Top Practices Education LLC

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What you will soon discover is that the people of Top Practices Education are a diverse group of educators, community leaders, business leaders and experts from the US and around the world who are committed to one central idea:

It is possible to achieve sustainable change in our schools regardless of the political or organizational realities at the national, state, or local levels. We believe that like-minded individuals, working together for a common goal can overcome the long-standing obstacles that have kept us from moving forward.

This website and what it represents is not for all educators - in fact it's not for most educators. But we know that a small number of people can make a large difference.

Do you care passionately about bringing about real sustainable educational change, especially at your school(s)?
Do you feel isolated and disconnected from other educators who care about real sustainable change as much you do?
Do you find yourself wishing you could connect with other like minded people?
While attending exciting workshops and conferences do you find yourself getting excited about the possibilities only to return home to the same issues and problem; and then find yourself losing momentum and settling into old patterns?
Do you find yourself wondering how to break the log jam and how to get things moving more quickly at your school and in your career?
Do you believe that if you had the right tools and support you would actually take the necessary steps to effect real change?
Do you believe that you could do this regardless of your position in your school or district?

If you answered yes to every one of these questions, then read on. If not, then you are still welcome to read on because we believe that the very fact that you are at this website demonstrates your interestand, in time, with the right level of commitment you may well be able to say yes to all of the above.

Sustaining change is difficult. It is rare even in the private sector where market forces encourage it. In our educational system it is monumentally difficult.

You might be trying to address 21st Century Learning Skills more fully into the curriculum. Or maybe you are trying to implement “inquiry based curriculum” strategies in your high school. Or maybe you are trying to redefine your school’s vision and mission to truly prepare your students to be life long learners. Or maybe you are trying to radically restructure your staff into professional learning communities.

As an educational leader, you have a full plate. You have people coming at you from many different directions. You have people who frankly want to put the brakes to change. You have administrative trivia to deal with. You have stakeholder groups resisting. You have limited time. Despite your best efforts, you roll the change ball up the hill, only to see it roll down back over you.

Leading change is difficult. Even though leaders move forward with the best of intentions and best efforts, you get isolated. You might find some like minded individualswho support you, but they have their own set of problems and agendas. Very few people have the same mission that you do. You get way too much exposure from people who don’t want change.

Most people in this position have knowledge and experience in moving an agenda forward but make three critical errors as they move forward toward sustainable change:

Most education leaders make the mistake of believing that good plans with well defined goals communicated well will "sell themselves." They believe, wrongly, that colleagues and other stakeholders in the system will see the value and support them through implementation. Often this happens because they receive a lot of positive reinforcement in the early stages of the project from key stakeholders, only to find as time moves forward support begins to evaporate and entrenched interests begin to assail the project from multiple directions. Scrutiny increases, motives are questioned, and at best, the initiative begins a slow death or grinds to halt.

The fact is people will do their very best to ignore you. Very few will tell you openly that they don't care, but most people don't care - period. It's not because they're bad people. It's not because they don't care in some larger sense. It's because they can only care about one thing - themselves. If your best laid plans don't directly and clearly demonstrate overwhelmingly interesting benefits to them personally then you will only get lip service agreement and tepid support. You've got to change the rules of the game from the outset or wherever you are in the process right now. You've got to communicate in an entirely new way to the same people who have ignored you and anyone else trying to make things better for all these years.

You can find the way over this debilitating hurdle and entirely change the conversation at your schools, you just have to know how. You can request a free copy of our report "Overcoming the 19 Hurdles to Educational Change". In it we lay out in detail how to recognize the most common barriers to change, how to communicate more effectively, and how to build momentum for change through collaboration. The report is free.

You have to engage everyone in your sphere of influence differently that you ever have in the past. You must begin to communicate intensively and your communication has to be different. You have to engage them directly and over a long period time that answers the only question they will ever have "what is in this for me?" Our report “Overcoming the 19 Hurdles to Educational Change" clearly and concisely lays out the system for achieving this kind of intensive and persistent communication.

You can't do this alone. No one can. We are often surrounded by individuals who, for whatever reason, can see why things won't work and not how they could work. We are surrounded by an institutional structure that is almost "calcified." That's why even though you might believe that sustainable change can occur at some level don't think it really can since you've never seen any evidence to the contrary.
You can't do this alone.

You need a group of like-minded people who want to collaborate and share their very best ideas. You need a structure that allows you to closely collaborate with these people regardless of where they live, or work, and regardless of their time zone. And you need a new model for this collaboration. At Top Practices we call this process "The Master Mind." The simple idea that all of us together are much more effective than all of us isolated. Until now finding the right mix has been extremely difficult. But there is a way to do this and Overcoming the 19 Hurdles to Educational Change clearly lays how The Master Mind experience can help you connect with other like minded leaders to focus on sustainable educational change.

Get your free copy. After you've read it, you see how Top Practices Education is completely different than anything you've ever experienced before and you'll know how you can overcome barriers to sustainable educational change.

You are probably asking yourself at this point - just who is Top Practices Education. We're making some big claims and you probably wondering who is behind the name. Frankly, if you weren't asking that we'd be a little worried about you at this point.

John M. Gould, Ph.D. has more than 30 years of in-depth experience in public school systems, in which he has specialized on issues surrounding systemic change, curriculum development and the effective implementation of new technologies in the classroom. He has penned many articles on school change and presented workshops at the local, state, and national levels. His research is informed by a first-hand familiarity with organizational issues, having worked for over 20 years as a superintendent and assistant superintendent with several Pennsylvania school districts. His other experiences range from a public school Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Intermediate Unit experience, and a project manager for the PA Governor’s Office of Information and Technology.

Rem Jackson is an education technology pioneer. In 1994, he led the team that founded Classroom Connect, a high-tech company dedicated to helping K-12 educators integrate technology into their instruction. In 2007 Rem founded Top Practices, LLC, a company dedicated to helping K12 educators, professionals, and businesses, reach their full potential through innovative programs and professional development. Rem has been guiding professionals, educators, and business leaders as a coach and trainer for over 18 years. The programs he developed have been experienced by over 120,000 educators, businesspeople, and government leaders in North America and Asia.

Rod Haenke, MA: His key competencies and qualifications include standards-based curriculum development experience and expertise (with published and nationally marketed products), and expertise in technology integration. Rod is knowledgeable and keeps up-to-date on educational trends and innovative practices. He has developed and implemented innovative teacher evaluation programs, and has trained teachers for national organizations. He is the author of two published books on curriculum and technology. He developed expertise and contacts in e- learning as the founder of Learning Outfitters, a pioneering company in online learning. Rod was an instructional designer for MECC designing programs such as Math Keys and MayaQuest. Rod has also been a classroom teacher and elementary school principal.

Top Practices Education is a diverse group of educators, community leaders, business leaders and experts from the US and around the world who are committed to one central idea:

If you are one of this small group who are looking for answers now, in OUR lifetime, then order the free report and find out more about how we can, together, truly make an impact in our schools and bring about true and lasting effective changes.