| Principals, SEL and the Arts Mark Year’s Top Blog Posts | 42528 | GP0|#6b3d2eef-1f47-4b7e-b105-bd18b7e1c384;L0|#06b3d2eef-1f47-4b7e-b105-bd18b7e1c384|News;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 |
<p>The end of the year is a time of lists…shopping lists, of course, but also top 10 lists: top 10 movies, top 10 books and so on. To celebrate the first year of the Wallace blog, we’re counting down a list of our own: These are the posts you’ve visited the most since the launch of the blog in March 2018, and we think they give a nice taste of our work this year.</p><p>Happy New Year to all and to all a good read. </p><p>10) <a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/summer-books-research-beloved-pigs-of-childrens-literature.aspx">“Summer Books, Research and Beloved Pigs of Children’s Literature”</a> A chat with Harvard’s James Kim about READS for Summer Learning, a school-run, home-based program Kim developed over the course of 10-plus years of research and experimentation.</p><p>9) <a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/talking-to-parents-about-social-and-emotional-learning-.aspx">“Talking to Parents about Social and Emotional Learning”</a><strong> </strong>Bibb Hubbard, founder of the nonprofit Learning Heroes, talks to Wallace about a report aimed at helping schools and organizations communicate with parents about social and emotional learning.</p><p>8) <a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/research-on-arts-integration-an-essa-evidence-review-blog-post.aspx">“High-Quality ‘Arts Integration’ Programs Can Benefit Learning in Core Subjects”</a> A brief look at a study by the American Institutes for Research, which shows that high-quality programs that incorporate music, theater or other arts into core subjects such as English and math can make a difference in learning.</p><p>7) <a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/students-mental-and-emotional-health.aspx">“Students’ Mental and Emotional Health Top Concerns for Elementary Principals”</a><strong> </strong>Run-down of a survey of elementary and middle school principals, which finds that their priorities have shifted dramatically over the past 10 years, with students’ mental and emotional issues now leading their list of concerns.</p><p>6) <a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/research-and-self-reflection-help-strengthen-community-ties.aspx">“Research and Self-Reflection Help Strengthen Community Ties”</a> A guest post from social psychologist and statistician Bob Harlow about efforts by the Fleisher Art Memorial to connect with newly arrived immigrants in its South Philadelphia community.</p><p>5) <a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/showing-young-people-they-belong-at-the-ballet.aspx">“Showing Young People They Belong at the Ballet”</a> Harlow discusses the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s work to attract 20-to-40-year-olds.</p><p>4) <a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/how-principals-can-improve-student-success-blog-post.aspx">“How Principals Can Improve Student Success”</a>: A look back at <em>How Leadership Influences Student Learning</em>, a landmark Wallace report from 2004 that helped bring to light the importance of an overlooked factor in education—the role of the school principal.</p><p>3) <a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/want-stronger-communities-create-a-bridge-to-the-arts.aspx">“Want Stronger Communities? Create a Bridge to the Arts”</a>: Our communications director, Lucas Held, reflects on a Knight Foundation report, which finds that art and culture help people develop a sense of attachment to their community.</p><p>2) <a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/aasa-stephanie-jones-interview.aspx">“The Elements of Social and Emotional Learning”</a>:<strong> </strong>An excerpt from an interview with Harvard researcher Stephanie Jones, in which she relates her own personal experience with social and emotional learning and explains why educators should care about it.</p><p>1) <a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/your-top-picks-and-ours.aspx">“Your Top Picks and Ours”</a>: OK, so we posted this one before the official launch of the blog in March. It’s a round-up of Wallace’s most-downloaded publications of 2017. It just goes to show, everybody loves a good list!</p> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2018-12-18T05:00:00Z | A look back at your favorite dispatches from the first year of the Wallace blog | | 12/18/2018 3:00:18 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Principals, SEL and the Arts Mark Year’s Top Blog Posts A look back at your favorite dispatches from the first year of the | 598 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Charting a Careful Course in Public Policy Engagement | 23726 | GP0|#af3e9879-f65e-40d3-8cc6-25ef5b2f858e;L0|#0af3e9879-f65e-40d3-8cc6-25ef5b2f858e|Advancing Philanthropy;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61;GP0|#6b3d2eef-1f47-4b7e-b105-bd18b7e1c384;L0|#06b3d2eef-1f47-4b7e-b105-bd18b7e1c384|News | <p>T</p><p>he Wallace Foundation has a sizable endowment, but it's not large enough to fund all
<a href="https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2007/overview04/tables/table_2.asp" target="_blank">93,000 public schools in the U.S.</a>, all
<a href="/knowledge-center/Documents/Update-Thriving-Arts-Organizations-Thriving-Arts.pdf" target="_blank">48,000 nonprofit arts organizations</a> or the thousands of organizations offering expanded-learning opportunities for children. We therefore work to develop and share credible, useful knowledge that can help others who may never get a grant from us.</p><p> While most of our efforts have been focused on helping share lessons to improve practice, we’ve recently sought to strengthen our approach to sharing lessons with policymakers, as well. </p><p> We are dipping our toes deeper into the waters of policy engagement because we think the evidence we’ve developed can, when it is sufficiently strong, lead to more effective policies, should policymakers choose to incorporate it. But what might that look like? </p><p> If a state were considering changes in policies about school principals, for example, its lawmakers might benefit from becoming familiar with
<a href="/knowledge-center/school-leadership/pages/default.aspx">the substantial body of evidence</a> we have collected about what works and what doesn’t in promoting more effective school leadership. Our goal would be to introduce credible information and ideas to legislators so they could devise school leadership policies with the greatest likelihood of improving teaching and learning in schools.</p><p> But we’ve also acknowledged that there are risks to policy engagement. In other words, these waters can be choppy. U.S. law prohibits philanthropies from influencing legislation. And riptides exist even within the firm confines of the law. Policy engagement could pull a foundation into caustic partisan politics, distract it from core areas of expertise or create adverse unintended consequences for those it seeks to help. </p><p> How can a philanthropy navigate such treacherous waters—and manage risk? Kenneth Austin, general counsel at Wallace, recently shared Wallace’s approach to considering and managing the risk to foundations of policy engagements at the
<a href="https://www.cof.org/2018-public-policy-summit" target="_blank">Council on Foundations' Public Policy Summit</a> in Philadelphia.  He laid out the rationale for Wallace to undertake policy engagement, the risks we see in the endeavor and the ways in which we work to mitigate these risks—chiefly by following the principle of “say more, only as we know more” and by offering options and never prescriptions. He also offered a case study from Florida to illustrate the principles we use to determine when we wade into matters of policy and when we choose to stay dry.</p><div class="ms-rtestate-read ms-rte-wpbox"><div class="ms-rtestate-notify ms-rtestate-read 3ecc5a09-485c-4a7f-ad0c-753f546cedfe" id="div_3ecc5a09-485c-4a7f-ad0c-753f546cedfe"></div><div id="vid_3ecc5a09-485c-4a7f-ad0c-753f546cedfe" style="display:none;"></div></div><p> The considerations for thinking about risk and how to manage it may be useful to other philanthropies and nonprofit organizations exploring avenues to inform public policy and legislation. </p><p> You can also download Austin's presentation
<a href="/knowledge-center/Documents/COF-Public-Policy-Summit-Wallace-Overview-041318-final-rev2.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>. </p> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2018-06-06T04:00:00Z | Your source for research and ideas to expand high quality learning and enrichment opportunities. Supporting: School Leadership, After School, Summer and Extended Learning Time, Arts Education and Building Audiences for the Arts. | | 6/20/2018 8:34:02 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Charting a Careful Course in Public Policy Engagement How Wallace determines whether and how to weigh in on matters of | 920 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| The Emergence of The Wallace Foundation | 23643 | GP0|#6b3d2eef-1f47-4b7e-b105-bd18b7e1c384;L0|#06b3d2eef-1f47-4b7e-b105-bd18b7e1c384|News;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>As 2017 comes to a close, we are celebrating an anniversary this month. Fifteen years ago today, on December 11, 2002, The Wallace Foundation was launched through the merger of two separate foundations that originated with the philanthropy of DeWitt and Lila Acheson Wallace. </p><p>Founders of the quintessential American family magazine, Reader’s Digest, the Wallaces began their charitable endeavors with a small, expanding collection of family foundations. After the Wallaces died the mid-1980s, the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund and the Dewitt Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund were formed. By the time of the 2002 merger authorized unanimously by the Funds’ boards, the two organizations had supported more than 100 different program initiatives, ranging from teacher recruitment to adult literacy. </p><p>“The merger of the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund united the two passions that motivated our founders—DeWitt's interest in youth development and education, and Lila's in the arts,” says Lucas Held, Wallace’s director of communications. Held, along with senior research and evaluation officer Ann Stone and under the leadership of then-president M. Christine DeVita, helped forge the effort to develop Wallace into a unified brand. “The combining of the two into a single entity known as The Wallace Foundation acknowledged what was already the case at the time of the merger: that both entities were employing a common strategy to achieve philanthropic benefits—working with a small number of grantees to find better ways to solve public problems, and then benefiting other organizations through the power of credible knowledge,” Held says.  </p><p>Leading up to the merger, Wallace had already developed multi-disciplinary staff teams, enabling us to better work with our partners to foster innovation and share knowledge gleaned with the field—a  process that defines our work to this day.</p><p>At the time, we focused the combined weight of the newly formed foundation on three issues:</p><ol><li>
<a href="/knowledge-center/school-leadership/Pages/default.aspx">Education Leadership</a>: The initiative launched in 2000 to strengthen the ability of principals and superintendents to improve student learning.</li><li>
<a href="/knowledge-center/after-school/Pages/default.aspx">After-School Systems</a>: Support for and research into effective after-school programs.</li><li>
<a href="/knowledge-center/the-arts/Pages/default.aspx">The Arts</a>: To inform the policies and practices of cultural institutions and funders interested in building public participation in the arts.</li></ol><p>These issues resonate in our work as it has evolved over the past 15 years. Our efforts in afterschool, for example, helped pave the way for an initiative launched in 2016 to promote children’s social and emotional learning. All of our work is emblematic of our longer journey from a philanthropy that was structured to create direct benefits by funding good organizations to a national foundation equally committed to helping catalyze social benefits beyond the reach of our limited dollars. As DeVita said at the time: “In everything we do, we strive to be a resource dedicated to helping create, support and share ideas and insights, tools and effective practices. Through that we aim to have a transformative effect on major public systems and, ultimately, on people's lives.”</p> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2017-12-11T05:00:00Z | 2017: 15th Anniversary of Merger That Led to The Wallace Foundation | | 12/11/2017 8:45:27 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / The Emergence of The Wallace Foundation Posted:
12/11/2017
Author:
Wallace editorial team | 1646 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Wallace’s Ten Most Downloaded Publications of All Time | 42592 | GP0|#6b3d2eef-1f47-4b7e-b105-bd18b7e1c384;L0|#06b3d2eef-1f47-4b7e-b105-bd18b7e1c384|News;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>Since launching our Knowledge center in 2003, thousands of people visit and find our library of published research, reports and other tools every day. So, what are they looking for? </p><p>Here’s a list of our Top 10 Most Downloaded resources as of fall 2017:</p><ol><li>
<strong>
<em>
<a href="/knowledge-center/Pages/How-Leadership-Influences-Student-Learning.aspx">How Leadership Influences Student Learning </a> </em>(Published September 2004) – 562,902 downloads</strong><br> In this hallmark publication on school leadership—our most downloaded report of all time—the authors suggest and investigate the notion that in order to improve schools, focus should be placed on not just teachers, but also on principals and administrators. </li><li>
<strong>
<em>
<a href="/knowledge-center/Pages/The-School-Principal-as-Leader-Guiding-Schools-to-Better-Teaching-and-Learning.aspx">The School Principal as Leader: Guiding Schools to Better Teaching and Learning</a></em> (Published January 2012) – 372,094 downloads</strong><br> This report concludes that there are five key actions that effective school leaders do particularly well, including shaping a vision of academic success for all students, and cultivating leadership in others.</li><li>
<em>
<a href="/knowledge-center/Pages/Investigating-the-Links-to-Improved-Student-Learning.aspx">
<strong>Learning From Leadership: Investigating the Links to Improved Student Learning</strong></a></em><strong> (Published July 2010) – 108,970 downloads</strong><br> Based on six years of quantitative data, this report confirms that effective school leadership leads to student success, showing that teachers, principals, district leaders and state policymakers all have an impact on learning.</li><li>
<strong>
<em>
<a href="/knowledge-center/Pages/Three-Essentials-to-Improving-Schools.aspx">The Three Essentials: Improving Schools Requires District Vision, District and State Support, and Principal Leadership</a></em> (Published October 2010) – 95,857 downloads</strong><br> Published by the Southern Regional Education Board, this report examines how school districts and states are failing to provide principals with what they need to turn around America’s challenged middle and high schools.</li><li>
<strong>
<em>
<a href="/knowledge-center/Pages/The-Making-of-the-Principal-Five-Lessons-in-Leadership-Training.aspx">The Making of the Principal: Five Lessons in Leadership Training</a></em> (Published June 2012) – 74,323 downloads</strong><br> Like many of the education leadership reports before this one,
<em>Making of the Principal</em> highlights the problems facing principal training programs and offers five steps to better training.</li><li>
<strong>
<em>
<a href="/knowledge-center/resources-for-financial-management/SFM2013/Pages/Program-Based-Budget-Template.aspx">Strong Nonprofits Microsite: Program Based Budget Builder</a></em> (Published February 2013) – 72,373 downloads</strong><br> This tool, from our nonprofit financial management microsite, allows an organization to build a budget and list revenue across different programs and functions, including allocation of personnel and direct and indirect non-personnel expenses.</li><li>
<strong>
<em>
<a href="/knowledge-center/Pages/Preparing-School-Leaders.aspx">Preparing School Leaders for a Changing World: Lessons from Exemplary Leadership Development Programs</a></em> – Final Report (Published April 2007) – 72,197 downloads</strong><br> In this groundbreaking report, Stanford University authors provide case studies and guidelines to help district and state policymakers reinvent how principals are prepared for their jobs. </li><li>
<strong>
<em>
<a href="/knowledge-center/resources-for-financial-management/SFM2013/Pages/A-Five-Step-Guide-to-Budget-Development.aspx">Strong Nonprofits Microsite: A Five-Step Guide to Budget Development</a></em> (Published February 2013)  – 60,387 downloads</strong><br> This guide, also from our nonprofit financial management microsite, provides a team-based approach to budget development, including goals, personnel and process.</li><li>
<strong>
<em>
<a href="/knowledge-center/Pages/The-Effective-Principal.aspx">The Effective Principal: Five Pivotal Practices that Shape Instructional Leadership</a></em> (Published April 2012) – 50,675 downloads</strong><br> The most recently released publication on our top-10 list, the
<em>Effective Principal</em> highlights five practices that characterize the leadership of principals who can make a difference in teaching and learning.</li><li>
<strong>
<em>
<a href="/knowledge-center/Pages/How-Museums-Can-Become-Visitor-Centered.aspx">Services to People: Challenges and Rewards. How Museums Can Become More Visitor-Centered</a></em> (Published April 2001) – 40,954 downloads</strong><br> This one dips way back into our archives, but practitioners looking to create a visitor-centered approach to museums still find it useful. </li></ol> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2017-10-19T04:00:00Z | Principals lead the way in our list of most-downloaded publications | | 3/20/2018 6:46:17 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Wallace’s Ten Most Downloaded Publications of All Time Principals lead the way in our list of most-downloaded publications | 830 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |