Measurable Growth That Produces Immeasurable Impact
Football season is in full swing, and for those of us who care, it is the best time of the year. This year, as I watched training camp and pre-season coverage, I noticed something. It…
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Leveraging LEA Wisdom + Effective SEA Communication = Increased Likelihood of Implementation Success
Over the past three years, UPD has helped two state education agencies (SEAs) develop and implement their Local Education Agency’s (LEA) performance management processes to support effective implementation of their Race to the Top initiatives….
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Pure as the Driven Data
I like numbers. Numbers are facts. My weight scale reading for today: 165 lbs. Numbers are objective and free of emotion. My pedometer tells me that I ran for three miles today. However, as objective…
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Managing for Mastery
We have blogged about the topic of that last video post before, including a reference to Herzberg’s classic “One more time, what motivates employees?” And just like Herzberg, Daniel Pink points out that the three…
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Motivation Animation
Every once and a while that friend that sends you three forwards a day hits on something interesting. The other day, I received a link to a YouTube video from RSA that is a very…
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Value-Added Data and Special Education
At a gala for the American Association of People with Disabilities in March, Education Secretary Arne Duncan affirmed the current administration’s commitment to maintaining high expectations for special education populations, noting that “students with disabilities…
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Why Naysayers on Teacher Pay for Performance are Missing the Mark
It seems simple, right? Offer bonuses to teachers that bring big gains in student achievement, and you’ll get better performance out of your teachers. But, a pack of studies over this past year seems to…
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The Baltimore Consensus
In 2008, the Copenhagen Consensus Center asked a group of the world’s top economists to identify optimal social “investments” that could best help reduce malnutrition, broaden educational opportunity, slow global warming, cut air pollution, prevent…
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Predicting Crime with CompStat?
A great article in Slate from Christopher Beam highlights a CompStat program in Los Angeles which will begin to use predictive statistics alongside traditional CompStat figures. CompStat traditionally tracks a slate of common crime stats…
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CompStat and Campbell’s Law
As you may have seen in the news, The New York City Police Department is conducting a comprehensive review of its crime stats. Over the past months, reports have emerged that Precinct Commanders felt pressured…
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