The pressure is on. Principals, expected to improve math performance at their schools, often don’t know where to begin—as they may be uncomfortable with math themselves or believe that their schools are already doing all that they can. How can K–12 school leaders recognize and ensure that their school or district is supporting good math instruction? Marian Small and Doug Duff provide the answer to that and other questions in The School Leader’s Guide to Building and Sustaining Math Success. Drawing on their vast experience working with administrators, Small and Duff provide practical advice and helpful tools for improving math instruction. They guide you through the initial steps of establishing a strong math culture, developing common tasks, and getting buy-in, and then offer specific suggestions for monitoring, supporting, and sustaining improvement. You’ll learn what sort of data to collect, what to look for in the classroom, what to listen for in conversations with teachers and students, and how to deal with reluctant staff or parents. With its real-world examples and insights, this book is essential reading for any principal who wants to bring about positive change and real growth in the teaching and learning of math in their school.

The pressure is on. Principals, expected to improve math performance at their schools, often don't know where to beginas they may be uncomfortable with math themselves—or believe that their schools are already doing all that they can. How can K–12 school leaders recognize and ensure that their school or district is supporting good math instruction? Marian Small and Doug Duff provide the answer to that and other questions in The School Leader's Guide to Building and Sustaining Math Success. Drawing on their vast experience working with administrators, Small and Duff provide practical advice and helpful tools for improving math instruction. They guide you through the initial steps of establishing a strong math culture, developing common tasks, and getting buy-in, and then offer specific suggestions for monitoring, supporting, and sustaining improvement. You'll learn what sort of data to collect, what to look for in the classroom, what to listen for in conversations with teachers and students, and how to deal with reluctant staff or parents. With its real-world examples and insights, this book is essential reading for any principal who wants to bring about positive change and real growth in the teaching and learning of math in their school.

"Address and dismantle common math myths using UDL, a lesson design approach that mitigates instructional barriers and leads to inclusive, accessible mathematics instruction for all"--

In this insightful math resource for grades 3–8, popular professional developer Marian Small helps teachers understand and facilitate meaningful assessments to advance student understandings. Small shows new and veteran teachers how to do three fundamental things well: identify the most important math to assess; construct meaningful assessments—both formative and summative—to measure student understanding; and provide students with feedback that is clear, timely, and specific. Examples for each grade level are provided, along with details on how to pose questions, analyze errors, and help students understand and learn from their mistakes. The book provides specific guidance for when and how to offer feedback on both correct and incorrect answers in order to advance students’ mathematical thinking. Like other Marian Small bestsellers, Math That Matters combines her special brand of lucid explanation of difficult concepts with fresh and engaging activities. “Our understanding of the power of assessment to improve learning has deepened significantly in the past two decades. . . . Marian Small draws upon the critical research behind this understanding to explain what effective practice looks like. It is essential reading for all elementary educators and has the potential to profoundly affect the quality of mathematics assessment in our schools.” —From the Foreword by Damian Cooper, president, Plan Teach Assess “Teachers are often clamoring for concise classroom assessments that can capture students’ conceptual understanding. Clamor no more! Math That Matters is a timely response to that need. Marian Small removes the mystery of how to engage students in learning while collecting assessment data that drive next instructional plans.” —Karen Karp, Johns Hopkins University “The beauty of this book is that it is simple enough for brand new teachers and complex enough for experienced teachers. The author offers an amazing gift by linking assessment ideas directly to common state standards.” —Felicia Darling, Santa Rosa Junior College

Educators of young children who don’t yet know the work of Marian Small are in for a gift—a treasure trove to enhance their teaching and thinking about math. This book focuses on the most important concepts and skills needed to provide early learners (preK–2) with a strong foundation in mathematics, in ways that are fun for both children and educators! For each mathematical concept, professional developer Marian Small provides sample activities and lessons, as well as guidance for using children’s books, games, manipulatives, and electronic devices. This resource also demonstrates how to differentiate instruction using tasks and questions designed to include all students. Like other Marian Small bestsellers, the text features her special brand of lucid explanation of difficult concepts, fresh and engaging teaching examples, troubleshooting tips, and formative assessments. Fun and Fundamental Math for Young Children is separated into special grade level sections for pre-K, kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. It can be used with any early childhood curriculum or as a stand-alone program in preschools. Marian Small is available for in-person and online professional development. “Within the first few pages it quickly became apparent that, whether you are a new or veteran teacher, your knowledge and appreciation of and for primary mathematics will grow page by page.” —From the Foreword by Graham Fletcher, math specialist, Atlanta, Georgia “Marian Small describes the development of major aspects of children’s mathematical thinking and connects them to many interesting and useful classroom activities.” —Herbert Ginsburg, professor emeritus, Teachers College, Columbia University “I love this book! The ideas are invaluable and the attention to detail is amazing.” —Nicki Newton, math consultant

Provide students a clear view of what success looks like for any process, task, or product. What does success look like for your students? How will they know if they have learned? This essential component of teaching and learning can be difficult to articulate but is vital to achievement for both teachers and students. The Success Criteria Playbook catapults teachers beyond learning intentions to define clearly what success looks like for every student—whether face-to-face or in a remote learning environment. Designed to be used collaboratively in grade-level, subject area teams—or even on your own—the step-by-step playbook expands teacher understanding of how success criteria can be utilized to maximize student learning and better engage learners in monitoring and evaluating their own progress. Each module is designed to support the creation and immediate implementation of high-quality, high impact success criteria and includes: • Templates that allow for guided and independent study for teachers. • Extensive STEM-focused examples from across the K-12 STEM curriculum to guide teacher learning and practice. • Examples of success criteria applied across learning domains and grades, including high school content, skills, practices, dispositions, and understandings. Ensure equity of access to learning and opportunity for all students by designing and employing high-quality, high-impact success criteria that connect learners to a shared understanding of what success looks like for any given learning intention.

Describes a variety of leaders hip responsibilities that have an effect on student achievement.

Offers a practical guide for improving schools dramatically that will enable all students from all backgrounds to achieve at high levels. Includes assessment forms, an index, and a DVD.

Preparing Principals for a Changing World provides a hands-on resource for creating and implementing effective policies and programs for developing expert school leaders. Written by acclaimed author and educator Linda Darling-Hammond and experts Debra Meyerson, Michelle LaPointe, and Margaret Terry Orr, this important book examines the characteristics of successful educational leadership programs and offers concrete recommendations to improve programs nationwide. In a study funded by the Wallace Foundation, Darling-Hammond and the team examined eight exemplary principal development programs, as well as state policies and principals' experiences across the country. Using the data from the study, they reveal how successful programs are structured, the skills and knowledge participants gain, and what they are able to do in practice as school leaders as a result. What do these exemplary programs have in common? Aggressive recruitment; close ties with schools in the community; on-the-ground training under the wing of expert principals, and a strong emphasis on the cutting-edge theories of instructional and transformational leadership. In addition to highlighting the programs' similarities, the study also explains the differences among the programs and sheds light on the effectiveness of approaches and models from different states and contexts?East, West, North, and South; urban and rural; pre-service and in-service. The authors analyze program outcomes for principals and their schools, including illustrative case studies and educators' voices on the influence of programs' strategies for recruitment, internships, mentoring, and coursework. The ideas and suggestions outlined in Preparing Principals for a Changing World are presented with the goal of increasing the number of highly qualified, thoughtful, and innovative educational leaders.

Most Americans agree on the necessity of education reform, but there is little consensus about how this goal might be achieved. The rhetoric of standards and vouchers has occupied center stage, polarizing public opinion and affording little room for reflection on the intangible conditions that make for good schools. Trust in Schools engages this debate with a compelling examination of the importance of social relationships in the successful implementation of school reform. Over the course of three years, Bryk and Schneider, together with a diverse team of other researchers and school practitioners, studied reform in twelve Chicago elementary schools. Each school was undergoing extensive reorganization in response to the Chicago School Reform Act of 1988, which called for greater involvement of parents and local community leaders in their neighborhood schools. Drawing on years longitudinal survey and achievement data, as well as in-depth interviews with principals, teachers, parents, and local community leaders, the authors develop a thorough account of how effective social relationships—which they term relational trust—can serve as a prime resource for school improvement. Using case studies of the network of relationships that make up the school community, Bryk and Schneider examine how the myriad social exchanges that make up daily life in a school community generate, or fail to generate, a successful educational environment. The personal dynamics among teachers, students, and their parents, for example, influence whether students regularly attend school and sustain their efforts in the difficult task of learning. In schools characterized by high relational trust, educators were more likely to experiment with new practices and work together with parents to advance improvements. As a result, these schools were also more likely to demonstrate marked gains in student learning. In contrast, schools with weak trust relations saw virtually no improvement in their reading or mathematics scores. Trust in Schools demonstrates convincingly that the quality of social relationships operating in and around schools is central to their functioning, and strongly predicts positive student outcomes. This book offer insights into how trust can be built and sustained in school communities, and identifies some features of public school systems that can impede such development. Bryk and Schneider show how a broad base of trust across a school community can provide a critical resource as education professional and parents embark on major school reforms. A Volume in the American Sociological Association's Rose Series in Sociology