The author, who has retired as Scarsdale elementary principal, was asked by the superintendent Michael McGill if he was interested in leading Scarsdale's green initiative. Early on in Scarsdale, they referred to their work as the "green initiative." After agreeing to lead the initiative, he set out to learn more about greening at K-12…

The goal of every school district is to help students succeed academically and personally. But does every district leverage its most valuable resource, its teachers, to meet that goal? At the Valley Stream Central High School District in Nassau County, New York, these authors know how important teacher commitment is to student success, so they…

Assuming the quality of the principal is directly linked to student learning and instruction, whose responsibility is it to develop building administrators to their fullest? This question is at the center of Principal Training on the Ground by Sandra Stein and colleagues from the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College of the City University of…

Discusses the recent rise in interest in the teaching of thinking skills. Presents brief outlines of eight school districts' successful thinking skills programs. All these programs were developed through careful attention to time and training and with an understanding that success is based on a long-term plan of action. (MD)

Highly prescriptive curriculum, testing, and teacher evaluation policies, such as those in New York State, actually impede teachers from teaching responsibly and effectively. These policies insist that teachers demonstrate a set of uniform behaviors unrelated to effective teaching for particular students. To work toward a new reform paradigm,…

Can a diverse suburban high school on Long Island eliminate academic tracks and still produce high-achieving students? The answer in Rockville Centre, New York, is decidedly yes. Statistics tell part of the story: 60 percent of the senior class at South Side High School is enrolled in Advanced Placement calculus, including 40 percent of the…

In recent years, thanks to the evolution of the Internet, wide availability of classroom computers and increased broadband access, blended learning is emerging as a new tool in the K-12 educational toolkit. Defined as learning that combines online and face-to-face approaches, blended learning is accomplished through the combined use of virtual and…