Posts by Tom Vander Ark
Grad Nation’s Blends Boosts Grad Rates & Achievement
Grad Nation is a comprehensive effort to boost the nation's graduation rate from about 75 percent to 90 percent by 2020. Launched in May 2010, Grad Nation is a project of America's Promise. There are about 60 supporting sponsors and donors, one of them is Apex Learning, a digital high school curriculum provider based in Seattle.
Placement Exams: The Hidden Gateway
While many have focused on ACT and SAT, the tests that drive attendance at selectives (a small percentage of post secondary students), there has been little attention paid to placement exams—the real hurdle in the system for young adults that want to earn college credit. JFF just released a must read report, Where to Begin? The Evolving Role of Placement Exams.
Bloomboard Powers Improved Teacher Effectiveness in Colorado
The push for better teacher observation, evaluation and development started about the same time Jason Lange was finishing up a master's degree in education at Stanford. Jason could see there was a big opportunity for easy to use tools and personalized learning for teachers. Jason applied to be part of the first cohort of edtech incubator Imagine K12, and Palo Alto-based Bloomboard was born.
DIY: Raising Money
Raising money is a function of delivering the right pitch to the right person. That's true for impact seeking investments from foundations and return seeing investments from private equity investors.
Digital Learning Provides Customization, Motivation & Equalization
The emerging benefits of digital learning include: customized learning allows students to vary rate, time, location, and (increasingly) path--that means more learning per hour; engaging content and the motivation of instant feedback attack boredom and extend learning; and high access environments and take home tech for every student that will narrow the digital divide and extend access to quality teachers and content.
New Report Highlights the Real Teacher-Retention Crisis in America
Our friends from the Foundation for Excellence in Education and the Chiefs for Change recommend a new TNTP report, “The Irreplaceables: Understanding the Real Retention Crisis in America’s Urban Schools.” It examines the teacher-retention crisis through the experiences of a group referred to as the “Irreplaceables” – teachers who…
Good Work: Impact Takes Vision, Values, and Good Timing
Making a difference takes a compelling vision, productive values, and good timing.
We Need More Launching Pad Politics
This country is stuck in disingenuous debate fueled by superpac superficiality. There are great examples of launching pads around the country. It would be great if, rather than mudslinging, we saw more launch pad politics.
Good Schools for the World’s Poor
Steady progress has been made toward universal access to primary education–a 2015 Global Development Goal. But in the developing world the quality of government schools in urban slums are terribly bad. Parents desperately seek alternatives but few solutions. In some South African townships parents pay twice as much in…
Blended Case Study: Leadership Public Schools
Leadership Public Schools (LPS) is a network of four small high-poverty high schools in Richmond, Oakland, Hayward, and San Jose, California. These locations (and nearby Summit Prep and Downtown College Prep) are the best example of great high schools combining the historic benefits of small rigorous and supportive environments with the potential of incorporating personal digital learning.