How can leaders ensure professional development sticks?
What makes teacher professional development stick? Researchers say it’s not the frequency, but rather the ability to learn new curriculum, standards, and instructional methods and practices in a way that enables them to collaborate, iterate, see what worked and get feedback for ongoing improvement.
Elaine Allensworth, a research professor at the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research, has studied academic gains following professional development for Chicago Public Schools’ implementation of Common Core State Standards in mathematics as well as the district’s Skyline curriculum based on the science of reading.
You Change When You See
eople change when they see what they didn’t see.
When you disrupt automatic thinking, people…
Examine their beliefs.
Test their assumptions.
Discover the stories shaping their perceptions.
New perception. New action.
4 Things to See Differently
#1. See yourself differently.
You can’t change what you refuse to see.
“I’m not bad at conflict. I’m afraid of disappointing people.”
“I’m not overwhelmed because I have too much to do. I’m overwhelmed because I refuse to say no.”
Hold the mirror. Help people think about their thinking. Help them see themselves.
3-2-1: On staying in the game, the power of best practices, and how to handle bad events
I.
“If you spend too much time thinking about the past, you miss out on what you have right now.
Reflecting, learning, and moving on is a fruitful cycle. But replaying old mistakes and revisiting past injustices is a fast way to lose the opportunity of today.
Don’t let one bad event beat you twice.”
II.
“In the long run, the opportunities that are right for you have a way of finding you. Sometimes you wish so dearly that a new relationship or a big chance will go your way. It can feel like heartbreak when it falls through. But you have to dust yourself off and keep reaching and keep working. Water always finds its level. Stay in the game, keep your energy high, and do your best each day. You’ll find the moments that are meant for you.”
Reject Backwards Accountability
1. Negotiate the finish line.
“Do your best” is encouragement, not an expectation.
Responsibility requires clarity.
Describe the finish line. Ask:
“What would success look like to you?”
“What deadline is realistic?”
“What could get in the way?”
“What support do you need from me?”
Discuss the differences. Agree on three things together. What will be done? What’s the standard? What’s the timeline?
Rethinking How Leaders Support Teacher Growth
One of the comments I hear most often from principals is, “I’d love to coach more teachers, but I just don’t have the time.” Between classroom visits, PLCs, meetings, and everything else that fills the school day, it’s simply not realistic to engage in a formal coaching cycle with every teacher.
For years as a principal, I accepted that reality as a limitation. If I couldn’t complete a full coaching cycle, I assumed I wasn’t really coaching. I now think about that differently.
The more time I spend in schools, the more convinced I am that we have defined coaching too narrowly. We often picture coaching as a scheduled process that includes a pre-conference, classroom observation, reflection meeting, and follow-up. Those coaching cycles are incredibly valuable, and absolutely have a place in our work, especially with new teachers. But they are only one way to support teachers’ professional growth.
3-2-1: On spotting new opportunities, the power of high volume, and how to make a big decision
.
“Mental toughness immediately increases when you find the right subject. You’re more likely to stick with things when you’re genuinely interested.”
II.
“How to see opportunities others miss:
1) Study a totally different field, then return to the original problem. Apply insights from other domains.
2) Invert the problem. Try to achieve the opposite.
3) Find ways to engage with hyper-creative people. Their thinking will rub off.”
III.
The High Cost of Turnover: How Superintendent Churn Affects Classrooms
Repeated turnover among school district superintendents can hamper students’ achievement in math and reading, compared with districts with stable leadership, according to new research challenging a popular narrative that district leaders are too far removed from the classroom to affect students’ learning.
The paper, published this month by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, is among the first to examine the consequences of superintendent turnover, and the first to explore the cumulative effects of multiple leadership changes over a short period. It comes as separate, newly released data show the turnover rate of superintendents in the 500 most populous districts in the nation dropped significantly to 17.4% in the 2025-26 school year after peaking at 23% the school year prior. Still, the annual turnover rate is above pre-pandemic norms of about 14-16%.
And that turnover carries consequences, particularly when districts experience repeated churn, the
3-2-1: How to start a new habit, the power of responsibility, and prioritizing the long-term
3 Ideas From Me
I.
“When choosing a new habit many people seem to ask themselves, “What can I do on my best days?”
The trick is to ask, “What can I stick to even on my worst days?”
Start small. Master the art of showing up. Scale up when you have the time, energy, and interest.”
II.
“Concentration produces wealth.
Diversification protects wealth.”
III.
“Life rarely changes in a positive way without an increase in responsibility.
This is true in many areas: taking ownership of your health, committing to a relationship, starting a business, etc.
Whatever it is, if you want the trajectory to change, the amount of responsibility usually has to change.”
Why good intentions fall short (and the 3 questions leaders should ask instead)
A few weeks ago, I sat across from an accomplished senior lawyer who was struggling with a common leadership quandary. She cared about her team. She meant well in every interaction. And yet, her team was showing signs of burnout.
When we unpacked what was happening, the problem wasn’t a lack of care. It was a lack of clarity about three things she assumed she already had straight: what was driving her, what she actually meant to do, and what she was trying to achieve.
There is a lot of leadership advice around “being intentional.” This is based on the assumption that motivation and intention are the same thing. They’re not. And once we see the two as distinct, a third question becomes impossible to ignore: What outcome, specifically, am I trying to produce?
Together, these three questions form a simple but rigorous filter leaders can run before any high-stakes conversation, email, or decision. I call it the MIO filter—motivation, intention, and outcome.
What school boards need to know before ousting a superintendent
Not all superintendent transitions are negative. But those driven by political pressure put student outcomes at risk.
“Some turnover is healthy,” says Rachel White, associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin.
She urges school boards to try to avoid ideologically driven transitions because of the “trickle-down effects” on student outcomes. White’s latest research links ongoing instability to lower achievement, especially in high-poverty districts.
“It’s a modest relationship—anywhere from three weeks of learning up to two months in reading and math,” she explains. “When you have contentious superintendent churn, the effects are almost double.”
Superintendent mobility is slowing and nearing pre-pandemic levels. Still, 17.4% of the nation’s 500 largest districts changed superintendents last school year, according to new data from ILO Group. Since 2020, these districts have changed leadership 745 times.
Nationwide, nearly 62% of public schools have witnessed at least one leadership change since 2019, according to The Superintendent Lab’s Labor Market Turnover and Stability Dashboard.