Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning (The Leadership & Learning Center)

The introduction states: "The only reason our schools haven't made astonishing progress in the last 30 years of "reform" is quite simple: very few schools ever implemented 'what is essential'--the most powerful, simple actions and structures that would dramatically increase the proportion of students prepared for college or careers. What is 'essential' for schools? Three simple things: reasonably coherent curriculum (what we teach); sound lessons (how we teach); and far more purposeful reading and writing in every discipline, or authentic literacy (integral to both what and how we teach).
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