Districts should use budget woes to innovate

The National Journal asked about public-private partnerships backfilling budget cuts. Here’s my response.
Public-private partnerships are a good idea; there should be more. But I hope the private partners supplanting public funds are in for the long run–I think schools in many states have a couple more years of tough budgets ahead.
On a more interesting topic, I was hoping to see more opportunity in crisis–leaders using the recession to make important policy or administrative gains including:

closing failing schools
replacing struggling alternative schools with blended models like AdvancePath that can do a better job for half of what most districts spend
maintaining a long day/year by going partially blended like Rocketship in San Jose (1 of 5 periods in their elementary schools are spent in a learning lab)
offering more courses online
bringing more partners on campus; Match uses work-study students from near by colleges to provide Saturday tutoring
streamlining central administration and pushing more budget authority out to schools
inserting performance in teacher layoffs like Michele Rhee did in DC

There’s still time to take advantage of two more terrible budget cycles. Districts will be going into budget planning for 2010-11 in the next 120 days and should think hard about ways to incorporate the innovation agenda to help cope with budget woes.

	Beginning	Piloting	Implementing
From Fixed Standards to Competency-Based Mastery	BeginningFrom Fixed Standards to Competency-Based Mastery Beginning	PilotingFrom Fixed Standards to Competency-Based Mastery Piloting	ImplementingFrom Fixed Standards to Competency-Based Mastery Implementing
From One-Size-Fits-All to Adaptive Learning	BeginningFrom One-Size-Fits-All to Adaptive Learning Beginning	PilotingFrom One-Size-Fits-All to Adaptive Learning Piloting	ImplementingFrom One-Size-Fits-All to Adaptive Learning Implementing
From Prescribed Knowledge to Innovation & Inquiry	BeginningFrom Prescribed Knowledge to Innovation & Inquiry Beginning	PilotingFrom Prescribed Knowledge to Innovation & Inquiry Piloting	ImplementingFrom Prescribed Knowledge to Innovation & Inquiry Implementing
From Subjects as Silos to Transdisciplinary, Real-World Learning	BeginningFrom Subjects as Silos to Transdisciplinary, Real-World Learning Beginning	PilotingFrom Subjects as Silos to Transdisciplinary, Real-World Learning Piloting	ImplementingFrom Subjects as Silos to Transdisciplinary, Real-World Learning Implementing
From Schools as Self-Contained to Schools as Embedded in Communities	BeginningFrom Schools as Self-Contained to Schools as Embedded in Communities Beginning	PilotingFrom Schools as Self-Contained to Schools as Embedded in Communities Piloting	ImplementingFrom Schools as Self-Contained to Schools as Embedded in Communities Implementing
From Standardized Testing to Meaningful Assessment	BeginningFrom Standardized Testing to Meaningful Assessment Beginning	PilotingFrom Standardized Testing to Meaningful Assessment Piloting	ImplementingFrom Standardized Testing to Meaningful Assessment Implementing
From Institutional Ownership of Student Data to Student-Controlled Learning Wallets	BeginningFrom Institutional Ownership of Student Data to Student-Controlled Learning Wallets Beginning	PilotingFrom Institutional Ownership of Student Data to Student-Controlled Learning Wallets Piloting	ImplementingFrom Institutional Ownership of Student Data to Student-Controlled Learning Wallets Implementing

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