: Making the Unconscious, Conscious and the Implicit,
Explicit
This
Blog defines Cognitive Bias, discusses how eight specific biases affect
educators’ positive and negative perceptions of students, staff, and systems,
and then address how they similarly impact judgments at the individual, grade,
and school levels. We especially focus on how to understand, prevent, or
address the implicit or unconscious biases or explicit and conscious biases
that interfere with or undermine productive interactions and objective
decision-making.
_ _
_ _ _
·April
27, 2024 Social Media and the “Double-Edged” Sword of Damocles:
Survival Rests on Humility, Self-Control, and the Principles of Public
Relations
This
Blog discusses Social Media as a “Sword of Damocles”that hangs above us with the power to enhance
or destroy those who use it. We can control the power by (teaching)
self-control, humility, common sense, and the ability to honestly
self-reflective before making a social media faux pas.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Theme 3: Students’ Engagement, Behavioral
Interactions, and Mental Health
A clear
post-pandemic theme—that persisted through 2024—involved issues related to (a)
students’ chronic absenteeism and “quiet quitting” of public schools; (b)
classroom disengagement and inappropriate behavior toward teachers; (c) social
media addiction and peer-to-peer bullying; and (d) mental health
concerns—including real concerns about school and personal safety.
While these issues
need data-driven analyses as to their root causes and multi-tiered solutions, easy-fix
Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) solutions are continually cited. . . even as
virtually any solution is touted as an “SEL solution.”
During this year,
we addressed the SEL bandwagon (and most of the other issues above) head on. .
. we discussed the root causes. . . and we detailed the prevention, response,
and intervention approaches needed.
If you are amazed
that 2024 is over. . . you understand the importance of time.
We need to make
sure that every school and schooling moment is well spent.
Our next generation
of leaders are in our classroom seats today. We don’t have time to waste on
generic suggestions, self-serving frameworks, and unproven practices.
Our 2024 Blogs in this area
were [CLICK DATE to Link to Blog]:
·January
27, 2024 Strategies for Safe, Productive Classroom Conversations
on Race, Religion, and National/World Events: It’s Not If, It Should Be When
Many
challenging, controversial, and emotional social issues have impacted the
climate and interactions across students, staff, and schools. To ensure that
discussions around these issues are safe and productive, staff need to be
trained to teach and guide students in the necessary discussion expectations,
ground rules, and conflict prevention and resolution strategies. This Blog
describes seven phases to accomplish this, providing specific guidance and
examples. The Blog also includes a YouTube video of a recent Education Talk
Radio interview summarizing and extending the discussion to the next level.
_ _
_ _ _
·August
24, 2024 Students' Health, Mental Health, and Well-Being Worsens Over
the Past 10 Years: Summary of the August 2024 Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention Report (Part IV)
This
Blog summarizes the CDC’s national 2013-2023 Youth Risk Behavior survey results
for high school students. Detailing the shaky emotional status of our students,
the Blog asserts why students need multi-tiered services and supports, and that
an evidence-based social skills program—based on cognitive-behavioral and
social learning theory research—should anchor the core preschool through high
school universal instruction.
_ _
_ _ _
·July
27, 2024 Are Schools Really Prepared to Address Educators’
Biggest Behavioral Student Concerns Right Now? “We’ve Got Serious Problems and
We Need Serious People” (Part II)
This
Blog discusses the significant classroom and school social, emotional, and
behavioral challenges demonstrated by students this past year as identified in
a recent national survey by K-12 school leaders. Using three quotes from a
national presentation, short- and long-term solutions are recommended that will
result in real and sustained success.
_ _
_ _ _
·May
25, 2024 Increasing Student Engagement: The New School Year
Begins Before this “Old” Year Ends. How to Prepare and What Needs to be Done
This
Blog discusses the importance, need, and how to identify, analyze, and plan
interventions for disengaged students before the end of the current school year
so that the re-engagement interventions selected can occur either during the
summer or immediately at the beginning of the new school year.
_ _
_ _ _
·June
22, 2024 Does Your School’s SEL Program Teach Social Skill
Behaviors, or Just Talk About What Students “Should Do”? If We Taught Reading
the Way We Teach SEL, None of Our Students Would Learn How to Read
This
Blog discusses the building blocks needed when teaching students—from preschool
through high school—the social skills they need to be successful. Described are
the specific skills, teaching steps, and scripts—using the Stop & Think
Social Skills Program as an exemplar—to help students learn, master, and easily
apply their social skills to real-life situations.
_ _
_ _ _
·June
8, 2024 Revisiting Title IX’s Sexual Harassment Requirements
While Avoiding Secondary Victimization: A Procedural Primer. Why Do Too Many
Districts Not Know (or Abdicate) their Responsibilities?
This
Blog provides a detailed overview of the federal Title IX Sexual Harassment
law—describing definitions, required procedures, and sample district policies
in specific areas relative to responding to and investigating allegations. It
also discusses the psychological impact of sexual harassment on school-aged
students, and the importance of avoiding secondary traumatization.
_ _
_ _ _
·September
21, 2024 Research Teases Out the Impact of Adverse Childhood
Experiences. . . But Many Educators Still Don’t Understand Social-Emotional
Screeners, and the Limitations of ACEs-Only Assessments
Given
the school-related challenges since students returned from the pandemic, this
Blog discusses (a) the characteristics and concerns with social-emotional
screening, and with only using an ACEs tool; (b) how to interpret a recent ACEs
study that found ACEs correlations for young students’ social-emotional status,
but not for their academic performance; and (c) the serious limitations with
ACEs assessments’ validity and ability to causally explain students’
social-emotional—and, especially, trauma-related—difficulties. We identify many
reasons (beyond traumatic events) that explain students’ significant
social-emotional challenges, and discuss Tier 2 and 3 interventions available
to help.
_ _
_ _ _
·February
10, 2024 Michigan Mother Found Guilty of Manslaughter in Her
Son’s School Shooting: Should Schools Lean-In to Hold Parents More Accountable
for their Children’s Behavior?
On
February 6, 2024, Jennifer Crumbley was found guilty of four counts of
involuntary manslaughter for allowing her son to bring a gun to school where he
killed four and injured seven others. This Blog analyzes the case and asks
schools: Will this decision move the pendulum toward greater parental
accountability when schools recommend outside supports to address their
children’s significant health, mental health, and wellness needs; Will the
threat of litigation motivate these parents to take timely and effective
action—consistent with the recommendations; and Will schools become more
assertive in their interactions with parents, especially when there is a
documented threat of student, staff, and school violence?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Theme 4: Improving Multi-Tiered and Special
Education Services: Bridging the General Education and Special Education Wall
The research has
continually demonstrated that most “students with disabilities” do not have
pervasive educational challenges. . . they have “niche” areas where their
disability impacts their academic or behavioral progress.
As such, these
students are more typical than atypical, and their instruction is best guided
by general education teachers in the general education curriculum in their
general education classrooms.
At the same time,
special education teachers are important and needed. . . as consultants to
their general education colleagues (and vice versa). . . and as direct
instruction co-teachers and teachers for students with more strategic or
intensive multi-tiered needs.
But there should be
no general education-special education “divide”. . . there should only be an
educational “continuum.”
Our 2024 Blogs in this area
were [CLICK DATE to Link to Blog]:
·December
7, 2024 Improving Special Education Services for our Students: What
the New Administration Must Do on this 20th Anniversary of IDEA 2004
This
Blog uses the 20th anniversary of the signing of the last reauthorization of
the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 2004), and the coming
second Trump administration to analyze, critique, and make recommendations on
how to improve special education services in our country’s K-12 schools.
_ _
_ _ _
·October
5, 2024 Breaking Down the Wall Between General and Special Education
Teachers in Our Schools: How Organizational Missteps Create Classroom Barriers
This
Blog discusses the institutionalized wall between General Education and Special
Education Teachers that has existed since Students with Disabilities were fully
included in our nation’s public schools in the mid-1970s. Organized in five
“columns,” the Blog identifies bricks that need to be dislodged (i.e., changed)
so that the Wall can come down. Many of the recommendations focus on changing
staff and administrative beliefs, policies, procedures, or practices.
_ _
_ _ _
·May
11, 2024 When a School’s Multi-Tiered System of Supports Needs
Support: How Do You Motivate Educators and Avoid Educational Malpractice?
This
Blog discusses the multi-tiered systems of support process, how to best prepare
for MTSS Case Study meetings using six “First Things First” activities, the
implications—through a Case Study—when these activities are not completed
before an MTSS meeting, and what to do when staff refuse to prepare and
participate in the MTSS process with intent and efficacy. The Blog asks,
“Should school staff be cited, like doctors and nurses, for ‘Educational
Malpractice’ when they have consciously and egregiously violated MTSS protocols
and harmed students?”
_ _
_ _ _
·April
13, 2024 Laundromats, Lawyers, Learning Loss, and Life: An
Autobiographical Day in Education
This
Blog described an autobiographical day in the educational life of a school
psychologist who works nationwide as a consultant. He reflects on the harsh and
sometimes fixed realities he observed in a laundromat, on a special education
due process conference call as an Expert Witness, and during his work in a
rural school district with barely enough staff to address its students’ complex
needs.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Summary
Once again, today’s Blog closes
out my 10th full year of writing these bi-monthly Blogs. Over the past 231
Blogs, we have tried to analyze current topics, reports, and practices in
education, psychology, and organizational change, emphasizing effective
practices that improve student, staff, school, and systems-level outcomes.
The world has dramatically
changed over the past ten years. . . our country has seen significant
challenges and advances. . . and education—in its widely diverse areas—has
selectively experienced innovation, inertia, stagnation, and regression.
Rather than review an entire
decade, this Blog reflected instead just on the past year, and the top areas
that caught my attention. To do this, we clustered all 24 of this past year’s
Blogs into organizational areas:
·Theme 1: School Improvement: Changing
Thinking, Processes, and Practices to Change Outcomes
·Theme 2: Choosing Effective School-Wide
Programs and Practices: Avoiding Media Hype While Facilitating Staff Consensus
·Theme 3: Students’ Engagement, Behavioral
Interactions, and Mental Health
·Theme 4: Improving Multi-Tiered and
Special Education Services: Bridging the General Education and Special
Education Wall
We hope that this analysis will
help you to personally and professionally reflect on your year in Education. .
. helped, perhaps, by revisiting a full Blog message or one that you missed.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Meanwhile. . . . as 2024 turns to
2025, and our students and colleagues return from their Holiday Break, I hope
that your break was restful and filled with much cheer and joy.
The “second half” of the school
year gives us all an opportunity to rededicate ourselves to excellence and
effectiveness. . . to improvement and success.
If you experienced success during
the first part of the school year, I hope that you continue to go “to the next
level of excellence.”
If you were not happy with your
success—or need assistance with your next challenge, know that I am always
available for a free “check-in” Zoom or conference call with you and your team.
June will be here in six months.
. . one way or the other.
If you have a choice to act now
or in June to improve your school or educational setting on behalf of your
students or clients. . . which one will you choose?
I look forward to hearing from
you.
Happy New Year,
Howie
[CLICK HERE to read this Blog
on the Project ACHIEVE Webpage]
