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Personalized Learning

4 Characteristics of Education Programs That Actually Work

“Education” is a huge conversation, but almost all of the conversation is about the education problem. There is not a serious or mature conversation about solutions. Meanwhile lots of resources and, as important, attention, are going into an ever-changing, wide variety of programs which, it is hoped, will be part of some solution. How do we know when we’re looking at any given program, whether it can have game-changing impact on K-12 schools, or has no chance? I call the former, programs that “Actually Work.” Here I identify and describe four characteristics of any program that Actually Works: Scope,Results, Robustness, and Scalability. Failure at any one of these is failure to Work.

Leadership

Good Work: Gift Giving

Christmas is the gift giving day. Mission–related work is about giving gifts every day—contribution more than extraction. Gift giving, or mission-related work, is never easy and it’s never done--it responds to the most pressing needs in society. It is hard work, but gift-giving is the ultimate reward.

EdTech

Q&A: ExpandED Principal Discusses Extended School Days

This December, The After-School Corporation (TASC) launched an initiative to take its ExpandED Schools program to the national stage. ExpandED Schools connects schools to community organizations in order to provide students with increased learning opportunities in the community through an extended school day. At Thurgood Marshall Academy Lower School (TMALS) in Harlem, an ExpandED School, Principal Dawn Brooks DeCosta discusses her experience with the program.

EdTech

ExpandED Schools Launches National Extended School Day Initiative

ExpandED Schools, an initiative by The After-School Corporation (TASC) to bring students longer school days for increased, quality instruction and mentoring, announced today that it received $11.5 million in new funding from Open Society Foundation, The Wallace Foundation and TASC to support a national expansion.

EdTech

Shabnam Aggarwal: Tech to Teach

I have written a couple of emails to Shabnam, and we have talked about her most recent trip to India, but I had no idea what she was really doing. Here's her video presentation of her new venture, Tech to Teach

Personalized Learning

Small Vindication?

An MDRC study released today told us what we've known for years--that replacing big bad schools with good small schools helps more low income kids graduate. Read about what they missed in the study.