The Source

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Topic: Continuous Improvement

Expectations for Quality Education

Expectations for Quality Education

Cognia’s Performance Standards and Protocol underpin all our solutions in service to schools and learners—professional learning, accreditation and certification, assessment, turnaround, and school improvement. The accreditation standards outline expectations for Cognia accredited institutions based on what the latest education research indicates makes for quality schools. The protocol outlines the requirements... Read the full article >
Moving Beyond Accountability and Launching Innovation

Moving Beyond Accountability and Launching Innovation

I have been superintendent of Liberty Public Schools (LPS) in Missouri since 2014. The district has consistently met the standards set by the Missouri school improvement program, the state’s accountability and accreditation system. That system offers a certain level of rigor; every few years, the state reshuffles the deck and... Read the full article >
From State Takeover to Turnaround

From State Takeover to Turnaround

Early in 2018, I was called in to lead the Montgomery, Alabama schools after a state takeover of the system in 2017. The district was in bad shape. A Cognia™ (then AdvancED) Diagnostic Review pinpointed 31 areas where the district failed to meet the standards and needed improvement. The report... Read the full article >
The Meaning of Standards

The Meaning of Standards

Around the turn of the twenty-first century, the focus and process of accreditation shifted from a ten-year evaluation of the accomplishments of an institution’s past decade to a forward-looking process examining what an institution is striving to accomplish in the following five years. Modern accreditation examines the current and future... Read the full article >
Pandemic and Academic Recovery Are About More Than Loss

Pandemic and Academic Recovery Are About More Than Loss

Educators across the country are formulating plans to address so-called “learning loss.” As a teacher in Washington, DC, I see every day the losses that students, families, and teachers face due to Covid-19. But I also see how resilient our communities are—and how harmful it is to focus solely on... Read the full article >
Celebrating 125 Years as a Force for School Improvement

Celebrating 125 Years as a Force for School Improvement

South’s oldest continuously accredited school continues to reinvent itself through the Cognia Accreditation process  Battle Ground Academy is an independent K–12 day school in Franklin, TN, the county seat of prosperous Williamson County. The co-ed, college-prep school draws students from a 30-minute radius in the Middle Tennessee region, which extends... Read the full article >
Helping School Leaders Address Blind Spots

Helping School Leaders Address Blind Spots

Accreditors dig deep into data on all aspects of performance. We review key documents and plans, and conduct detailed surveys, interviews, and observations of crucial aspects of schooling that affect student learning. We spend multiple days on site and get a glimpse, up close and personal, of what is working... Read the full article >
School Turnaround: Examining a Complex Process

School Turnaround: Examining a Complex Process

The right operating conditions must exist for sustainable turnaround success. The University of Virginia’s national experts on turnaround schools claim that two major factors can influence the success of school turnaround. The first factor involves “…the characteristics and actions of the turnaround leader.” (Dolan, 2013, 8) Likewise, one of the... Read the full article >
Diagnosing the Root Causes of Underperformance

Diagnosing the Root Causes of Underperformance

How can we develop tailored solutions based on the specific challenges and complexities of underperforming schools? State education agencies, responsible for the improvement of schools and local school systems, need help uncovering the root causes for underperformance and guidance planning for future improvement. States such as Kentucky and South Carolina... Read the full article >
Measuring Student Engagement with eProve surveys

Measuring Student Engagement with eProve surveys

Research has shown a strong relationship between student engagement and a variety of student success outcomes (e.g., Fredricks et al.,2004; Parsons et al., 2013). For example, Finn and Rock (1997) found that low-income minority students who were observed as engaged, were more likely to be academically successful, achieve passing grades,... Read the full article >