Archive
element:whats-next
Big Levers
There are plenty of theories about how to improve education. Most focus on what appear to be big levers—a point of entry and system intervention that appears to provide some improvement leverage. These theories usually involve ‘if-then’ statements: ‘if we improve this, then other good stuff will happen.’ Leading theories…
Education Needs to be Turned on Its Head
A Leo Babauta post (via Milton Ramirez tweet) recites the failings of the age cohort-batch process-compliance rewarding system knows worldwide. The system fails to prepare about two-thirds of American kids–all but the compliant and well supported. And, as Leo points out, while we talk about innovation and creativity, we still have…
UK opens 200th sponsored academy
One of Tony Blair’s reforms that I’m fond of is the Academy program–the equivalent of a sponsored charter school in the US. The BBC reports that the 200th opened with 67 more to come this year. They’re dropping a feature that I liked–the requirement to invest at least 2 million…
The NYC Small Schools Experiment
New York City has an extraordinary base of talented educators, education support groups, and community based organizations. Debbie Meier’s Central Park East was among the first breakout small schools (co-founder Julian Cohen now leads new school efforts for NYC DOE). Dick Beattie’s leadership and Irine Diamond’s funding lead…
How to close the gap?
The National Journal’s question of the week was ‘How can we close the achievement gap?’ The most important thing we can do to narrow the persistent gaps in achievement and attainment is make good on the good school promise: every American family deserves access to at least…
The college access formula
A local Rotary group adopted a high need school and asked me “What’s the formula for getting kids into college?” There are three complementary strategies that grant makers and reformers utilize in an attempt to improve college attendance and completion: 1. Academic preparation: students need to…
Investing in a revolution
Conclusion to the 10 year report from New Schools Venture Fund: All of these areas – from school turnaround to new approaches to training teachers and leaders – are examples of the types of new ideas, new organizations, and new facts on the ground are so badly needed. To challenges like…
Groups making a difference
DFER: Joe Williams and a strong board continue to push the Ds to support real accountability and real choice. CA Charter Assoc: Jeb Wallace has kicked CCSA advocacy into high gear—both CA and national. ConnCAN: we’d be in a much different place if…
Challenges for Charter Schools
Read this important piece from AEI on Challenges for Charter Schools. Hess makes some good points about the challenge of scaling: • Models that rely on heroic effort have inherent limits to scale (e.g., KIPP) • The quality backlash and focus on ‘what works’ has driven innovation…
Mission scaling
It’s tough for non-profit organizations to find scaling capital—especially now. Donations come and go. Foundations provide restricted grants for pet projects. Even with a strong sustainable business plan, it’s hard to find unrestricted grants to grow. That’s why I’m encouraged by a new generation of non-profit venture and growth…