Deborah Meier Video Activity

Top Down Decisions

Special Thanks to the Center for Educational Leadership for the use of this video.

For 20 years, Deborah Meier helped revitalize public schools in New York City’s East Harlem district. In 1974, Superintendent Tony Alvarado asked Meier to test her theories in a new elementary school in Harlem’s District 4, where test scores were the lowest in the city. She founded Central Park Elementary School (CPE), a highly successful alternative school emphasizing active learning. Within the next dozen years, Meier opened two other Central Park elementary schools and, in collaboration with the National Coalition of Essential Schools, the Central Park East Secondary School.

As a team, please listen to the following video segment and work within your group to discuss how top down decisions impact instruction in the classroom. 

Video Link – Are top down decisions positively impacting student learning?

• Activities
  • Collaborative Teacher Leadership
  • Deborah Meier – Line in the sand
  • Deborah Meier Standards
  • Deborah Meier – Top down decisions
  • Deborah Meier – Money, Time, Resources
  • Building Leadership Capacity
• Shared Leadership
  • Shared Leadership
  • The role of conversation
• Rubric
  • IEL Leadership Rubric
• Resources
  • What teachers bring to leadership
  • Turning teachers into great leaders
  • A principal’s view
  • Danielson Teacher Leadership
  • Will you help me lead
  • Dialogic Leadership
  • Empowering teachers as leaders
  • How school leaders succeed
  • Leadership in school
  • True teacher leaders