Q. What are some national professional organizations?
• American Association of School Administration (AASA): this association emphasizes the importance of public education and provides guidance for school leaders to achieve higher school excellence. They also help shape policy, oversee its implementation and represent school districts to the public.

•National School Boards Association (NSBA): this association advocates for equity and excellence in public education through school board governance.

Q. What are some Texasian professional organizations?
•Texas Association of School Boards (TASB): this association serves and represents local Texas school districts through publications and training to share information; also it speaks with a unified voice to decision makers to chart the best future for Texas public schools.

•Texas Association for Bilingual Education (TABE): this association pursues the implementation of educational policies and effective bilingual-bicultural programs that promote equal educational opportunity and academic excellence for Bilingual/ESL students.

•Texas State Teachers Association (TSTA): this association unites, organizes and empowers public education, advocates to shape public education in Texas thus providing a quality public school for every child.

Q. What are some Dallas local professional organizations?
•Dallas School Administrators Association (DSAA): this association aims to: (a) establish a continuous professional growth program that will increase awareness of current affairs and activities, and will provide for the improvement of administrators’ professional status; (b) provide leadership in establishing and maintaining the highest professional ethics among its membership; and (c) provide social activities that will enhance understanding and cohesiveness among the memberships.

Q. What are some characters to be an effective leader?
• Be flexible in thinking within a system of core values. Also, be persistent (e.g., in pursuit of high expectations of teacher motivation, commitment, learning and achievement for all), be resilient, and be optimistic.
• Principals must develop and sustain school structures and cultures that foster individual and group learning. That is, principals must stimulate an environment in which new information and practices are eagerly incorporated into the system.

Q. How to collaborate with teachers and other colleagues as a leader?
• Be open-minded and ready to learn from your colleagues in school.
• Meet with your administrative team and teacher leaders prior to the start of the school year, to identify issues where excuses routinely arise.
• Don’t hesitate to ask your colleagues for support. Also, be a supporter and a good listener when teachers and colleagues shares their ideas about school or classrooms.

Q. How can principals enhance learning by using data?
• Principals obtain the performance data connected to each student. Performance data need to be broken down by specific objectives and target levels in the school curriculum. Then the school is able to connect what is taught to what is learned. The curriculum goals should be clear enough to specify what each teacher should teach.
• Making use of public nature of the assessment system. Annually, the school district should publish a matrix of schools and honor those schools that have performed at high levels. At the school and classroom levels, it provides a blueprint of those areas where teachers should focus their individual education plans (IEPs) and where grade levels or schools should focus the school’s professional development plans.
• Principals gauge progress toward achieving student learning. Before the advent of accountability systems, it was not evident which schools and students needed help

Q. What can be done to align curriculum, instruction, and assessment in school?
• Principals need to ensure that assessment of student learning is aligned with both
the school’s curriculum and the teachers’ instruction.
• Curriculum goals that impact on classroom should be clear and explicit.
• When developing own assessment measures, schools need to ensure that the content of the assessment can be found in the curriculum. That is, children will not be assessed on knowledge and skills they have not been taught.