The School Perceptions Podcast

Across every kind of district, "Our school's discipline policies and practices are effective" remains one of the lowest-ranked items on our staff surveys. It's been that way for five years (at least). Even as the average rating improves, its place in the pecking order of staff concerns does not. What's going on?

In this episode, Derek takes a deep dive into SP's internal survey data, and puts it in conversation with the research literature to try to answer the question and point the way forward.

References

Rob DeMeuse is back for a deep dive into five years of survey data from staff, students, parents, and community members across the districts we work with! No special focus -- just two research nerds talking about what our data has been telling us lately and what it might mean.

For more background on the things we're talking about, see our recent blog posts:

Five Things We Learned, obviously

Middle-to-High School readiness findings, and

Longer-term trends

By popular demand (as measured by frequently-asked questions), I invited Rob DeMeuse and Scott Girard to stop by the old podcast studio to talk a little bit about the survey methodology we use, and why we use it rather than other approaches. In a lot of ways, this conversation expands on a blog post we wrote a couple years ago, where you can find even more depth on the topic.

Jeremy Singer, professor at University of Michigan-Flint, talks to us about his exhaustive study of how principals are stemming the tide of absenteeism -- what's proving effective, and what isn't? (It's a big deal! The Hechinger Report wrote it up too!)

A related piece, coming out of the same research project, is going to be the subject of an Annenberg EdWorkingPapers webinar on June 17th, for anyone who'd like to learn more.

See also the book, Rethinking Chronic Absenteeism, by Lenhoff and Singer, for still more.

With a host of new school board members taking their seats after April elections, Mike Barry and Danielle Bosanec of WASBO stopped by to talk about what makes school finance difficult to understand, what sorts of questions board members should be asking, and what degree of budgetary flexibility district leaders actually have. See links below for more WASBO resources!

WASBO professional learning catalog

School Business Calendar booklet

Conferences and Standards

Jack Schneider joins us from UMass-Amherst to talk about what community members have to offer local schools beyond tax dollars, and what schools have to offer community members beyond test scores (to coin a phrase).

You can email him with follow-ups, as he offers in the episode.

We talked about an article ("In Praise of Ordinary Measures") on the show, so here is that resource, and here are a few other pieces we've collaborated on over the past several years.

• "Democracy in Action" (2023) American School Board Journal
• Educational Accountability 3.0: Beyond ESSA (2023). National Education Policy Center
• "Are Locally Elected School Boards Really Failing? (2022). Education Next

Cara Jackson, recent President of the Association of Education Finance and Policy (AEFP), joins us to talk about her presidential essay and what she's learned over two decades of work in the "evidence-informed education ecosystem" about what it takes for policymakers, school leaders, and classroom teachers to their very best for their students.

Additional links to things we talked about:

• High-dosage tutoring implementation
• Immigration enforcement and student outcomes
• Standards of Excellence for Outcome-Based Contracting

Professor Jay Plasman, of Ohio State, joins us to talk about a recent report he published with the Fordham Institute, entitled "College or Career Readiness: Postsecondary and Labor Market Outcomes for Ohio High School Students Earning Industry-Recognized Credentials." The full report is available for download, as well.

It turns out that industry-recognized credentials pay off in some industries more than others, that they pay off bigger when credential-earning is tied to CTE course-taking, and that IRCs do not necessarily lead students to enroll in college at higher rates. Interesting findings!

Superintendent Kyle Luedtke, of Frederic, joins the podcast today to talk through his well-honed approach to improving staff engagement, and using that positivity to drive educational growth.

Our VP of research stops by the podcast to talk about what happened in Wisconsin referendums in the Spring of 2026. How did this April compare to previous Aprils? What trends are we seeing? What does it all mean?

I promised to link to Rob's dissertation, in case anyone wanted the deepest deep dive into Wisconsin referendum trends up to 2020.