Friday Night Kickoff Dinner – A Hometown Message You Won’t Want to Miss!
Join the TALAS community on Friday, May 16, 2025, at La Nube as we kick off the Summer Leadership Summit with an evening of connection and inspiration. We are honored […]
3.2.1: How to help someone, the value of bad luck, and rewarding competence
3 Ideas From Me
I.
“The way to help someone is not to critique what makes them smaller, but to encourage what makes them larger.”
II.
“Even bad luck is a source of opportunity—but only if you live each day as if that is true.”
III.
How challenges, experiences shape superintendents of color
NEW ORLEANS — “It doesn’t matter what I brought to the table in terms of preparation. In the eyes of some, I’m just gonna be ill-equipped.”
That sentiment, expressed by Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero, sums up the double standards he says education leaders of color face regularly.
“Double standards are so, so, so real, and you all need to accept that,” Marrero told a packed session this month at the annual conference of AASA, The School Superintendents Association.
Dismantling Ed Dept. Will Harm More Than 26 Million Kids — and America’s Future
The layoffs of half of the employees of the U.S. Department of Education clearly demonstrate the Trump administration’s follow-through on one of Project 2025’s mandates, which intends to eliminate the resources, protections and opportunities that millions of children and families across this nation rely on.
It is evident that the White House will not stop until it wipes out the most basic protections and supports for the American people, including the youngest children. The first step was the attempt to defund Head Start and Early Head Start, impacting 800,000 young children across the nation. This order was halted by a federal judge in Washington, thanks to the lawsuits filed by Democracy Forward and attorneys general from 23 states.
How to better guide budget discussions at board meetings
As K12 schools enter a difficult budget cycle, school boards must examine the long-term impacts on their districts’ financial sustainability, new research confirms.
This year’s budget cycle falls largely on the nation’s school boards, which are generally responsible for spending $700 billion in public education funds, writes Director of Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab Marguerite Roza in a research briefing published by the Brookings Institution.
However, school board trustees rarely discuss the long-term impacts on their spending. Roza recommends that districts make modest policy changes to ensure fiscal responsibility as the potential elimination of the Department of Education raises budgetary concerns.
Let ‘em see you sweat: The illusion of effortlessness
I spent years perfecting an illusion. The illusion that everything was effortless — that I had it all under control. That I could take on any task with a breezy “sure, no problem” and deliver flawlessly.
Perhaps it was because I was often in roles for which I wasn’t fully prepared, and I thought making it look easy would inspire confidence. Or maybe it was the external validation — the praise that came from appearing competent without visible effort. Whatever the reason, I got good at minimizing the struggle to make hard things look simple. And once the habit was ingrained, even when I did feel competent, I continued the pattern of downplaying what it took to make things happen.