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We believe that excellence and equity in education are the most important global issues of our time, and it’s our organization’s driving mission to make high-quality, personalized learning opportunities for all kids a reality. In order to achieve our mission we learn out loud on GettingSmart.com, and encourage others to do the same. GettingSmart.com is a community of learners and contributors that covers important events, trends, products and publications across K-12 and post-secondary education and early and lifelong learning opportunities.

In line with our mission, we focus on innovative education practices. Recognizing that there’s more important work happening than we are able to write about, we also seek out insights from edleaders, educators and education organizations that could benefit our audience by providing fresh ways of thinking and innovative ideas. We also frequently cover the important work being done by our partners, board members and friends. If you’re interested in contributing, feel free to submit the Writing Submission form here just be sure to read the guidelines below first and check out our editorial calendar.

At Getting Smart, we are committed to using Generative AI ethically and responsibly to enhance the quality of our content and to help shape our thinking. We believe AI is a great thought partner in crafting and editing articles, generating ideas, and improving the overall user experience of our many resources. While AI helps streamline our processes, every piece of content undergoes rigorous fact and bias-checking by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and reliability in all Getting Smart resources.

We understand the importance of maintaining transparency and trust with our audience, and we ensure that our AI usage aligns with these values. If you have any questions or concerns about our use of AI, please feel free to reach out to us. We are dedicated to maintaining an open dialogue with our community and continuously improving our practices to serve you better.

GettingSmart.com remains public and open to be crawled by foundational LLM models which further leans into our beliefs around learning out loud and open source design.

We proudly publish articles that we believe will truly benefit our audience of superintendents, principals, educators, learning stakeholders and other edleaders by amplifying new ideas in learning, supporting community-connected initiatives and disrupting the status quo . The following three categories best describe the type of content we usually publish:

Getting Started. This topic covers stories, tips and tricks of the brainstorming and implementation stage of innovative ideas and strategies. 

• What should a principal looking to shift his school culture towards Project Based Learning (PBL) know and prioritize?
• What should a district administrator know about managing data collection and culture?
• What implications does the changing nature of work (the future of work) have for K-12 and post-secondary education?
• Reflections on, and lessons learned from, your personal efforts to affect such shifts toward practices such as competency-based education, place-based education, PBL, and more.

Actionable strategies. We love to share pieces about mindsets, frameworks and other strategies that have been tried and true in a variety of settings. Some examples of these pieces are: 

• How can a cultural focus on student voice naturally lead into real-world experiences?
• What are the fundamental ways (and reasons) to integrate arts and creativity into a subject area like computer science?
• Reflections on, and lessons learned from, your personal efforts to design such experiences.

Landscape survey and analysis. These pieces focus on one piece of the greater learning/education sector and analyze what has been happening and discuss what might happen next. Some examples are: 

• How will blockchain technologies affect credentialing systems?
• How can CTE and technical field assessments contribute to our understanding of K-12 assessment systems?

To begin, please use our blog template

• Between 600-1000 words,
• Real-life, non-stock, photos demonstrating what the article is about (and that you have permission and the legal right to use),
• Text that has been reviewed for grammar, sentence flow and text edits,
• A casual, non-academic, conversational style of writing,
• Links to relevant and high-quality resources in the body of the text (if you name individuals, please link to their Twitter profiles), 
• Drafted promotional social media to accompany the tweet on our platforms, as well as best hashtags and users to tag, and,
• Most importantly, an authentic feeling that the author wrote the piece to advance the reader’s understanding of the future of learning.

For those who work as a school or district employee:  we recognize that you are on the front lines in the struggle to better serve students, and we greatly appreciate your interest in sharing your insights with our audience. In order to maximize the effect of your writing, we suggest keeping the following things in mind:

• We’re thankful for the great work you’re doing, but we’ve found that our audience is turned off by pieces that “feel” like they were designed just to build hype or serve as PR.
• Keep in mind that we serve an international audience spanning educators, school and district leaders, nonprofits, education organizations and edtech companies–it’s fine to have a “target audience,” but try not to be too exclusive.
• Example pieces from school and district representatives:
  • Evidence That Makes it Evident: Improving Assessment by Emulating the Trades
  • Squaring Personalization and Digitization in 2018
  • How Idaho is Moving Towards Mastery-Based Education

For those employed by a nonprofit: we believe that nonprofits are in a position to greatly affect change by creating and funding new initiatives and structures, and by leading the charge on shifting industry paradigms. We welcome insights from both leaders and project managers representing nonprofit organizations. Here are some pieces we’ve previously published and appreciated from nonprofit representatives:

• Why your School’s Next Hire Should Be an Opportunity Wrangler
• The Future of Work = Early Learning Today
• Inequity in Education is Your (and My) Responsibility

For those at an edu related company: we’re always looking for new and interesting edtech tools and other companies that can help educators address the challenges of educating students for the 21st century. We welcome submissions from outside companies, as long as they don’t “feel,” to our team of editors, like they were designed to be an advertisement. Here are some tips for avoiding that feeling:

• We focus on publishing thought leadership content around specific subject areas. What is the challenge facing educators? Why is it important? What are some effective strategies for confronting that challenge? 
• If you want to talk about your own work, keep it to just one or two mentions throughout the piece. Ask yourself: “If I was looking for useful resources for making progress in this area and I read this article, would I instead feel as if I had just accidentally spent 5 minutes reading an advertisement?”
  • Our audience expects useful ideas, and many aren’t in the market for a new edtech tool–it’s a red flag for us if the reader’s only next step is to purchase a product or hire a company.
• Don’t just mention your own product–talk about some others doing good work as well (they don’t necessarily have to be direct competitors).
• Good examples from edtech companies:
  • Creating a Culture of Data: Keys to Making the Shift and Making it Stick
  • Our Future Coders are in Our K-12 Classrooms Today
  • Integrating Computational Thinking in Elementary Classrooms

Finally, let us know if you’re receiving any perks or compensation for organizations that you’re writing about or that are related to the subject that you’re describing. We try to steer clear of conflicts of interest or subtle bias. The name of the game is to be upfront with our readers about anything that might have a significant influence on your opinions (the FCC actually requires this by law). 

We reserve the right to condense and edit (and remove promotional links in) submissions, but we also aim to be fair and cooperative, and will not fundamentally shift the meaning of any portions of guest-authored pieces we publish unless we get your permission.

Click these links for more information on our privacy policy and terms and terms.

Getting Smart reserves the right to refuse to publish any works submitted for review for any reason, which it is not obligated to disclose to the guest author. Reasons for rejecting a guest article can include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Inaccurate information or facts.
• Excessive grammatical or spelling errors.
• Irrelevance to the blog, its existing content, theme and focus.
• Product push, marketing speak or sales pitches.
• Fundraising for self-benefit.

Getting Smart also reserves the right to remove any published works by a guest author from www.GettingSmart.com without prior warning or explanation to the author. All original content submitted by the guest author will remain the intellectual property of the author.

Getting Smart reserves the right to refuse content and remove links from submitted posts.

By submitting a guest authored article for review, you are agreeing to the terms outlined in this Guest Posting Policy. For questions regarding guest authoring or guest articles on Getting Smart, please contact Editor.

Getting Smart reserves the right to change this Guest Posting Policy at any time.