All Site Content

How District Leaders Can Support the New Schools Strategy. (pdf)

School districts nationwide are taking bold steps by proactively creating different and better schools new as a strategy for education reform. Spurred by the innovations being introduced by chartered schools and other choices independent of school districts, district leaders are rethinking their past approaches and are beginning to create a “space” in which more schools can form new.

How Information Technology Can Enable 21st Century School. (pdf)

This paper explains the 'how' of achieving greater innovation with Information Technologies in schools. The problem is one of structure, and requires both a redesign of schools and of the system. Recommendations are made for states and the federal government.

How is the money used? (pdf)

Almost always in the policy debate the discussion about money is about ‘how much?’, with the conclusion almost always: ‘Not enough!’ This report looks inside schools and districts at differences in where and how money is actually spent. Its tentative findings suggest that the size of school and district, the governance arrangement and the degree to which teachers are involved in decision-making influence the allocation of revenue to instruction. That’s critical information for policymakers who are struggling to get resources into the learning program within today’s overall fiscal realities.

How National Organizations Can Support the New Schools Strategy. (pdf)

Some national organizations that find good schools a way to further their own mission are now moving to create—and support—new schools in the charter sector. The National Council of La Raza is one example. This can be done in some states through sponsoring (authorizing). Elsewhere it can take the form of partnerships.

How should governments deal with school safety? (link)

Students across the nation answer: Do you agree with the federal government’s stance on keeping local and state governments in charge safety in their schools? Do you feel there is anything the federal government can do to help? Does your school have a crisis plan? If so, do you know it? Do you feel safe at your school? What should your local and state governments do to help?

How the idea of ‘chartering’ schools came about. (pdf)

This short memo explains the origins of the chartering idea. In the spring of 1988, a Citizens League committee began developing a program for chartering schools. Twenty years later that idea has become law in 40 states and the District of Columbia. (Originally appeared in the Citizens League Minnesota Journal, June 2008.)

If kids don't want to learn, you probably can't make 'em. (pdf)

If students want to learn they probably will. If they don't, you probably can't make 'em. And motivation is individual.This is where education is failing; in the relationship between teachers and students. Motivating students is a teachable skill: It just isn't very often taught where teachers are trained. Jack Frymier sums up a lifetime of experience in curriculum-and-instruction, in discussions with Education|Evolving.

Improvement really is a design problem (pdf)

While almost everyone wants schools to be “better”, Joe Graba likes to say, almost nobody wants them to be “different”. Yet in most fields becoming better involves changing the service or product; the model. Think about: improving travel, improving communication, improving computing. Systems need to be open to new models; to innovation. Now, with the states opening K-12 to new schools, innovation—and a new dimension of improvement—becomes increasingly possible.

Innovation should be a part of the national strategy for improvement.

In a Commentary included in Education Week's 15-year retrospective on standards-based systemic reform, one of the authors of that strategy noted: It made no place for innovation. Mike Smith affirms the need for an element of innovation; looked to the charter sector to provide that.

Innovation-based Systemic Reform

In this latest policy paper Education|Evolving urges policymakers, in revising ESEA, to think of strategy as a "split screen". The only realistic approach is to pursue our differing goals at the same time. K-12 education must improve both its performance and its economics. It must work concurrently for equity and for excellence. It must improve traditional school while encouraging innovation beyond traditional school.

Innovations in Schools and School/ing: Minnesota's charter law is providing significant innovations through both new schools and school/ing. (pdf)

State chartering programs are hailed as providing a space for innovation in public education. However, research and reporting on chartered schools has tended to focus on test scores and the demographics of enrolled students, and not on the innovations taking place. This report briefly outlines some of the innovative approaches in Minnesota chartered schools to both the structure of "school" as an institution, and the "schooling" that takes place inside of school.

Interviews with Minnesota alternative school students, 2002. (pdf)

Complete interview notes from conversations with students at a 2002 conference of student leaders from Minnesota alternative schools. For a separate brief of student voices entered into Minnesota House Testimony, click here.

Is Chartering, as a Strategy, Succeeding?

Ted Kolderie argues it's time to bury the term 'charter schools' and to think and talk separately about chartering—the state strategy of new-school-creation—and the schools-chartered. He says chartering is succeeding even though not all the schools-chartered are succeeding. The article appears in the December 2005 issue of UrbanEd, the magazine of the Rossier School of Education at University of Southern California.

Is it time to reconsider the notion of 'adolescence'? (pdf)

Not too long ago, one former state commissioner says, our high schools were filled with children. Today they are filled with young people who are essentially adults—being treated still as children. Is it time now to move young people more into adult roles by age 16. If we did, what would that suggest for K-12?

It would help, to Incorporate Student Voice into Teaching Practice. (link)

John Kordalewski writes that in some classrooms student voices are barely heard. The teacher monopolizes classroom talk, and knowledge is treated as residing entirely with the teacher. This is what Paulo Freire (1970) terms "banking" education (teachers "deposit" knowledge into students' heads) and describes as the antithesis of teacher-student dialogue. A range of approaches to teaching highlight the importance of dialogue. Some of these approaches focus on classroom processes, while others are especially concerned with how students' cultural identities help to constitute their voices. This digest explores different ways in which student voices can be heard in a classroom.

It’s a revenue game. (pdf)

Districts are unable to control their costs, Minnesota superintendents concede. This helps explain a central notion in K-12, that all budget problems are to be solved on the revenue side.

Joe Loftus' 1988 Proposal for 'Chartered Schools'

In 1987 the Chicago Teacher's Union struck Chicago schools for the ninth consecutive time. Mayor Washington's 'Summit' lead to reform legislation in 1988: basically parent-run schools. Joe Loftus, at the Center for Child Welfare Strategy, had a different idea – which he put away after the legislation produced 'local school councils'. In 1993 he called Minnesota. "What's this 'charter schools' I'm hearing about?", he asked. "I proposed that in 1988." Here are the key pages of Joe's proposal, an interesting case of 'parallel invention.'

L. Scott Miller visits the Twin Cities

In December of 2007, Education Evolving brought L. Scott Miller to the Twin Cities to engage in a series of conversations about minority achievement in K12 and at the university levels. Scott believes that there should to be greater focus placed on African American and Hispanic students who are among the middle and professional classes, as defined by parent education level and family income. Some of the greatest disparities in performance come "within-class," he argues, at these higher socio-economic levels. [In 2007 Scott Miller was serving as executive director of the National Task Force on Early Childhood Education for Hispanics at Arizona State University. His views are spelled out in his 1997 book, An American Imperative.]

Leased vs. Owned Departments (and Some Implications for Schools). (pdf)

Teachers, principals, superintendents, union leaders listen to an executive describe how a department store is a combination of ‘owned’ and ‘leased’ departments. Ted Kolderie shares his notes from the discussion. “We could organize a high school like this!”

Let’s Leave NCLB Behind

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law was much praised at the time of its passage in 2001, especially its ambitious goal to bring disadvantaged and minority school achievement into the mainstream. Yet now this famed law is stuck in a twilight zone. Politics permit neither its re-authorization nor its repeal. This is a good thing.

Listening to student voices: Students at Avalon High School in St. Paul examine their peers' attitudes. (pdf)

Much might be learned about the design for schooling, if researchers and policymakers were to listen to what the students say. This has not been the tradition: How often do you see students participating in important discussions about education, about school and about policy? In this report, student-researchers at Avalon (chartered) High School in Saint Paul challenge adults to start allowing consumer input to be a driver in efforts to increase students' motivation to attend, to learn and to graduate. Since publication, the students presented their findings to the Twin Cities Citizens League and to a conference of superintendents from throughout the state of California.

Listening to Students: Engagement and achievement rise when students have a voice in classroom decisions. (link)

Susan Black writes that giving students a voice in classroom decisions (such as suggesting themes and topics to study) and in school policies (such as homework regulations) makes schools less autocratic and more democratic. And democratic schools, researchers say, tend to have fewer discipline problems, more civic involvement, higher student engagement, and higher achievement. Plus, schools that genuinely seek and appreciate students' ideas are more likely to see their school improvement plans succeed.

Measuring Quality Health-care and Education. (pdf)

In health care, as in education, one of the strongest pressures has been to increase revenue. In education this results from a need to improve quality; in health care it stems from a need to expand access. Like medical clinics and hospitals, K-12 districts seeking additional revenue like to say "My cases are tougher". In this remarkable talk to hospital trustees, Walter McClure of the Center for Policy Studies describes new techniques for measuring quality that show major differences in effectiveness among the 'producers'.

Mike Smith's plea to hold off reauthorizing NCLB

In this 'op ed' written in the spring of 2007 Marshall (Mike) Smith argues it is too early for Congress to proceed with reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind program. Smith, a senior official in the Clinton administration's U.S. Department of Education, was a key author of the strategy of systemic reform.

Mike Strembitsky and Site-Management in Edmonton. (pdf)

Over 25 years ago a ‘discontented teacher’ who became superintendent gave Edmonton, Canada what might be the most-decentralized arrangement in North America. But Edmonton is different than American cities, and Mike Strembitsky's model does not transplant easily.

Education|Evolving