We need standards with flexibility, not standardization with force if we are to get the best from our teachers.
What we want for our students we should want for our teachers: learning, challenge, support, and respect.
Education leaders must have the will at times to release leadership to the teachers the parents and the students.
Students are often the last to know about change that is occurring in their own school system.
When creativity is the goal, schools must have their own platforms to network and innovate.
Educational reforms are like ripe fruit. They rarely travel well.
We should test prudently; not profligately.
The economists who have put the spotlight on teacher quality are the ones who most misunderstand it.
It’s important to be innovative when times are prosperous. It’s essential to be innovative when they are not.
Don’t raise the bar and narrow the gap, but narrow the gap to raise the bar.
Teachers who don’t pull their weight drag down the profession and their colleagues with it.
Economic necessity should be the mother of educational invention.
Blame and betrayal are the emotional enemies of improvement.
Strong professional communities risk and sometimes relish conflict.
Lateral trust among colleagues is as important as vertical trust within the hierarchy.
Professional trust is a process, not a state.
It is those who have the distinction of privilege who set the standards of disgust with failure.
Leadership is often the afterthought of educational change.
On learning: if you really want alignment, go to a chiropractor.
Every learner has special needs.
It’s time for the US to widen its circle of learning, not to circle its wagons against hostile ideas in education reform.