“I don’t necessarily like to use this term in public, but … we have a generation of digital natives who are also digital doofuses,” said Don Leu, in a 2006 interview about his digital literacy research findings. “They are natives when it comes to video, social networks, and texting, but they are doofuses when it comes to information. They do not know how to locate information or evaluate information, and they do not know how to communicate information in a richer context beyond text messaging.”

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of The Strategy Playbook for Educational Leaders: Principles and Processes (Routledge, 2021), a new book co-authored by Neag School Associate Professor Jennie Weiner and her colleague Isobel Stevenson, director at the Connecticut Center for School Change.

The volume is a how-to resource designed for superintendents, central office staff, principals, and teacher leaders that looks to “provide leaders with a concrete framework for a strategic improvement pan, helping educators link the ‘principles’ to ‘processes’ of planning.”

Meriden Record-Journal (Richard Schwab is quoted about Miguel Cardona’s nomination for the U.S. Education Secretary)

Through a collaboration with Lehigh University, Neag School of Education associate professor Jennifer Freeman will develop an intervention to improve college and career readiness for students with emotional and behavioral disorders. This $500,000 grant is sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). Freeman is a Co-PI with Lee Kern and Chris Liang at Lehigh University.

Public school enrollment in New England is down during the pandemic. But even when kids are enrolled, it can be a struggle to get some to show up. This week on NEXT, how one district is tackling absenteeism and why doctors are increasingly concerned about youth mental health. Plus, Massachusetts school districts try to cope with a teacher shortage. And when a Vermonter’s business plummeted after COVID hit, she donned an inflatable T-Rex costume and started dancing.

Through a collaboration with Lehigh University, Neag School of Education associate professor Jennifer Freeman will develop an intervention to improve college and career readiness for students with emotional and behavioral disorders. This $500,000 grant is sponsored by the Institute of Educational Sciences (IES). Freeman is a Co-PI with Lee Kern and Chris Liang at Lehigh University.

The COVID pandemic has laid bare the extent of inequalities across Connecticut’s cities, towns, and school districts and the children and families they serve. Connecticut has long been one of our nation’s most racially and economically segregated states, while also one of the wealthiest. In the past decade those inequities have worsened along both economic and racial lines. In 2021, Connecticut continues to face the interrelated challenges of segregation and school funding equity and adequacy. Connecticut must do better.

When 2020 began, we had no clue as to the changes coming to our children’s education. Looking to the new year, the only thing that seems certain is that uncertainty in school opportunity, format, and structure will continue as the conditions around us adjust. School will carry on as unpredictable and unprecedented.

We may be tired of being asked to look for silver linings, or bright prospects, to the changed education landscape. But here’s why it’s important to check our expectations and consider shifts in how we frame this school year.

To learn more about the man now poised to lead the nation’s schools, Connecticut Public Radio’s Diane Orson spoke with Robert Villanova, director of the Executive Leadership Program at UConn’s Neag School of Education. He said he and Cardona first met when Cardona was principal at Hanover Elementary School in his hometown of Meriden.