School Administration
Few entries in this Media Resource Center apply only to school administration...
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Few entries in this Media Resource Center apply only to school administration. The hot topics are complex and concensus across the U.S. is slim. Great variations emerge in each state. School administrators, of course, are expected to be a jack-of-all-trades in a learning and community environment, locally or regionally depending upon the boundaries.
As exemplars, take a look at some of the portals for school administrators. EdSource contains resources and links about every topic which school administrators must tackle today--from teacher quality to school finance. EdSource is a non-profit consultancy devoted to California education. Really useful data and articulation of the key issues can be found here. Remember you will need to click between 2-3 levels into a space for details rather than the generalizations, appropriate for lay leaders. You can substitute the name of most states other than California to locate equivalent entities.
School Improvement Through Data-Driven Decision Making provides tools for data-gathering about classrooms and schools, professional practices, and the community--a real time-saver.
The Consortium for Policy Research in Education sponsors the School Finance project, examining the cost of school improvement and professional development initiatives. Articles, case studies and models are included.
TeAch-nology is a portal that organizes topics into 32 categories, such as ability grouping, burnout, rural education, bullying, facilities and so on. Portical, specially developed in California, is divided into briefcase, columns, a discussion forum and resources and targeted to school administrators and their technology needs.
For position papers about the current status of administrative leadership look at Teacher Policy Research and RAND.
Ed Tech Action Network offers tools and tips for sharing expertise about technology with policymakers. It has been developed by ISTE and CoSN, very experienced in this arena.
The Educator's Reference Desk inherited AskERIC's best features. It has four tabs: Resource Guides, Lesson Plans, Question Archives, and a search function. The Guides cover 16 subjects and Lesson Plans has ingathered more than 2000 quality-checked lessons.
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EdSource is amazingly comprehensive and especially helpful for novice administrators. The staff also welcomes questions via telephone.
