School leadership and 'moral purpose'.

I have been interested in the concept of 'moral purpose' in education. This has increasingly been a feature of the leadership literature.

Our New Zealand Ministry of Education has this to say:

Leading with moral purpose means having a commitment to making a difference in the lives and outcomes of students as a result of their experiences at school. Barber and Fullan (2005) explain that: “The central moral purpose consists of constantly improving student achievement and ensuring that achievement gaps, wherever they exist, are narrowed.” For a school to achieve this, there needs to be a shared commitment to explicit values.

Source http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Attitudes-values-and-ethics/Moral-purpose-and-shared-leadership

Professor David Hopkins, in an article titled 'Leadership for powerful learning' (ACEL Journal Term 2 2015, Vol 37 No 2) states:

Leaders are driven by a moral purpose about enhancing student learning. Moral purpose activates the passion to reach for the goal and prompts leaders to empower teachers and others to make schools a critical force for improving communities"

Now there's a powerful statement.

Eric Mazur on "Assessment: the silent killer of learning"

Last week I had the privilege of attending this year's Edutech 2015 conference in Brisbane. Much about the conference was a mere shadow of the previous few years, but the stand-out session was the opening keynote address by Eric Mazur of Harvard University titled "Assessment: the silent killer of learning"in which Mazur posits that current assessment is not fit for purpose.

My colleagues and I co-constructed some notes during the session, but it is doubtless easier to watch an earlier version of the same address given by Mazur in 2013. It is very similar to that which he gave last week.