Blog
Learning never stops.
The UPD team is constantly looking for ways to learn more about our industry and, by extension, improve the results we achieve for our clients. Our blog is where we share our latest thinking.
Across the Board: Who Else is Responsible for the Atlanta Cheating Scandal?
The media in recent weeks has focused a great deal of attention on the cheating scandal in Atlanta in which authorities have indicted 35 officials and teachers in the Atlanta Public Schools system for allegedly…
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Leading Change in Education Reform Efforts
“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” —Lao Tzu Leading people through a process of change is…
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Securing Our Schools in the Wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary Tragedy — Pt I
The shooting last week at Sandy Hook Elementary School has prompted a great deal of debate across the country about gun control and access to mental health services. The incident has also prompted increased scrutiny…
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The Follower’s Manifesto
In my six years of teaching, I had plenty of colleagues who carried on non-stop private conversations through every faculty and department meeting they attended. The very educators who brought down the wrath of God…
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Stuck in the 80s
Although I have over 25 years of for-profit corporate America experience, I am not one to think that we should leverage everything from the business field to the education field. However, I do think there…
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Improving the Ground Game in Education
We know political campaigns are driven by numbers. Since long before we started talking about data-driven decision-making as a key driver in education reform, political strategists had sophisticated models for crunching numbers and using them…
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Will Data Quality Campaigns Stay in the Dark Ages?
Data about students that are high quality yield the best outcomes for students—this is the basis of nearly all education data quality campaigns. As education data systems mature across the nation due to investments from…
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Getting to “The Finals” with Education Technology
As the National Basketball Association (NBA) pre-season sets to open, I am excited about the thought of cheering the new franchise team in my hometown, the Brooklyn Nets. The Brooklyn Nets have energized the borough…
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Pure as the Driven Data
I like numbers. Numbers are facts. My weight scale reading for today: 165 lbs. Numbers are objective and free of emotion. My pedometer tells me that I ran for three miles today. However, as objective…
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Do States Lack the Capacity for Reform?
Michael Usdan and Arthur Sheekey just wrote a great commentary on the complex and evolving relationship between federal policy, the State Education Agency, and the human capacity to get it all done. In their essay,…
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