A "Running Record" of the Project ACHIEVE Educational Solutions' Bi-Monthly Blog and Related "Improving Education Today: The Deep Dive" Podcast
Twice per month, Dr. Howie Knoff, President of Project ACHIEVE Educational Solutions publishes a Blog article and a related Podcast on the Better Education (BE) Podcast Network.
The Blog and Podcast are dedicated to discussing and analyzing national trends in education, effective school and schooling, staff and student effective practices, and ways to increase the academic and social, emotional, and behavioral success of students from preschool through high school (including alternative, residential, charter, and other more-specialized schools).
Though it all, Dr. Knoff always take a "common sense" approach to my discussions, but I also come from a school psychological and research-based perspective (which makes this Blog especially unique).
The Blog messages themselves are hosted on the following Blog-site:
http://www.projectachieve.info/blog
Below is a chronological list of all of the Blogs- - from the most-recent to those that date back to late 2013.
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A Related Podcast is Included for Each Blog
We are also engaged in a new partnership and have developed a new 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 is published, Davey and Angela summarize and analyze it in their free-wheeling and “no-holds-barred” Podcast. . . addressing its importance to “education today.” They also discuss their recommendations on how to apply the Blog's information so that all students, staff, and schools benefit to “the next level of excellence.”
You can find the Podcast on the Better Education (BE) Podcast Network which distributes our Podcast to ALL of the major podcast platforms. These platforms include: Spotify and Apple, as well as Overcast, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, Castro, Goodpods, Castbox, Podcast Addict, Player FM, and Deezer.
On some of these platforms, you can sign up to automatically receive each new episode:
SPOTIFY LINK HERE: Improving Education Today: The Deep Dive | Podcast on Spotify
APPLE LINK HERE: Improving Education Today: The Deep Dive | Podcast on Apple Podcasts
LINK HERE for All Other Platforms: Improving Education Today: The Deep Dive | Podcast on ELEVEN More Podcasts
Davey and Angela have also created a Podcast Archive of more than 35 additional podcasts-- all of our 2024 Blogs (Volume 2), and 14 of our most-popular Blogs from 2023 (Volume 1).
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.
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Check Out the Project ACHIEVE Bookstore with On-Line Courses, E-Books, and Other Resources
In addition to our Blog messages and Podcasts, I encourage you to visit my ever-changing website where there are many, many resources that address the different facets of school improvement: strategic planning, effective professional development, academic instruction through intervention, school discipline and classroom management, establishing positive behavioral support systems, implementing the necessary multi-tiered services and supports for students who are academically struggling and/or behaviorally challenging, and community and family involvement and outreach.
ALL of the Electronic Books on the Website are continually UPDATED to reflect the newest facets of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA/ESSA), IDEA, recently decided federal court decisions, and the most current research.
GO TO THE PROJECT ACHIEVE BOOKSTORE HERE
All of these school improvement components are part of Project ACHIEVE, the evidence-based (through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) that we have been implementing nationwide since 1989, and that has been designated as a national model prevention (and CASEL Key) program since 2001.
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Once again, to link to all of Blog messages below, go to: www.projectachieve.info/blog
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Newest--This Year (2025)
November 22, 2025 Keeping Teams Positive, Perceptive, and Productive: Five Leadership Practices That Build Sustainable, High-Performing Educational Teams
November 8, 2025 The Denial of Dreams: Disproportionate School Discipline is about Discrimination, Not DEI
October 25, 2025 Reflecting on the Mirror of Autism: Living in a World
that Barely Makes Sense
October 11, 2025 Students Need "Learner's Permits" for Social Media Access: Decreasing Mental Health, Bullying, and School Shooting Risks
September 20, 2025 Chronic Absenteeism and the “Five Why’s”: Stop Chasing Symptoms and Start Tackling Solutions
September 6, 2025 Students’ Mental Health Challenges: What They Say, What Schools and Adults Miss, and Why AI Isn’t the Answer
August 23, 2025 Beyond Overwhelmed: How AI Can Empower Administratively-Taxed School Leaders
August 9, 2025 Improving School Climate and Student Engagement: The Final Piece of (and Assembling) the School Success Puzzle (Part V)
July 26, 2025 Evaluating the Essential Characteristics of Staff Cohesion and Collaboration: Assessing This Summer What You Want to See This Fall (Part IV)
July 12, 2025 The Characteristics of an Effective Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS): What You Need to Assess to Ensure Your Fall Success (Part III)
June 28, 2025 School Discipline, Classroom Management, and Student Self-Management: The Summer Preparations Needed for Excellence This Fall (Part II)
June 7, 2025 Preparing for Excellence This Coming School Year: Strategic Summer Planning to Transform Classroom Instruction (Part I)
May 17, 2025 Understanding Seizure Types, Causes, and Connections to Stress and Brain Injury: Connecting Students’ Sensory and Neurological Functioning with School Learning, Socialization, and Disabilities (Part III)
May 3, 2025 Connecting Students’ Sensory and Neurological Functioning with School Learning, Socialization, and Disabilities (Part II): Differentiating Headaches and Four Different Types of Migraines
April 19, 2025 Connecting Students’ Sensory and Neurological Functioning with School Learning, Socialization, and Disabilities: A Primer on Vision, Hearing, and Respiratory/Nasal Functioning (Part I)
April 5, 2025 Five Essential Skill Sets for Middle and High School Students During Uncertain Times: Future-Proofing Their School Success— Now and After Graduation
March 22, 2025 Essential Strategies for Educational Leaders During Uncertain Times: Future-Proofing Your School(s) for Today’s Sweeping Changes
March 8, 2025 The “Charlie Brown” Reality of Race and DEI in Education: How the Trump Administration is Creating Fear by Using “Ready-Fire-Aim” Tactics
February 22, 2025 Repelling a Wolf Attack on Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973: Protecting Everyone When Chance Events Result in Life-Defining Disabilities
February 8, 2025 Minimizing Classroom Distractions to Maximize Student Learning: Building Walls to Buffer Politics, Phones, Prejudice, and Preferential Treatment
January 25, 2025 Students’ Behavior is NOT Improving. . . But It Can: Classroom Management Lessons for Teachers from the Detroit Lions’ Shocking Playoff Loss
January 11, 2025 While You Can Write a Student’s Individualized Education Plan. . . It (Legally) Needs to be Acceptable, Actionable, and Appropriate
2024
December 28, 2024 Education’s 2024 Year in Review: The Themes that Captured Our Time, Attention, Concern, and Consternation
December 7, 2024 Improving Special Education Services for our Students: What the New Administration Must Do on this 20th Anniversary of IDEA 2004
November 23, 2024 School Improvement Requires Changing Thinking, Not Just Changing Programs: The “Moneyball Thinking” Needed in Education
November 9, 2024 Delegating Duties and Decisions in a Shared Leadership School: Avoiding Staff Reservations or Resentment
October 19, 2024 Speed Counts When Making Successful Changes Across Your District or School—When to Go Slow and When to Go Fast
October 5, 2024 Breaking Down the Wall Between General and Special Education Teachers in Our Schools: How Organizational Missteps Create Classroom Barriers
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
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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
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?
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
May 11, 2024 When a School’s Multi-Tiered System of Supports Needs Support: How Do You Motivate Educators and Avoid Educational Malpractice?
April 27, 2024 Social Media and the “Double-Edged” Sword of Damocles: Survival Rests on Humility, Self-Control, and the Principles of Public Relations
April 13, 2024 Laundromats, Lawyers, Learning Loss, and Life: An Autobiographical Day in Education
March 30, 2024 How Cognitive Biases Affect Student Perceptions and Educator Decisions: Making the Unconscious, Conscious and the Implicit, Explicit
March 16, 2024 Helping Schools Pick and Implement the Best Evidence-Based Programs: Avoiding Mistakes, Best Practices, and Pilot Projects (Part II)
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)
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?
January 27, 2024 Strategies for Safe, Productive Classroom Conversations on Race, Religion, and National/ World Events: It’s Not If, It Should Be When
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
2023
December 30, 2023 A 2023 Review of Education’s Most (De)Pressing Issues: Productive Practices to Address the Pressure Points in Your District or School
December 9, 2023 The Over-Simplification of Education: When Evidence-based Practices are Diluted, They No Longer are Evidence-Based
November 25, 2023 Too Many Schools are Teaching Students to Control their Emotions. . . the Wrong Way! Because They Don’t Understand the Science, They Won’t Succeed in the Practice
November 11, 2023 Solving Schools' Most Persistent Problems: Safety and Mental Health Services, Discipline and Disproportionality, Special Education Litigation, and Staffing Shortages. Solutions from Four Recent Education Talk Radio Interviews
October 21, 2023 Bringing Justness to Terrorism, Murder, History, and Heartbreak: It’s Not Alright (Part II—A Eulogy of Resolve)
October 7, 2023 What Boston’s Battle for Integration, Anne Frank, and the Little Rock Nine Can Teach a Divided Country: A Personal Reflection on Why Black Lives, History, and Education Matter
September 23, 2023 Twelve Critical Components for (Continuous) School, Staff, and Student Improvement: Motivation Cannot Compensate for a System with Systemic Deficits
September 9, 2023 Seven Suggestions to Help Districts Avoid Special Education Hearings: A Short-Term Win May Be a Long-Term Loss
August 26, 2023 Research Does Not Support Growth Mindset Strategies in the Classroom: How “Culturally Fluent Ideas” Influence Educators to Waste Time, Money, Resources, and Good Faith
August 5, 2023 When High School Students Have Significant Academic Gaps: More Concerns and Common Sense Solutions “When State Policy Undermines Effective School Practice” (Letters to the Editor)
July 22, 2023 When School Policy Undermines Effective Practice: Too Much of Anything Often Results in Nothing (or Worse)
July 8, 2023 Is the Restorative Discipline Bandwagon Rolling Back? Five Reasons Why Its Roll-Out Wasn’t Warranted in the First Place
June 24, 2023 New Paths to Address Disproportionate Discipline with Black Students: New Directives, Research, Solutions, and Another Example of Racial Hate
June 10, 2023 Using “Flipped Learning” in a School’s Professional Development Initiative: Engaging Teachers and Support Staff in Outcome-Based PD—Even in a Virtual World
May 27, 2023 Ensuring that Post-Tenure Teachers Remain Actively Engaged as Collaborative Contributors in their Schools: Aligning the Seven Areas of Continuous School Improvement to Teacher Leadership and Advancement (Part IV)
May 13, 2023 Maintaining Teacher Motivation and Effectiveness After Tenure: Accountability, Growth, Coaching, and Continuous Improvement (Part III)
April 29, 2023 Teacher Induction and “Tenure with Teeth”: Improving Hiring and Staffing in a Nation Where Teaching is At Risk (Part II)
April 8, 2023 Improving Hiring and Staffing in a Nation Where Teaching is At Risk: If Student Success Depends on Teachers, Why is the Selection Process so Simplistic? (Part I)
March 25, 2023 How the “System” Forces Schools into Decisions that Harm Struggling Students: The “Groundhog Day” Impact of Fear on Staff Mental Health and Job Retention
March 11, 2023 Judy Heumann, Special Education’s History of Litigation, and the Continuing Fight: Complacency and Defensiveness Still Stand in the Way of Students with Disabilities’ Rights
February 25, 2023 Solutions for Selectively Mute Students and Educators: The Long-Term Adverse Educational Effects When Inappropriate Behavior is Ignored
February 11, 2023 Was a First Grade Virginia Teacher Shot Because Her Student was Denied Special Education Services? What School Administrators Face that State Departments of Education Ignore
January 28, 2023 Why “Do” SEL If It Doesn’t Improve Student Behavior in the Classroom and Across the School: Focusing on Individual and Group Skills to Enhance Student Engagement and Cooperative Group Outcomes
January 14, 2023 Ebony and Ivory: Education’s “Racial Divide” Cannot be Crossed Until We Can “Talk Like Friends”
2022
December 31, 2022 Reviewing the Challenges of 2022: The Need for Improvement in the Midst of Academic Gaps, Discipline and SEL Problems, School Shootings, and Continued Disproportionality
November 26, 2022 How to Create High-Performing, Collaborative Teams of Staff in Schools: No Woman/Man is an Island
November 12, 2022 Teaching Students Needed Academic and Social-Emotional Skills: We Need to Sweat the Small Stuff
October 29, 2022 The Three Keys to Closing Students’ Academic and Social-Emotional Gaps: Strategic Planning, Proven SEL Strategies, and Student-Centered Multi-Tiered Services and Supports
October 15, 2022 Emotionally Responding to a Crisis: Short-Term, Long-Term, Adults, and Children. Fight, Flight, Freeze, Resilience, and Resolve
October 1, 2022 Reflecting on My 50th High School Reunion and What I’ve Learned about Life and Life in Education: A Poetic Sequel to “American Pie”
September 10, 2022 The Academic and Social-Emotional Impact of Multiple Moves on Students in Poverty. The Stress We Feel When Moving is Exponentially Higher for Disadvantaged Students
August 27, 2022 Generation C (COVID) is Entering School with Significant Language, Academic, and Social Delays. The Pressure on Our Preschool and Kindergarten Programs to Act NOW
August 6, 2022 Closing the (Pandemic?) Reading Gap in Our Schools: We Need to Link Sound Assessment with Strategic Intervention. How One New Federal Status Report (and Three Popular Press Articles) May Lead Educators Astray
July 23, 2022 Should the U.S. Supreme Court Limit the Powers of the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP)? How OSEP Has Taken “Liberties” with the Law, and Spent Tax-Payers’ Money on Flawed Frameworks
July 9, 2022 Reviewing Three New Studies on Student Discipline, Disproportionate Office Referrals, and Racial Inequity. It’s Not about School Shootings! It’s about Recognizing What Needs to Change in our Classrooms
June 25, 2022 In Order to Improve. . . Schools Need to Understand How to Improve. School Improvement Begins with Principles before Principals: Paying It Forward
June 11, 2022 Why School Shootings should be Considered Extreme Events along the Social-Emotional Learning Continuum. . . And Why Schools Need to Conduct SEL Audits and Needs Assessments to Decrease the Future Risks
May 26, 2022 How Many More Children Need to be Gunned Down in our Schools and on our Streets? A Historical Plea to Protect our Children from the Politics of Polarization
May 14, 2022 Reconceptualizing Professional Development for the Coming School Year: Moving Away from Fly-by, “Spray and Pray,” and Awareness-Only Training
April 30, 2022 Using Effective Practices to Screen and Validate Students’ Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Status: Finding, Sorting, Analyzing, and Synthesizing the (Right) Data (Part II)
April 16, 2022 YES: Teachers Should Help Screen Students for Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Challenges. NO: That’s NOT Where the Screening Process Ends. Schools Must Use Effective Practices to Screen and then Validate Students’ Mental Health Status (Part I)
March 26, 2022 Students Understand Social “Reality” Only When They Can Socially Analyze Multiple Realities. Are Students Prepared When Personality and Power Control, Misrepresent, or Lie About the Truth?
March 5, 2022 Fitting Social Skills Instruction into the School Day: Necessity, Priority, Fidelity, and the Secondary School Advisory Period. Effective Planning, Execution, and Accountability are Essential to SEL Success
February 19, 2022 The SEL Secret to Success: You Need to “Stop & Think” and “Make Good Choices.” Helping Students Learn and Demonstrate Emotional Control, Communication, and Coping
February 5, 2022 Why Do They Keep Trying to “Validate” Restorative Practices with Lousy (or Worse) Data? More Proof that Schools Need to Avoid Restorative (Justice) Programs and Practices
January 22, 2022 (Pandemic-Related?) Behavioral Challenges and Student Violence in Our Schools Today: Preparing for Action by Pursuing the Principles Needed for Assessment and Intervention
January 8, 2022 Educators Need to Deal with Reality by Facing, Analyzing, and then Changing Reality. The Damage Done When We Ignore, Lie About, Misinterpret, Sugar-Coat, or Surrealize Reality
2021
December 18, 2021 The Blog-Year in Review: Politics and the Pandemic, SEL and MTSS, Race and Disproportionality. Learning from the Past to Improve Student Outcomes in the Future
December 4, 2021 Will the Controversy Over Critical Race Theory Damage Students’ Pursuit to Better Understand Cultural, Racial, and Individual Differences? Is Our Nation At-Risk. . . for Different Reasons than in 1983?
November 20, 2021 What Do Race, Reading, Billy Joel, and Jeopardy Have in Common with our Nation’s Students? They are All Putting our Nation’s Students At-Risk
November 6, 2021 The Current State of SEL in our Schools: The Frenzy, the Flaws, and the Fads. If the Goal is to Teach Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skills, Why are We Getting on the Wrong Trains Headed “West”? (Part II)
October 23, 2021 Addressing Students’ SEL Pandemic Needs by Addressing their SEL Universal Needs: What Social, Emotional, Attributional, and Behavioral Skills Do ALL Students Need from an SEL Initiative? (Part I)
October 9, 2021 A Setting is NOT an Intervention: It’s Where the Real Intervention Has the Highest Probability of Success. It’s Not WHERE We Put Students and Staff, It’s WHAT We Do When They’re There.
September 25, 2021 How Have Districts Tried and Failed to Eliminate Disproportionate Discipline Rates for Students of Color and With Disabilities? It’s Not About the Plan, It’s About What’s IN the Plan. . . The Most Frequently Recommended Strategies Do Not Work
September 11, 2021 A Review of the BEST Resource to Guide Your School’s Instruction of the Whole Child: Connecting the Pandemic Needs of Your Students with Strategic Actions Supported by American Rescue Plan Funding
August 28, 2021 Disproportionate School Discipline, and How Long-Term Suspensions Don’t Work and Don’t Improve Classroom Conditions When Students are Gone: The Numbers Don’t Lie, But Are They Enough to Prompt Change? (An Unexpected Series Part III)
August 14, 2021 The Components Needed to Eliminate Disproportionate School Discipline Referrals and Suspensions for Students of Color Do Not Require Anti-Bias Training: Behind Every Iron Chef is an Iron-Clad Recipe (Part II)
July 31, 2021 The Critical Common Sense Components Needed to Eliminate Disproportionate School Discipline Referrals and Suspensions for Students of Color: This is NOT About Critical Race Theory (But We Discuss It) (Part I)
July 10, 2021 Reconsidering or Rejecting SEL/Character Education, Meditation/Mindfulness/Trauma-Informed, and Restorative Justice Programs: Put on Your Hard Hat and Bring Your Lunch Pail (Part II)
June 26, 2021 Reconsidering or Rejecting Collective Teacher Efficacy and the Acceleration of Students Who are Academically Behind: Take the Bus, Get Off the Bandwagon (Part I)
June 5, 2021 Maximizing Meeting Participation and Productivity: Is Everyone “Bringing It” to Your (Virtual or In-Person) Meeting? Why Be There if You’re Not There?
May 22, 2021 Sustaining Student Outcomes Beyond the Pandemic: Where Districts Need to Allocate Their American Rescue Plan (2021) Funds. Lessons Learned from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009)
May 1, 2021 Addressing Students’ Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Needs: All is Not What it Appears to Be. Remembering Bob Slavin and Applying his Legacy
April 17, 2021 Reconciling “Civil Liberty” Claims that Compromise Public Health and Student Welfare: When a “Me-First” Perspective Undermines Our “We-First” Needs
April 3, 2021 Why Schools Need to Evaluate and Validate Before They Select and Direct (Their New Federal Funds to Services and Interventions). Be Cautious—What We Don’t Know about Student Mental Health and the Pandemic
March 20, 2021 A Consumer Alert: Student Awareness Does Not Usually Change Student Behavior. Do We Need to Dig a Moat Around CASEL’s Approach to Social-Emotional Learning (SEL)?
March 6, 2021 A Pandemic Playbook to Organize Your Pandemic Strategies Now and to Prepare for the 2021-2022 School Year: Where We’ve Been and What You Should Do
February 20, 2021 The Pandemic, Students’ Academic Performance, and Preparing for the Rest of the School Year: Helping Teachers Prioritize Their Efforts, Emotions, and Efficacy
February 6, 2021 Implementing Effective Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports during a Pandemic: Upgrading Your Academic and Social-Emotional Prevention, Assessment, and Interventions. It’s Not Your Fault...
January 23, 2021 An Inaugural Poem for the Ages Challenges All Educators as the Torch is Passed: A Lesson Plan to Help School Staff Become Part of the Solution
January 9, 2021 Analyzing, Understanding, and Changing Extreme Behavior: In the Capitol and In the Classroom. It’s Never as Easy as We Think or Want
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2020
December 19, 2020 Putting the “Power of Three” to Work for Your Students, Staff, Schools, or Systems: The Three Hours during Your Holiday Break that You Need to Succeed in 2021
December 5, 2020 Training Racial Bias Out of Teachers: Who Ever Said that We Could? Will the Fact that In-Service Programs Cannot Eliminate Implicit Bias Create a Bias Toward Inaction?
November 21, 2020 Curbing the Pandemic Slide by Putting the Right Students into the Right Instructional Groups. Which Peas are You Going to Put in Your Pandemic Pod? (Part II)
November 7, 2020 It’s Not About the Size of the Pandemic Slide—It’s About Where to Start Teaching. During a Crisis, You Have to Change the Definition of Success (Part I)
October 24, 2020 Classroom Management and Students’ (Virtual) Academic Engagement and Learning: Don’t Depend on Teacher Training Programs. Districts Need to Re-conceptualize their School Discipline Approaches—For Equity, Excellence, and Effectiveness
October 10, 2020 The Pandemic is No Longer an Educational Crisis—It is a Catastrophic Opportunity for School Improvement. Using Catastrophes to Create Change: We Need to Innovate When We Renovate
September 26, 2020 The Seven High-Hit Reasons for Students’ Challenging Behavior: Functional Behavioral Assessment and Why Schools Don’t Climb into the 21st Century. When Personal Agendas Overrule Effective Professional Practices
September 5, 2020 Celebrating Our Labors on Labor Day . . . While Recognizing the Contribution of White Privilege
August 22, 2020 How Would Covey Organize an SEL School Initiative? Strategically Planning for the Usual and the Unusual
August 8, 2020 Why Stress-Informed Schools Must Precede Trauma-Informed Schools: When We Address Student Stress First, We Begin to Impact Trauma. . . If It Exists
July 25, 2020 Identifying Students with Back-to-School Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Needs: How to Screen Without Screening. In Uncommon Times, Uncommon Sense is Best
July 11, 2020 Do Black and Students with Disabilities’ Lives Matter to the U.S. Department of Education? Institutional Bias, Power-Based Decisions, and Ineffective Practices?
June 27, 2020 Teaching in this Fall’s Post-Pandemic World: Addressing the Academic Needs of the “Way High” and “Way Low” Students. For Some Students, There Will Be No COVID-19 Slide (Part II)
June 13, 2020 Using Valid Assessments of Students’ Functional Literacy, Math, and Language Arts Skills to Instructionally Group Students this Fall: The Importance of Assessing—NOT Guessing—Each Student’s COVID-19 Slide (Part I)
May 30, 2020 Preparing NOW to Address Students’ Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Needs Before They Transition Back to School: Let’s Use Caring and Common Sense as Our Post-Pandemic Guides (A Bonus Podcast Included) (Part II)
May 16, 2020 Why is Education Week Sensationalizing Student Trauma During this Pandemic? Will Schools Re-Open Without Pathologizing their Students' Emotional Needs? (Part I)
April 25, 2020 How to Organize, Survive, and Thrive During Your School Re-Opening: The Pandemic Power of Three. How Understanding Small School Districts Can Help the Larger Ones
April 11, 2020 The Pandemic Unearths the Raw Reality of Educational Inequity and Disparity: COVID-19 Forces Us to Realize We Need to Change the Village
March 28, 2020 Rethinking Your Personal, Professional, and Partnership Goals During CoVid-19’s “Lifestyle Sequestration": Disruptive Innovation and Redefining What is Truly Important
March 14, 2020 Underachieving, Unresponsive, Unsuccessful, Disabled, and Failing Readers. Diagnostic Assessment Must Link to Intervention: If We Don’t Know “Why,” We Can’t Know “What” (Part II)
February 29, 2020 Literacy Instruction and Student Reading Proficiency: The Multi-Tiered Whole Must be Greater than the Sum of Its Disconnected Parts. How a Comprehensive Blueprint Prevents Isolated Solutions and Inconsistent Results (Part I)
February 15, 2020 Did a Misguided U.S. Department of Education E-mail “Confirm” Its Improper Favoritism of the PBIS Framework? Using the School Climate Transformation Grant to Misrepresent, Re-Brand, and Strong-Arm Educators toward Only PBIS Consultants
January 25, 2020 Mindfulness & Meditation Will NOT Change Students’ Emotional Volatility or Immediate Reactions to Trauma. The Neurological Science Does Not Add Up—Another Fad & More Wasted Time in Pursuit of a Silver Bullet (Part II)
January 11, 2020 Trauma-Informed Schools: New Research Study Says “There’s No Research.” Schools “Hitch-Up” to Another Bandwagon that is Wasting Time and Delaying Recommended Scientifically-Proven Services (Part I)
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2019
December 21, 2019 The Year in Review (Part II): Schools’ Pursuit of Effective School Discipline, Classroom Management, and Student Self-Management Strategies. Prevention, Disproportionality, Trauma, and Seclusions & Restraints
December 7, 2019 The Year in Review (Part I): Schools’ Pursuit of Academic Achievement and Student Proficiency. Curriculum, Instruction, Intervention, and Equity
November 23, 2019 Maybe It’s the (Lack of) Money that Explains the Relationship Between Black-White Achievement Gaps and Disproportionate Disciplinary Suspensions? Analyzing the Results of a New National Study: Why Some “Two-Dimensional Problems” Need “Three-Dimensional Thinking”
November 9, 2019 Closing Secondary Students’ Significant Academic Skill Gaps: Teach at Their Grade Level or Their Skill Level? Reviewing Two Recent Studies of Math Deficient Students (Part II)
October 12, 2019 The Traps and Trouble with “Trauma Sensitive” Schools: Most Approaches Are Not Scientifically-Based, Field-Tested, Validated, or Multi-Tiered. A National Education Talk Radio Interview (Free Link Included) Puts it All into Perspective
September 28, 2019 Closing Academic Gaps in Middle and High School: When Students Enroll without Mastering Elementary Prerequisites. The MTSS Dilemma—Differentiate at the Grade Level or Remediate at the Student Skill Level? (Part I)
September 14, 2019 Inequities in the Distribution of School Funds to Individual Students Revisited: Required Transparency, ESEA/IDEA Funding Flexibility, and Multi-Tiered Efficacy. Reminding Schools of their Responsibilities and Possibilities
August 31, 2019 As Cyberbullying Increases, Positive School Climate Decreases: Student Involvement Must Be Part of the Solution. . . How to Do It
August 17, 2019 Aren’t Schools with Positive, Safe Climates Already “Trauma Sensitive”? Unmasking the ACEs, and Helping Students Manage their Emotions in School
July 27, 2019 An Open Letter to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Regarding Its Report, Beyond Suspensions: Examining School Discipline Policies. Begin with the End in Mind: It’s about Root Causes and Intervention—Not About Policies or Positions
July 13, 2019 Revisiting the School Seclusion and Restraint Epidemic: The Federal Government Says It's Worse than Thought. While the Numbers are Important, We Need to Focus on the Reasons and Solutions
June 30, 2019 Analyzing Your School Discipline Data Now . . . to Prepare for the New School Year (Part III): Conducting “Special Situation Analyses” for Your Hallways, Bathrooms, Buses, Playgrounds, and Cafeteria
June 15, 2019 Analyzing Your School Discipline Data Now . . . to Prepare for the New School Year: Conducting “Special Situation Analyses” for Common School Areas and Peer-Related Anti-Social Behavior (Part II)
June 3, 2019 Analyzing Your School Discipline Data and Your SEL (PBIS or School Discipline) Program: Students’ Discipline Problems are Increasing Nationally Despite Widespread SEL/PBIS Use (Part I)
May 20, 2019 The Journey toward Real School Equity: Students’ Needs Should Drive Student Services … and Funding (Part II). The Beginning of the Next School Year Starts Now: The “Get-Go Process”
April 27, 2019 Solving Student Crises in the Context of School Inequity: The Case for “Core-Plus District Funding” (Part I). When Schools Struggle with Struggling Students: “We Didn’t Start the Fire”
April 13, 2019 How Hattie’s Research Helps (and Doesn’t Help) Improve Student Achievement. Hattie Discusses What to Consider, Not How to Implement It . . . More Criticisms, Critiques, and Contexts
March 30, 2019 The Art of Doubling Down: How the U.S. Department of Education Creates Grant Programs to Fund and Validate its own Frameworks. Call Congress: The Tainting of RtI, PBIS, MTSS, and SEL
March 16, 2019 States Take Note: How to Really Address the School Seclusion and Restraint Epidemic. What State Departments of Education Need to Learn If Using PBIS to “Solve” This Problem (Part II)
March 2, 2019 Congress Take Note: How to Really Address the School Seclusion and Restraint Epidemic. The U.S. Department of Education Keeps Pushing PBIS, but PBIS Ain’t Got Nothing to Give (Part I)
February 16, 2019 Redesigning Multi-Tiered Services in Schools: Redefining the Tiers and the Difference between Services and Interventions
January 26, 2019 New Rand Corporation Study Finds Restorative Practices Produce Mixed and Underwhelming Results: But Some Publications are “Spinning” the Outcomes and Twisting these Results
January 12, 2019 The School Year in Review: Successful School Safety and Equity in School Discipline (Part II). Putting Politics Aside to Protect our Kids—A Review of the Federal Commission’s School Safety Report
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2018
December 22, 2018 The School Year in Review: Choosing High-Success Academic and Behavioral Strategies (Part I). Committing to Educational Excellence by Learning from Hattie’s and SEL’s Limitations
December 8, 2018 Reconsidering What Effective High Schools Do, and What Failing High Schools Miss: Credit Recovery Programs Should be Strategic, Selective, Student-Focused, and Not the Only Game in Town
November 25, 2018 It’s Not Too Late to Change: The School Year’s Not Even Half Over. Why Schools Fail to Act When their Students Fail
November 10, 2018 The SEL-ing of Social-Emotional Learning: Education’s Newest Bandwagon. . . Science-to-Practice Goals, Flaws, and Cautions (Part II). Why Schools Need to Re-Think, Re-Evaluate, Re-Load, and Re-Boot
October 27, 2018 Looking for District/School Partners: Collaborating on a U.S. Department of Education "School Climate Transformation Grant" Proposal. How this Five-Year Grant Can Support Your School's Climate & Student Discipline Needs
October 13, 2018 Social-Emotional Learning: Education’s Newest Bandwagon. . . and the History of How We Got There (Part I). Why Most Schools are not Implementing Scientifically-Sound Practices—Wasting Time and Resources
September 22, 2018 The U.S. Department of Education Wants to “Rethink Special Education,” But Is It Willing to Look at Itself First? The Department Needs to Change at the “Top” in Order to Successfully Impact the “Bottom”
September 8, 2018 Preventing School Shootings and Violence. . . States Not Waiting for the Federal Commission on School Safety Report: The Guidance You Need is Here and Available
August 18, 2018 Students’ Mental Health Status, and School Safety, Discipline, and Disproportionality: An Anthology of Previous Blogs. Integrating Successful Research-to-Practice Strategies into the New School Year (Part II of II)
August 4, 2018 School Improvement, Strategic Planning, ESEA, and Multi-Tiered Services: An Anthology of Previous Blogs. Integrating Successful Research-to-Practice Strategies into the New School Year (Part I of II)
July 21, 2018 Hattie Haters and Lovers: Both Still Miss the Effective Implementation that Practitioners Need. Critical Questions to Ask your “Hattie Consultant” Before You Sign the Contract
July 7, 2018 Elementary School Principals’ Biggest Concern: Addressing Students’ Behavior and Emotional Problems. The Solution? Project ACHIEVE’s Multi-Tiered, Evidence-Based Roadmap to Success
June 26, 2018 Learning from Another Gates Failure: It's Not Just the Money--It's What You Accomplish with It. How to Spend ESEA's Title IV Money Wisely
June 4, 2018 Making Mountains Out of Molehills: Mindfulness and Growth Mindsets. Critical Research Questions the Impact of Both
May 23, 2018 Solving the Disproportionate School Discipline Referral Dilemma: When will Districts and Schools Commit to the Long-term Solutions? There are No Silver Bullets—Only Science to Preparation to Implementation to Evaluation to Celebration (Part III)
May 5, 2018 Decreasing Disproportionate School Discipline Actions with Black, Male, and Special Education Students: A Roadmap to Success. Taking a Hard Look at Our Practices, Our Interactions, and Ourselves (Part II)
April 15, 2018 New Federal Government Report Finds that Disproportionate School Discipline Actions Persist with Black, Male, and Special Education Students: Manipulating Policy, Buying Programs, and Following Federally-Funded Technical Assistance Centers Do Not Work (Part I)
March 25, 2018 School Climate, Student Voice, On-Campus Shootings, and now Corporal Punishment??? Listening to Students—When They Make Sense; and Not Listening to Students—When They’re Ready to Kill (Part III)
March 10, 2018 School Shootings, Comprehensive Prevention, Mandatory (Mental Health) Reporting, and Standardized Threat Assessments: What Schools, Staff, and Students Need to Do, and the Help that They Need to Do It (Part II)
February 24, 2018 School Shootings: History Keeps Repeating Itself. . . What We Already Know, and What Schools, Staff, and Students Need to Do (Part I)
February 10, 2018 The Folly and Frustration of Evaluating Schools and Staff Based on the Progress of Students with Significant Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Challenges: Understanding the Student, Home, and Community Factors that Impact Challenging Students
January 28, 2018 How Strategic Planning and Organizational Development is Done by Every School . . . Every Year: An Introduction to Successful School-based Strategic Planning Science-to-Practice [Part II of II]
January 13, 2018 Every School is in “School Improvement” Every Year: Preparing for ESEA/ESSA--What Effective Schools Do to Continuously Improve . . . and What Ineffective Schools Need to do to Significantly Improve [Part I of II]
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2017
December 27, 2017 The Year in Review: What We’ve Learned about Effective Educational Practices to Increase Student, Staff, and School Success. . . Reflections on Policies, Practices, Pronouncements, and Progress
December 2, 2017 Teaching Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Self-Management Skills to All Students: The Cognitive-Behavioral Science Underlying the Success of The Stop & Think Social Skills Program. . . Don’t We Really Just Want Students to “Stop & Think”? [Part III of III]
November 18, 2017 Teaching Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Self-Management Skills to All Students: The Cognitive-Behavioral Science Underlying the Success of The Stop & Think Social Skills Program. . . Don’t We Really Just Want Students to “Stop & Think”? [Part II of III]
November 4, 2017 New Article Again Debunks “Mindfulness” in Schools: Teaching Emotional and Behavioral Self-Management through Cognitive-Behavioral Science and The Stop & Think Social Skills Program. . . Don’t We Really Just Want Students to “Stop & Think”? [Part I of III]
October 21, 2017 Improving Student Outcomes When Your State Department of Education Has Adopted the Failed National MTSS and PBIS Frameworks: Effective Research-to-Practice Multi-Tiered Approaches that Facilitate All Students' Success (Part II of II)
October 7, 2017 Improving Student Outcomes When Your State Department of Education Has Adopted the Failed National MTSS and PBIS Frameworks: Effective and Defensible Multi-Tiered and Positive Behavioral Support Approaches that State Departments of Education Will Approve and Fund (Part I of II)
September 25, 2017 Hattie’s Meta-Analysis Madness: The Method is Missing !!! Why Hattie’s Research is a Starting-Point, but NOT the End-Game for Effective Schools (Part III of III)
September 9, 2017 “Scientifically based” versus “Evidence-based” versus “Research-based”—Oh, my!!! Making Effective Programmatic Decisions: Why You Need to Know the History and Questions Behind these Terms (Part II of III)
August 26, 2017 The Top Ten Ways that Educators Make Bad, Large-Scale Programmatic Decisions: The Hazards of ESEA/ESSA’s Freedom and Flexibility at the State and Local Levels (Part I of III)
August 12, 2017 Back to the Future: What My High School Reunion Reminded Me about High School Reform. . . The Non-Academic Essentials for High School Students’ Success
July 29, 2017 School Climate and Safety, and School Discipline and Classroom Management: A Summer Review of My Previous Blogs in these Areas (Part IV of IV)
July 15, 2017 Students’ Mental Health Status and Wellness, and School Discipline and Disproportionality: A Summer Review of My Previous Blogs in these Areas (Part III of IV)
July 1, 2017 The New Every Student Succeeds Act (ESEA/ESSA), and Multi-Tiered and Special Education Services: A Summer Review of My Previous Blogs in these Areas (Part II of IV)
June 17, 2017 School Improvement, Strategic Planning, and Effective School and Schooling Policies and Practices: A Summer Review of My Previous Blogs in these Areas (Part I of IV)
June 4, 2017 Effective School-wide Discipline Approaches: Avoiding Educational Bandwagons that Promise the Moon, Frustrate Staff, and Potentially Harm Students. . . Implementation Science and Systematic Practice versus Pseudoscience, Menu-Driven Frameworks, and “Convenience Store” Implementation
May 14, 2017 The Endrew F. Decision Re-Defines a “Free Appropriate Public Education" (FAPE) for Students with Disabilities: A Multi-Tiered School Discipline, Classroom Management, and Student Self-Management Model to Guide Your FAPE (and even Disproportionality) Decisions (Part III)
April 22, 2017 The Endrew F. Decision Re-Defines a “Free Appropriate Public Education" (FAPE) for Students with Disabilities: A Multi-Tiered Academic Instruction-to-Intervention Model to Guide Your FAPE Decisions (Part II)
April 2, 2017 Special Education Services Just Got Easier. . . and Harder: The Supreme Court's Endrew F. Decision Re-Defines a “Free Appropriate Public Education” for Students with Disabilities (Part I)
March 18, 2017 What Happens When School Leaders Make Decisions Not for the Greater Good, but for the Greater Peace: “You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time. . . But You Can’t Please All of the People All of the Time”
March 5, 2017 The Revolving Door of the Superintendency: A Case Study on Resetting the Course of a School District. . . When Mission, Vision, and Values Count More than Resources, Requirements, and Results
February 19, 2017 Federal and State Policies ARE NOT Eliminating Teasing and Bullying in Our Schools: Teasing and Bullying is Harming our Students Psychologically and Academically—Here’s How to Change this Epidemic through Behavioral Science and Evidence-based Practices
February 4, 2017 ESEA/ESSA, School Improvement, Race/Ethnic Status, and Students with Disabilities: We Need to Differentiate Disability Just as We Differentiate Race and Ethnicity
January 22, 2017 ESEA/ESSA Tells Schools and Districts: Build Your Own Multi-Tier System of Supports for Your Students’ Needs--- Focus on Your Principles, Students, and Staff. . .and Verify the ESEA/ESSA “Guidance” Advocated by Some National Groups
January 7, 2017 Education Week Series on RtI Highlights Kentucky/Appalachian Mountain Grant Site’s Successful School Discipline Program: An Overview of the Scientific Components Behind this Success, and a Free Implementation Guide for Those Who Want to Follow
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2016
December 18, 2016 What the Next Director of the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) Needs to Do: My “First 100 Days” if I was Appointed the New OSEP Director
November 27, 2016 When Character Education Programs Do Not Work: Creating “Awareness” Does NOT CHANGE “Behavior” . . . TEACHING Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skills Requires Behavioral Instruction
November 13, 2016 Beating Kids in Schools: How Corporal Punishment Reinforces Bias, Violence, Trauma, Poor Social Problem-Solving, and the Fallacy of Intervention. . . The Alternative? Eliminate Corporal Punishment by Preventing its Need, and Implementing Interventions that Actually Change Student Behavior
October 31, 2016 Braiding Five Critical Concerns for Children: Reading Instruction, Grade Retention, Skill Remediation, Response-to-Intervention, and Chronic Absences. . . Why Effective Practice Needs to Dictate Good Policy (Rather than the Other Way Around)
October 14, 2016 National Policies, State Procedures, and Local Practices: Avoiding Untested Traps and Unhelpful Trends... Links to My “Most-Liked” Blogs: Effective Practice, Questionable Policies, and Unproven Bandwagons
September 25, 2016 U.S. Department of Education Reminds Educators about Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports for Students with Disabilities: But. . . Watch Out for Their Recommendations and References
September 5, 2016 Political Doublespeak, Students with Disabilities, and Common Sense: A Legal Case Study on Students’ Rights and Standards-based IEPs. . . How Departments of Education Use Language, Fear, and Ignorance to Get their Way
August 20, 2016 From One Extreme to the Other: Changing School Policy from “Zero Tolerance” to “Total Tolerance” Will Not Work. . . Decreasing Disproportionate Discipline Referrals and Suspensions Requires Changing Student and Staff Behavior
August 7, 2016 Effective School Discipline, Classroom Management, and Student Self-Management: The Five Components that Every School Needs. . . Reflections on a National Survey of Administrators and Teachers
July 24, 2016 Rethinking School Improvement and Success, Staff Development and Accountability, and Students' Academic and Behavioral Proficiency: Using ESEA/ESSA’s New Flexibility to Replace the U.S. Department of Education’s Ineffective NCLB Initiatives
July 9, 2016 Teaching Students Self-Management Skills: If We Want Them to Behave, We Need to Teach Them to Behave
June 28, 2016 ADHD Students in Schools: New CDC Data and Their Implications for Intervention
June 12, 2016 How to Improve your Chronically Absent Students' Attendance. . . During the Summer
May 30, 2016 The Difference between Social Stories and Social Skills Training? A BIG Difference!
May 15, 2016 Student Engagement (Down), Teacher Satisfaction (Down), School Safety and Academic Expectations (Down)-- How Do We Raise Up our Students and Schools to Success?
May 1, 2016 Parents and Students in Jail: How do Schools Support Students with Parents in Jail, and Students who--Themselves--are Incarcerated?
April 17, 2016 School Resource Officers: Helping or Hurting Students and School Discipline? The Need to Integrate Criteria for Hiring, Training, and Involving School Resource Officers, School-based Police, and Security Guards in Our Schools, and into the ESEA/ESSA’s Required Bullying, Restraint, and Suspension Plans
March 20, 2016 Grade Retention is NOT an Intervention! How WE Fail Students When THEY are Failing in School
March 4, 2016 The New ESEA/ESSA: Discontinuing the U.S. Department of Education's School Turn-Around, and Multi-tiered Academic (RtI) and Behavioral (PBIS) System of Support (MTSS) Frameworks
February 13, 2016 Reviewing Mindfulness and Other Mind-Related Programs (Part II). More Bandwagons that Need to be Derailed?
January 30, 2016 Reviewing Mindfulness and Other Mind-Related Programs: Have We Just Lost our Minds? (Part I). Why Schools Sometimes Waste their Time and (Staff) Resources on Fads with Poor Research and Unrealistic Results.
January 17, 2016 The Seven C's of School Success (Part II): The Ultimate Staff Strategies to Build Strong, Cohesive Relationships and Effective, Productive Teams
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2015
December 19, 2015 The Seven C's of School Success (Part I): The Ultimate Organizational Strategies for School Success
November 28, 2015 Start the School Day Later? How Students Use their After-School Time, Media and Smartphones, and Opportunities to Sleep
November 14, 2015 New U.S. Department of Education Report: Students in RtI Tier II Interventions are Losing Ground. What the Report Says. . .Why RtI is Not Working. . . Recommendations for Improving the RtI Process
November 1, 2015 Research to Practice: How do Teachers Influence Students' Classroom Self-Management? New Report says that Positive Classroom Climates and Relationships Most Influence Student Motivation
October 20, 2015 Want to Improve Student Learning? Look at your "Instructional Environments" - - Standards Don't Teach . . . Teachers Do !!!
October 3, 2015 Is Your Strategic Plan Focused on Outcomes. . . or Just a Direction? There are "Many Roads to Rome"- - But You Need an Address and a GPS to Get There
September 19, 2015 Why Students Don't Behave? Because We are not Teaching Them the Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skills that They Need
September 7, 2015 When Kids Can't Read: Policy and Practice Mistakes that Make it Worse
August 22, 2015 New National Education Association (NEA) Policy Brief Highlights Project ACHIEVE's Positive Behavioral Support System (PBSS) as an Evidence-based Model for School Discipline, Classroom Management, and Student Self-Management
August 9, 2015 Donald Trump, Negative Campaigns, and Social Skills: Modeling Intolerance for our Students?
July 25, 2015 The Seven Sure Solutions to School Success: How Many do You Need?
July 8, 2015 The Unfulfilled Promise of Education: Students' Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Skills
June 21, 2015 School Disproportionality and the Charleston Murders: Systemic Change vs. State Statutes
May 31, 2015 School Improvement? The Questions your Department of Education Needs to Know
May 9, 2015 The Beginning of the New School Year Starts in April
April 25, 2015 Extending the School Day? Is it Due to Ineffectiveness, Disengagement, or Enrichment?
April 10, 2015 The NEW ESEA Draft: Tell Congress that Capital Letters Make a Difference
April 4, 2015 Planning for Next Year's Successes THIS Year: Addressing Your Professional Development, On-Site Consultation, and Technical Assistance Needs at the System, School, Staff, and Student Levels
March 28, 2015 March Madness: How Effective Schools are Like Successful Basketball Teams
March 15, 2015 Restorative Practices and Reducing Suspensions: The Numbers Just Don’t Add Up
March 1, 2015 Stop Your Best Teachers from Leaving the Field: Breaking the Vicious Cycle of Recruiting, Training, and then Losing Your Best Teachers
February 15, 2015 Your State's Guide to RtI: Some Statutes Just Don't Make Sense- - What your Department of Education isn't Sharing about its Multi-tiered/Response-to-Intervention Procedures
January 31, 2015 Correcting the Flaws: The Feds’ Thinking on Academic Proficiency and Results Driven Accountability
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2014
December 13, 2014 Rich District, Poor District: Common Sense Practices to Maximize Resources and Improve Student Outcomes
November 22, 2014 Academically Struggling and Behaviorally Challenging Students: Your Doctor Wouldn’t Practice this Way
November 8, 2014 A New Federal Report Documents What Low-Performing are NOT Doing to Succeed: 12 Questions that WILL Guide School Improvement Success
October 26, 2014 School Improvement Succeeds only with Shared Leadership: A Field-Tested Blueprint
October 11, 2014 Another Federal Push… What’s the Deal with Trauma Sensitive Schools?
September 21, 2014 Minneapolis Superintendent Bans Most Suspensions for their Youngest Students: What Districts Need to do Instead of Suspending (Young) Students
September 6, 2014 New Superintendents’ Survey: Suspensions Do NOT Change Behavior— What does?
August 17, 2014 Beginning the New School Year on the Right Foot: Why Classroom Routines, Behaviorally Disordered Students, and the Brain Matter
August 3, 2014 Implementing the U.S. Department of Education's School Safety Report: Resources to Prepare your School at the Policy, Procedure, and Practice Levels
July 22, 2014 Student Mental Health and Wellness: What the New RWJ Foundation Report Means for You
June 22, 2014 The 2013 U.S. School Crime Report Just Released by the US Departments of Education and Justice: Making Schools Safer during the Summer, so They are Safe in the Fall
June 8, 2014 New National Report Discusses Ways to Improve School Learning Conditions for Students and Staff. . . and How to Break the "School to Prison" Link for Behaviorally Challenging Students
April 19, 2014 Don't Reinvent the Wheel: The Beginning of the New School Year Starts in April
April 6, 2014 Preschoolers Most Suspended Age Group: New Report and What It Means for You
March 9, 2014 Approaches to Eliminate Disproportionality: New Study Reinforces State-wide Student Discipline Inequities
March 1, 2014 Implementing the U.S. Department of Education's New School Discipline Policies: A Three-Year Positive Behavioral Support Implementation Blueprint
February 8, 2014 Congress Passes New Improvement Option for Struggling Schools: Recognizes that the Department of Education's Turn-Around Options and More (SIG) Money are NOT Improving Schools or Student Outcomes
January 26, 2014 New Brown University Study: 90,000 Students per Year Suffer "Intentional" Injuries at School between 2001 and 2008….Resources to Help Schools and Districts Prevent Student Violence, Assaults, and Aggression
January 12, 2014 U.S. Department of Education Report: "Guiding Principles: A Resource Guide for Improving School Climate and Discipline"
December 15, 2013 The National Council on Teacher Quality and The New York Times: Teacher Training Programs NOT Preparing New Teachers in Classroom Management, and Zero Tolerance Procedures for School Discipline Do not Work
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During the school year and even into the Summer, I typically write bi-monthly Blog messages, unless an issue or new federal/state report comes out that needs attention.
PLEASE feel free to comment on my thoughts at any time. PLEASE ALSO feel free to connect with me on social media:
You can e-mail me at: howieknoff1@projectachieve.info
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Once again, to link to all of my past Blog messages below, go to: www.projectachieve.info/blog
Best,
Howie
