The Partners Blog
The Partners Blog is written primarily by Partners’ executive director Richard Lemons. Through these letters, Richard shares resources, tools, and research relevant to leading organizations, prompting large-scale instructional improvement, and disrupting inequity.

Making your Mediocre Strategy Matter: Strategic Implementation
I’d much rather you implement a mediocre strategy well than a “perfect” strategy half-heartedly. This may seem like heresy in the modern era of research-based interventions and metanalyses that show effect sizes, but I’ve been saying this to district leaders for years, and I still believe it. Recently, while facilitating a
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Richard Lemons’ Contribution to CT Viewpoints in CT Mirror
CT Center for School Change's Executive Director, Richard Lemons wrote a commentary about the higher education scandal which was published in the CT Viewpoints section of the CT Mirror on Friday, March 15, 2019. Read the publication below or click here to read it on the CT Mirror website. Privilege games
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Repeat After Me: Strategy Before Plan
As I write, policymakers and professional educators in CT are debating the opportunities and challenges of district consolidation. At the federal level, we’ve just learned that the President has proposed a 10% reduction in Department of Education spending, an elimination of well-established funding streams (Titles II and IV), as well as
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Getting Micro: Leadership, Dialogue and Moments
Over the course of five hours, I had the opportunity to shadow a leader I have long admired. I sat in this superintendent’s meetings, followed her as she strolled corridors, observed her conversations with educators, and listened to how she spoke with leadership teams. It was mesmerizing. While this leader has
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Taking Instructional Improvement to Task (Part 2 of 2)
Thank you! Before the holidays I posted a blog about the importance of academic tasks within classrooms. Drawing from both learning theory and research on improving instruction, I argued that there tends to be wide variation in the cognitive demand asked of students in the tasks provided by their teachers. To
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Taking Instructional Improvement to Task (Part 1 of 2)
I live a privileged professional life. Each year, I am invited to visit dozens of school districts and spend time in hundreds of classrooms kneeling next to students aged 4 to 20. Whether through the formal process of Instructional Rounds or more casually dropping into classrooms, I am typically working with
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