Bringing Order Out of Chaos

One of the things that sometimes gets lost in all the talk about education is how complex schools are. Many of them are the size of small towns — complete with capital projects, transportation systems, food services, and recreation programs.

Even experienced school leaders can find themselves distracted from paying attention to the main point of school — to prepare the next generation to be educated citizens.

That is why it is important to study successful high-poverty schools for the lessons they have to share. How do they avoid the chaos that almost seems inevitable given all the factors pulling schools in different directions?

The thing I have observed about successful high-poverty schools is that they make all the systems work together rather than at cross-purposes, and in Huffington Post this week, I talk about a session at our national conference where three school leaders talked about coherence.