Introduction: As someone who espouses innovation in Education I’ve always been skeptical of the technocrats who push the cure-all that technology should be for Education. My qualms have always been twofold, first technology as the replacement for the relationship between teacher and student and second the lack of relationship between learners in a communal drive for some sort of corporate … Read More
Chuck Evans: Re-calibration, Growth, and School Success
Introduction: In his recent Better Schools newsletter Chuck Evans shared data on the slight growth of the private school sector where he suggests that the economic downturn of 2008 may have been a good thing as it forced school leaders through a re-calibration of expectations and re-assessing of educational experiences. Therefore, I chose to reach out to him to hear … Read More
Josh Riebock: Storytelling, Creativity, and Failure
Introduction: T.S. Eliot once wrote, The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality. […] The more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates. This quote and some recent interactions regarding creativity in schools led me to a conversation with my friend, … Read More
A Look Back and a Look Ahead 2018
At the beginning of 2017, I took a look through the most popular CACE blogs from 2016 and developed four themes to keep an eye on in the year ahead in what appears to now be an annual attempt to take A Look Back and a Look Ahead. In 2017, the four most read blogs included: 1. What Lessons can … Read More
Ashley Berner: Pluralism, Policy and Predictions
Ashley Berner, Deputy Director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy, recently pondered the question in an Education Next article titled Education for the Common Good, “Why should taxpayers support the education of other people’s children? In democracies, the answer is because these children’s lives (including workforce participation and social well-being) and political involvement (understanding democratic institutions, analyzing legislation, and … Read More
Jon Eckert: Innovation, The Novice Advantage and Collective Leadership
Introduction: Even though this is the third blog in a series of interviews I’ve done with innovative leaders in Education, it is actually the first interview I did as I’ve learned to try out my own innovations on friends. Jon Eckert and I graduated from Wheaton College in subsequent years, but didn’t become great friends until we reconnected a few … Read More
Kim Marshall: A Conversation about Innovation, Leadership and Teaching Quality
Introduction: Recently, I began to reach out to friends and mentors to help me think through leadership, innovation, and educational issues that continue to provide me great passion for the work I get to do within our profession. My first attempt at this sort of recorded blog was with Rex Miller on Leadership and MindShift, and I hope to share … Read More
3 Questions on Leadership and Mindshift: Rex Miller
Introduction: In the first blog I wrote for CACE, The Power of Connectivity: I Gotta Guy, I shared my thoughts about the Christian school network: In my experience in Christian education there is a specialist, expert, or innovator in every part of the country, and over the past four years as Vice President of the Christian Coalition for Educational Innovation (CCEI) I … Read More
Choosing PD Conferences: 3 Criteria
Introduction: Recently, two blogs were written in regards to choosing conferences that I found helpful for Christian school leaders. CACE Fellow, Paul Neal, wrote a blog entitled Thinking about Conferences? as he reflected on conferences he attended this past year while our friends at Sevenstar recently published a blog entitled A Guide to the Premier Events for Christian Schools this … Read More
Leadership Encouragement for 2017
Ten years ago, at the age of 31, I was entrusted by a bold superintendent and school board with an opportunity to lead a school. At this school, 2006 was known as the “Year of Shock and Awe” because a data dive discovered that the school was having a negative demographic impact on the education of its students, which is … Read More