Education Consulting
Excellence for Every Child - Every Day
My vision is that every child is actively engaged in an excellent education every single day! My purpose in education consulting is to equip and inspire educators, families, community members, and people in all walks of life to use their knowledge, skills, talents, and influence to make that vision a reality.
Research and our own eyes show us that children from minority families, poor communities, language traditions other than English, and minority cultural heritages, as well as children with disabilities consistently receive less than a stellar education. I believe they deserve better. And I believe we can work together to provide better. We have the power to offer justice for every child through access to an excellent education!
Services
Instructional Leadership and Coaching
Strategic Planning and Performance Management
Instructional Leadership and Coaching
Leading instruction is more than being a good teacher. It requires skills in adult learning, coaching, systems and infrastructure development, and continuous improvement. Let's work together through a cycle of inquiry to improve the practice of every educator on your team.
Policy Development and Implementation
Strategic Planning and Performance Management
Instructional Leadership and Coaching
Whether your responsibility is developing or implementing educational policy for a school, a district, or an entire state, every decision in the process matters. Let's examine the implications of each decision to improve the outcomes for each child and educator in your system.
Strategic Planning and Performance Management
Strategic Planning and Performance Management
Strategic Planning and Performance Management
With the right vision, mission, values, goals, and strategic action plans, every system can be more effective. A cycle of performance management undergirding strategic plan implementation will increase its chances of success. Let's co-facilitate your plan development and implementation.
Philosophy of Education
Vision for Oklahoma Education
Strategic Planning and Performance Management
Every child deserves to be surrounded by a team of excellent educators every year - regardless of his or her race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, disability, ability, language, economic condition, or zip code. And every educator deserves to be part of a team of excellent teachers, administrators, counselors, coaches, leaders, and support personnel throughout his or her career. This is the philosophy that guides my consulting and coaching services.
Vision for Oklahoma Education
Vision for Oklahoma Education
Vision for Oklahoma Education
I want the State of Oklahoma to provide "Excellence for Every Child Every Day!" I believe it will take educators and non-educators from across the state, willing to prioritize education, health, and mental health services for our children. Our entire state will need to work collaboratively, diligently, and purposefully to make that vision a reality.
Oklahoma can become the premier state for receiving an education!
FAQs
Vision for Oklahoma Education
Vision for Oklahoma Education
The most frequent question I get is: "Where is your menu of workshops and conferences?" My answer is that I provide personalized and differentiated consulting and professional learning opportunities based on the individual needs of each client and organization. Let's set up an initial conversation, in which we will determine your most critical needs, prioritize root causes, and establish a plan for consulting and coaching as you seek continuous improvement toward excellence for every child.
Equitable Access
Education and Social Justice
Education is a social justice issue. Inequity in educational access means injustice for those who are not being served. Every child deserves to be surrounded by a team of excellent educators every year - regardless of his or her race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, disability, ability, language, economic condition, or zip code. And every educator deserves to be part of a team of excellent teachers, administrators, counselors, coaches, leaders, and support personnel throughout his or her career.
If we stand together and fight against the injustice of inequitable funding, inequitable expectations, inequitable rigor in curriculum and instruction, and inequitable access to excellent educators, we can eradaticate the social injustice of inequitable education, which leads to inequitable opportunity!
From the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders at the American Institutes for Research (unpublished)
Research suggests that achievement gaps would close if students of color received 4 consecutive years of top-quality instruction.[1] Yet, research consistently shows that many students do not have consistent access to excellent educators. In comparison with other students, students from low-income families or rural backgrounds, students of color, students with special needs, and students who are English language learners have less access to excellent educators.[2],[3] To address this challenge, during the past decade, states and districts have engaged in efforts to develop and implement state plans to ensure equitable access to excellent educators. Yet, despite the work of states and districts, significant discrepancies remain. Whether the discrepancies are within a school, across schools in a district, or across districts in a state, students from low-income families and minority students are consistently taught by inexperienced, out-of-field, or less effective educators—research, as well as data submitted by states in two rounds of equitable access state plan submissions (i.e., prior to Race to the Top and more recently in 2015), support this claim. Root causes for these gaps vary by district and state and have been well documented in analyses conducted by Westat, the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders (GTL Center), states themselves, and other researchers and research organizations.
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) advances the equity conversation through Title I requirements and Title II authorized activities. For example, Title I requires state plans to describe how children from low-income families and minority children enrolled in Title I schools are not served at disproportionate rates by ineffective, out-of-field, or inexperienced teachers, and the measures the state education agency will use to evaluate and publicly report the progress of the state education agency with respect to such a description. Furthermore, Title I requires local plans to describe how the local education agency will identify and address, as required under state plans, any disparities that result in students from low-income families and minority students being taught at higher rates than other students by ineffective, inexperienced, or out-of-field teachers. Title II authorizes states and districts to use funds to address gaps in equitable access. Looking ahead, states and districts will need support in understanding and addressing these gaps and in responding to the equitable access requirements of ESSA.
[1] Hassel, B., & Hassel, E. (2010). Opportunity at the top: How America’s best teachers could close the gaps, raise the bar, and keep our nation great. Chapel Hill, NC: Public Impact.
[2] Glazerman, S., & Max, J. (2011). Do low-income students have equal access to the highest-performing teachers? Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance.
[3] Isenberg, E., Max, J., Gleason, P., Potamites, L., Santillano, R., Hock, H., et al. (2013). Access to effective teaching for disadvantaged students. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance.