Building Academic and SocialEmotional Skills Through Play

whitePaper | July 31, 2020

Principal Hayes walks into a fifth-grade classroom to observe a lesson. After listening to small-group discussions for a few minutes, she checks her schedule. She thought she was going to observe a science lesson, but the students are sharing stories about family meals. She approaches the teacher, Mr. Amari, who is in the process of projecting a piece of artwork showing a mother and daughter working with dried corn. Mr. Amari explains that the class will be studying sugars and starches.

whitePaper | June 18, 2022

At the time of this writing, The United States Census Bureau states the country’s population is 328.6 million people. An interesting bit of trivia, perhaps, but all the more intriguing when one realizes that 44 million of those people (~13.4 percent) collectively owe $1.5 trillion in student loan debt (Friedman, 2019).

whitePaper | February 24, 2021

Research confirms that rigorous projectbased learning has a positive impact on students, leading to increased achievement and higher levels of motivation.

whitePaper | December 9, 2022

Every summer and fall, the news cycle is littered with stories about summer learning loss. This is because many students, especially those from vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, begin each school year performing at achievement levels that are below what they were before the start of summer break. In education, we refer to this as summer learning loss or the summer slide.

whitePaper | August 24, 2020

Among hundreds of educational leadership definitions, this one is helpful in that it allows for flexibility in many scenarios. While it talks about achieving goals by influencing others into action (which could indicate guiding educators, caregivers, members of the school board, or the community, depending on the situation), it does not define one particular goal, which allows for flexibility of interpretation. In the current environment, it is important to be flexible in defining an educational leader while also taking care not to stray too far from established goals and effective frameworks.

whitePaper | July 29, 2020

An increase in teacher absences and the need to fill more positions than ever before have created a new set of challenges in the world of substitute teacher recruitment and retention. In December of 2019 and January of 2020, the EdWeek Research Center explored these challenges with a nationally representative, online survey of more than 2,000 principals, district leaders, and school board members. Survey results suggest that the challenge is big and getting bigger: Districts are currently able to fill just 54 percent of the approximately 250,000 teacher absences each day, the survey found.