Developing Effective Principals: What Kind of Learning Matters?

Effective principals can generate better outcomes for the teachers, students and the schools they lead. But great principals don't grow on trees; they receive high-quality development and ongoing support.In this report, researchers synthesize two decades of research on principal pre-service preparation and professional development and describe results of their own additional studies. They find that high-quality learning programs for future and current principals are associated with improved outcomes such as princip?als' feelings of preparedness, teacher satisfaction and retention, and student achievement.  Evidence also suggests that a focus on equity-oriented leadership has the potential to improve principals' ability to meet the needs of diverse learners.The research was led by Linda Darling-Hammond, who was also lead author of an influential report?, released 15 years ago, describing the key characteristics of effective principal preparation and professional development.  The report finds that high-quality pre-service preparation programs have common elements:Rigorous recruitment of candidates into the program;Close school district-university partnerships;Groupings of enrollees into cohorts;Experiences where candidates apply what they learn, guided by experienced mentors or coaches; andA focus on important content, with the five most important areas being leading instruction, managing change, developing people, shaping a positive school culture and meeting the needs of diverse learners.Mentoring and coaching were influential and valuable for current principals, along with collegial learning networks and applied learning, the report finds.Researchers found via a national survey that principals' access to high-quality learning opportunities appears to have improved over the last decade, with more than two-thirds of principals today reporting having had at least minimal access to learning across the five key content areas. At the same time, there are clearly gaps. One example: "Few principals have access to authentic, job-based learning opportunities during preparation, and high-quality internships are still relatively rare," the report says. In addition, access to learning opportunities varies greatly across states and by school poverty level, an indicator that also tends to reflect the racial demographics of a school. Principals in high-poverty schools were much less likely to report that they had professional development on important topics including redesigning schools for deeper learning and designing professional learning opportunities for teachers and other staff, for example. And only 10 percent of principals in high-poverty schools reported having had a mentor or coach in the last two years versus 24 percent in low-poverty schools.Across the country, most principals reported wanting more professional development in nearly all topics, but faced obstacles in pursuing learning opportunities, including lack of time and insufficient money.The authors emphasize that state policies can make a difference in the availability and quality of leadership preparation programs. In states and districts that overhauled standards and used them to inform principal preparation, learning opportunities, and assessment, there is evidence that the quality of principal learning has improved.To foster high-quality principal learning, the authors suggest that policymakers can:Develop and better use state principal licensing and program approval standards;Fund statewide efforts, such as leadership academies, paid internships and mentor training; andEncourage greater attention to equity by, for example, allocating professional development resources to schools that need them most or funding high-quality preparation for prospective principals of high-poverty schools.The report is the third of three research syntheses commissioned by Wallace. The first, released in February 2021, examined the critical role of principals in student learning and other outcomes. The second examined the increasingly important role of assistant principals and was released in April 2021.

National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development: A Policy Agenda in Support of How Learning Happens

Policy can play an essential role in moving efforts to support the whole learner from the periphery to the mainstream of American education, and from the realm of ideas to implementation. This document is rooted in the belief that policy should create enabling conditions for communities to implement locally crafted practices that drive more equitable outcomes by supporting each and every student's social, emotional, and academic development

Next Generation Very Large Array Memo No. 9 Science Working Group 4: Time Domain, Fundamental Physics, and Cosmology

We report here on key science topics for the Next Generation Very Large Array in the areas of time domain, fundamental physics, and cosmology. Key science cases considered are pulsars in orbit around the Galactic Center massive black hole, Sagittarius A*, electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational waves, and astrometric cosmology. These areas all have the potential for ground-breaking and transformative discovery. Numerous other topics were discussed during the preparation of this report and some of those discussions are summarized here, as well. There is no doubt that further investigation of the science case will reveal rich and compelling opportunities

THE ONSET OF MASSIVE STAR FORMATION: THE EVOLUTION OF TEMPERATURE AND DENSITY STRUCTURE IN AN INFRARED DARK CLOUD

We present new NH3 (1, 1), (2, 2), and (4, 4) observations from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array compiled with work in the literature to explore the range of conditions observed in young, massive star-forming regions. To sample the effects of evolution independent from those of distance/resolution, abundance, and large-scale environment, we compare clumps in different evolutionary stages within a single infrared dark cloud (IRDC), G32.02+0.06. We find that the early stages of clustered star formation are characterized by dense, parsec-scale filamentary structures interspersed with complexes of dense cores (60 pc) hosting the IRDC, hypothesizing that it may have been shaped by previous generations of massive stars

Next Generation Very Large Array Memo No. 9 Science Working Group 4: Time Domain, Fundamental Physics, and Cosmology

We report here on key science topics for the Next Generation Very Large Array in the areas of time domain, fundamental physics, and cosmology. Key science cases considered are pulsars in orbit around the Galactic Center massive black hole, Sagittarius A*, electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational waves, and astrometric cosmology. These areas all have the potential for ground-breaking and transformative discovery. Numerous other topics were discussed during the preparation of this report and some of those discussions are summarized here, as well. There is no doubt that further investigation of the science case will reveal rich and compelling opportunities

Early Ipswichian (last interglacial) sea level rise in the channel region : Stone Point Site of Special Scientific Interest, Hampshire, England

Constraining the speed of sea level rise at the start of an interglacial is important to understanding the size of the ‘window of opportunity’ available for hominin migration. This is particularly important during the last interglacial when there is no evidence for significant hominin occupation anywhere in Britain. There are very few finer grained fossiliferous sequences in the Channel region that can be used to constrain sea level rise and they are preserved only to the north of the Channel, in England. Of these, the sequence at Stone Point SSSI is by far the most complete. Data from this sequence has been previously reported, and discussed at a Quaternary Research Association Field Meeting, where a number of further questions were raised that necessitated further data generation. In this paper, we report new data from this sequence – thin section analysis, isotopic determinations on ostracod shells, new Optical Stimulated Luminescence ages and Amino Acid Recem analyses. These show early sea level rise in this sequence, starting during the pre-temperate vegetation zone IpI, but no early warming. The implications of this almost certainly last interglacial sequence for the human colonisation of Britain and our understanding of the stratigraphic relationship of interglacial estuarine deposits with their related fluvial terrace sequences is explored

Updated international tuberous sclerosis complex diagnostic criteria and surveillance and management recommendations

Background Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is an autosomal dominant genetic disease affecting multiple body systems with wide variability in presentation. In 2013, Pediatric Neurology published articles outlining updated diagnostic criteria and recommendations for surveillance and management of disease manifestations. Advances in knowledge and approvals of new therapies necessitated a revision of those criteria and recommendations. Methods Chairs and working group cochairs from the 2012 International TSC Consensus Group were invited to meet face-to-face over two days at the 2018 World TSC Conference on July 25 and 26 in Dallas, TX, USA. Before the meeting, working group cochairs worked with group members via e-mail and telephone to (1) review TSC literature since the 2013 publication, (2) confirm or amend prior recommendations, and (3) provide new recommendations as required. Results Only two changes were made to clinical diagnostic criteria reported in 2013: “multiple cortical tubers and/or radial migration lines” replaced the more general term “cortical dysplasias,” and sclerotic bone lesions were reinstated as a minor criterion. Genetic diagnostic criteria were reaffirmed, including highlighting recent findings that some individuals with TSC are genetically mosaic for variants in TSC1 or TSC2. Changes to surveillance and management criteria largely reflected increased emphasis on early screening for electroencephalographic abnormalities, enhanced surveillance and management of TSC-associated neuropsychiatric disorders, and new medication approvals. Conclusions Updated TSC diagnostic criteria and surveillance and management recommendations presented here should provide an improved framework for optimal care of those living with TSC and their families

Comparative genome structure, secondary metabolite, and effector coding capacity across Cochliobolus pathogens.

The genomes of five Cochliobolus heterostrophus strains, two Cochliobolus sativus strains, three additional Cochliobolus species (Cochliobolus victoriae, Cochliobolus carbonum, Cochliobolus miyabeanus), and closely related Setosphaeria turcica were sequenced at the Joint Genome Institute (JGI). The datasets were used to identify SNPs between strains and species, unique genomic regions, core secondary metabolism genes, and small secreted protein (SSP) candidate effector encoding genes with a view towards pinpointing structural elements and gene content associated with specificity of these closely related fungi to different cereal hosts. Whole-genome alignment shows that three to five percent of each genome differs between strains of the same species, while a quarter of each genome differs between species. On average, SNP counts among field isolates of the same C. heterostrophus species are more than 25× higher than those between inbred lines and 50× lower than SNPs between Cochliobolus species. The suites of nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS), polyketide synthase (PKS), and SSP-encoding genes are astoundingly diverse among species but remarkably conserved among isolates of the same species, whether inbred or field strains, except for defining examples that map to unique genomic regions. Functional analysis of several strain-unique PKSs and NRPSs reveal a strong correlation with a role in virulence