Publications related to Standards of Excellence

Publications related to Standards of Excellence

• IASIA-UNDESA Task Force on Standards of Excellence in Public Administration
• Principes d’Excellence pour les Etablissements de Formation en Administration (French)
• Standards of Excellence in Public Administration Education and Training in Select Countries in Asia
• National Organizational Arrangements for Delivering Public Administration Education and Training
• Quality Standards in Public Administration Education and Training
• Final Report of the Standards of Excellence in Public Administration Education
• UNDESA/IASIA Task Force Survey Report of the Standard of Excellence in Public Administration
• Standard of Excellence in Public Administration Education and Training (Questionnaire)

How Principals Can Grow Teacher Excellence

 Provide quality professional development (PD).

By providing the following kinds of PD, you can make sure your staff gets the most out of these sessions:

• Research-based: Let research guide your strategies. Says Bishop, "We're not just looking at the newest fads that come out, but what research shows really works."
• Consistent: Once you find what's working, stick with it. Bishop is intentional about creating a long-term plan for PD and being consistent in the implementation across multiple years.
• Convenient: Cochrane's weekly PD session is held right at the school so that teachers will be more likely to attend. Giving them continuing-education units provides an additional benefit.
• Relevant: Cochrane teachers appreciate that their PD is largely focused on enhancing their school's own instructional model, Interactive Learning, which makes it pertinent to their teaching.
• Differentiated: Just like students, teachers have strengths and weaknesses in different areas, so Bishop provides choices, usually between an instructional approach and a technology approach.

Effective educational leaders foster academic excellence through a fervent commitment to develop staff and student potential.

Competent administrators develop
strong professional learning
communities by integrating knowledge,
neighborhoods and the necessary tools
to facilitate the continual growth of
effective instructional leaders.

Even our “best” schools are failing to prepare students for 21st-century careers and citizenship.

In the new global economy, with many jobs being either automated or “off-shored,” what skills will students need to build successful careers? What skills will they need to be good citizens? Are these two education goals in conflict?

To examine these questions, I conducted research beginning with conversations with several hundred business, nonprofit, philanthropic, and education leaders. With a clearer picture of the skills young people need, I then set out to learn whether U.S. schools are teaching and testing the skills that matter most. I observed classrooms in some of the nation's most highly regarded suburban schools to find out whether our “best” was, in fact, good enough for our children's future. What I discovered on this journey may surprise you.

Tony Wagner

The Seven Characteristics of a Good Leader

1) A sense of purpose: The values of an organization must be clear, members of the organization should know them, and they should exemplify and uphold them in their own actions.

2) Justice: Everyone in an organization should be held to common standards, with rules and procedures that are clear, firm, fair, and consistent.

3) Temperance: A leader must strive to maintain a proper balance of emotions; Shriver did not mean that leaders should be dispassionate. Quite the contrary- but there are time for passionate advocacy and times for quiet reflection and reconsideration. Balance is the key.

4) Respect: The dignity of each individual is the concern of any leader, and this is preserved by treating all members of the organization with respect and ensuring they treat one-another similarly, regardless of differences.

5) Empowerment: Leaders are just that- leaders. Most of what happens in organizations is carried out by individuals other than those in formal leadership positions. Therefore, the more skilled they are, the more they feel confident in their abilities and competent to make decisions, raise questions, see new possibilities, and disagree respectfully with others at all levels of the organizational hierarchy, the stronger and more successful the organization will be.

6) Courage: Leaders are paid to set direction, not wait for direction to emerge. They have to be willing to follow their convictions and bring their organization to new places. In education, this is most sorely needed in response to the test-based regimen that has taken over our schools at the expense of true education and social-emotional and character development.

7) Deep Commitment: Leaders must not be polishing their resumes, but rather should have deep commitment to their organizations, the advancement of the organizations' missions, and the wellbeing of everyone in them. It is this deep commitment that makes leadership in schools so challenging, because it requires a commitment to every employee, student, and parent.

Educational Leadership

Educational leadership can be madness or it can make a contribution to improve our schools. It can be a frantic effort to fix everything or it can be concentration on a few important items. It can be a futile exercise of power or it can empower individuals to help themselves. In the face of dramatic social change, a troubled sea of governance conflict, and excessive demands being made on schools, it can be said that one who aspires to school leadership must either be mad or a supreme egotist.
Leadership Theories
Since educational leadership is extremely complex, simple models do not adequately explain the individual or the character of leadership. But here is a quick overview of some of the most prominent leadership theories:
One theory suggests that social evolution requires three forms of leadership:

• The formation of ideas.
• The articulation of ideas.
• The building of idea 

Your School Must Be For All Kids 100 Percent of the Time

If you start making decisions based on avoiding conflict, the students lose. This is what sustained me through one of my most difficult decisions.