James Surowiecki on the mainstreaming of performance excellence. From athletics to manufacturing, we've become freakishly good. How come some areas still lag behind?

A great article on Servant Leadership

"aggregation of marginal gains." "the 1 percent margin for improvement in everything you do."

Stay interviews rather than exit interviews

Open Letter to Diane Ravitch from Grant Wiggins

Start you 1:1 or BYOD with trust and respect

"I love to watch you play" is all parents should be saying to their athletes

Wisconsin is in the middle of the road compared to all states in government spending, prior to the 2011-13 state budget which has historic cuts.

Give students 20% of the day to work on what they are passionate about

Whac-A-Mole is similar to the daily routine of a principal. From the time you arrive at school in the morning until late in the evening, moles pop up. Your job is to address each mole and to prioritize which one is most important. In this article, I am going to describe the 'Six Moles' a principal must address in order to be a good leader.

"Horrible, horrible, horrible implementation from every program I visited," he said. "All of them were about the stuff, with a total lack of vision." His research convinced him not to move forward with one-to-one computing. Perhaps the weakest area of the typical one-to-one computing plan is the complete absence of leadership development for the administrative team-that is, learning how to manage the transition from a learning ecology where paper is the dominant technology for storing and retrieving information, to a world that is all digital, all the time.

The fact the U.S. as a nation is still standing despite of its abysmal standing on international academic tests for over half a century begs two questions: Is education as important to a nation's national security and economy as important as believed? If it is, are the numbers telling the truth about the quality of education in the U.S. and other nations?

What does it take to get politicians and the general public to abandon misleading ideas, such as, "Anyone who tries can pull themselves up by the bootstraps," or that "Teachers are the most important factor in determining the achievement of our youth"? Many ordinary citizens and politicians believe these statements to be true, even though life and research informs us that such statements are usually not true. citizens calling for school reform without thinking about economic and social reforms are probably being foolish. The likelihood of affecting school achievement positively is more likely to be found in economic and social reforms, in the second bill of rights, than it is in NCLB, the common core of standards, early childhood and many assessments after that, value-added assessments, and the like. More than educational policies are needed to improve education.

Tips for Twitter

A PLC focuses on learning instead of on teaching, drastically changing the role of the  principal. Principals continue to observe instruction, discussing issues such as pacing,  instructional data, support needed, and student efficacy. But the focus is on the instructional  results instead of on the instruction itself

Listen: When teachers say they are overwhelmed with district and school mandates, take the time to evaluate these concerns. Teaching under the very best of conditions is complicated. It requires time for planning, professional development, and collaboration. The emotional wear and tear of the job can be exhausting

For schools to prepare all children for success in life and the workforce, severe disparities in family income, coupled with inadequate education funding and low expectations can no longer be widely accepted causes of inequity in student opportunity. Lastly, we must all give a damn. The "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" mentality only works if everyone can afford boots. Everyone can contribute a little of their time and resources toward ending inequity in opportunity and expectations.

Never once in those years did we ever talk about student learning. I guess it was our assumption that because we were being intentional about planning that more learning took place.

A great piece of advice about the annual back to school letter.

A great resource on Web tools