About this episode
If you track the ongoing weekly education articles that are published, you maybe know about the Marshall Memo. If not, you should. The Marshall Memo, published 50 times a year since 2003, is designed to keep principals, teachers, instructional coaches, and superintendents, well-informed on current research and best practices. In this Leader Chat Jeff talks with Kim Marshall, and as you will notice, they would ‘nerd-out’ on educational issues for hours if they were allowed. Clearly, Kim is well-informed and connected to ongoing research and trends in education.
You don’t have to lead alone. Watch the Leader Chat every Wednesday. Learn about the Leadership Circle to find out how.
Kim Marshall began his career in 1969 teaching sixth graders in a Boston middle school. He used “learning stations” with some success, wrote curriculum materials for his students, gave workshops for teachers in the Boston area, and began to write articles on classroom and school innovation (click the list of Kim’s publications to the left).
During Boston’s desegregation crisis in the mid-1970’s, Kim became increasingly involved in schoolwide change efforts, read the new research on effective urban schools, and eventually went to graduate school for a year to prepare to become a principal.
But a 1980 Massachusetts tax-cutting referendum closed 27 Boston schools, and Kim found himself in the district’s central office, first as a policy advisor and speechwriter for Superintendent Robert Spillane, then leading a team that wrote new K-12 curriculum objectives for the district, and finally serving as director of curriculum and then of planning.