What our response to NAEP scores should be (and it isn't pearl clutching)
The response to a decline in NAEP scores was as predictable as the fact that I will be a year older one year from today: the sky is falling, learning loss is real, we should have kept kids in the classroom (or insert the second guess of your choice instead), oh want are we to do? I could go on, but I’d rather point out what that response is really saying: someone designed an educational system that isn't ready to serve kids in whatever circumstance we find them. In most organizations, disruptions are treated as a natural part of existence, something that will create a new reality against which the organization must constantly reinvent and update itself to succeed, or, in a great many situations, continue to exist into the future. As the adage goes, adapt, or die. The leaders of healthy organizations know this and go to great lengths to keep their organizations as nimble as possible so that the inevitable disruptions—even large ones—are just moments to rethink what the organization ...