At Learning Forward’s Annual Conference, educators engage in rich conversations with like-minded colleagues, learn new strategies, and access resources and materials relevant to their role. Participants often experience excitement, hope, and renewed energy or passion. However, a sense of overload can bring on anxiety, frustration, and even a bit of fear. What do you do…

More than ever, principals need support in how to navigate all the challenges they’re facing. Last month The Wallace Foundation President Will Miller delivered a keynote where he described how increased stresses to the principalship could lead to more principals leaving the profession, a situation that underscores the need to do more to develop and…

October is National Principals Month, and Learning Forward is thrilled to recognize how important principals are for students and communities. Research tells us that effective principals have a sizable impact on student achievement through instructional leadership, school climate, staff support, family engagement, and other pathways. Those improvements in achievement ultimately result in returns to communities…

In the many roles I have filled as an education leader, standards have always played an influential part, guiding my decisions and serving as a road map to the destination I am trying to reach. While serving as a principal, a leadership coach, and the director of a center that supports school leaders, my goal…

Learning Forward’s book club is an opportunity for members to stay up to date, gain current insights that improve practice, and connect with field leaders. Through a partnership with Corwin, Learning Forward offers four hand-picked books annually and brings members together with authors for deeper discussion. Learning Forward’s fall book club event featured authors Eleanor…

We are pleased to announce the themes for the upcoming year of Learning Forward’s journal, The Learning Professional. Narrowing down the collection of topics to six is always a challenge, but we did it with help from our readers and authors, through following thought leaders, and by constantly gathering ideas from the dynamic field of…

Congress returned from its August recess and faces a mountain of work. Its first task will be to pass a continuing resolution, a temporary spending measure that will keep the government operating beyond October 1 when the new fiscal year begins. As Congress moves to pass a continuing resolution, the House and Senate will continue…

The school year is beginning for the 53 million U.S. students enrolled in elementary and secondary public schools. The families of those children want their kids to be cared for and educated as the unique individuals they are, regardless of whether they have an intellectual or physical disability, are multilingual learners, are still struggling to…

Principals play a crucial role in student achievement and school success (Grissom, 2021), yet can experience “ad hoc” professional learning that has little connection to strengthening the skills they need to be effective leaders. Fortunately, thanks to decades of research, we know much about content and learning approaches that are especially effective for developing excellent…

The start of the school year is a great time to take stock of your professional learning practices. Your strategic priorities are in focus and your calendars are set, but have you made sure your professional learning strategies are keeping pace with the latest research and insights? Have you made plans to address schools’ most…