Orrs Elementary School in Griffin-Spalding County, Georgia, was selected as a 2010 National School of Character by the Character Education Partnership (CEP) and was honored at the National Forum of Character Education awards ceremony in San Francisco, California. According to Principal Dexter Martin, character education is more than a phrase or a…

The author knows from teaching young children herself how challenging it can be to face an endless parade of students reporting things to teachers as they're trying to teach. Figuring out how to deal with tattling takes time and energy and, as a result, teachers are often tempted to tell children to keep problems to themselves. Indeed, some…

Schools in Maryland and Connecticut are rethinking suspension policies and practices. They are finding that promoting positive behavior choices rather than punishing the negative is leading to higher graduation rates, especially among students of color. In the 2003-2004 academic year, Baltimore City Public Schools recorded 26,000 suspensions. Six…

Cheating has become a major issue for schools and leaders across the country. While plagiarism and cheating are not new, the proliferation of technologies available to students enables new forms of cheating. In addition, recent studies demonstrate an interesting level of moral flexibility among students as they often are motivated to cheat simply…

This article discusses a new approach to teaching--professional learning community (PLC). Teachers have long collaborated with colleagues and participated in continuing education, but becoming a PLC is a new experience. A PLC is perhaps best defined as a fundamental shift in a school's culture. It is distinguished by three key elements: (1) a…

The importance of effective principals to school reform is well-documented. But what makes a school principal an effective change agent, and how can a school board and district administrators assist in pushing their top site leaders to excellence? Many district and board leaders say it's all about vision, building trust with staff, and developing…

The evidence is clear: America's boys are being left behind by current practices in the classroom. Boys are dropping out of high schools in significant numbers, failing to complete college degrees, and behaving more violently. The author states that teachers should pay close attention to statistics that track these trends, seriously regard the…

In 2003, Dr. Freddie Thomas Middle School in Rochester, New York, was in serious trouble. In 2000, it had been labeled a "school under registration review" by the state's education department and was under a directive to make significant progress or face serious consequences. Three years later, only 3% of 8th-grade students met state standards in…

Schools with a large proportion of minority students often experience lack of support from the state and from their parents and communities. Administrators in these schools can build support among parents and community members by identifying and acknowledging the assets students and their parents can bring to school and by redefining the school…

Schools flush with students' parents showing up and helping out have long been the envy of those where classrooms echo on back-to-school night. But in recent years, incidents reported in the news media have dabbed shadows on that glowing picture of parent involvement, raising issues about whether demanding adults have made teachers' jobs harder…

School board members, administrators, and parents like to think of children as hard working and honest in their academic endeavors. According to recent surveys, that's a misperception. Rutgers Management Education Center reports 75% of the 4,500 high school students surveyed engaged in serious cheating and 88% judged cheating to be "common" among…

Today's students are the most racially tolerant generation the nation has ever seen. According to recent studies, they are more likely to have friends or date across racial and ethnic lines than earlier generations. They believe racism is wrong. Despite some progress, racism is still pervasive in American schools. This article describes what…

E-mail is a tool that can vastly increase the efficiency and productivity of school leaders. It can enable them to better orchestrate school operations and so improve student learning. But administrators must remain wary of the effect that extensive e-mail communication can have on the school community, and they need to work to promote a healthy…

Switching from multiple lunch periods to one lunch period for the nearly 2,000 students at James Hubert Blake High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, has contributed more to a positive school climate than any other single factor in the eight years since the school opened. This article presents how Blake has come up with the single 50-minute lunch…

Modern principalship is often characterized as complex, convoluted, and filled with paradoxes and ambiguities. But it also has predictability, behaviors that seem constant for students, teachers, and principals. Their predictability makes them a normal part of the schoolhouse culture. This light-hearted article lists some of these constants.