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New dimensions of sponsorship. (pdf)

Since the late 1990s, there’s been growing discussion about the sponsor’s role – in the ongoing oversight as well as in its initial approval. This paper explores the changing role of sponsors and calls for new kinds of sponsors to meet changing needs.

New Minnesota Site-Governed Schools Law

The 2009 Minnesota Legislature passed new "site-governed school" legislation, which provides school boards a "charter-like" option. A district board may approve "site-governed schools," which are provided significant autonomy and flexibility to develop new models of schools in exchange for greater accountability... all within the district under the prevue of the board.

Nobody’s Success Depends on Whether the Students Learn. (pdf)

Until recently K-12 was built and operated so as to put adult interests first. Student learning was not an imperative. In a talk to the Citizens League in March 1997 Ted Kolderie set out the essentials of public education's system problem—underscored shortly afterward when the first results from the new testing program arrived.

North St. Paul District Trims Its Budget

A common concern is that rising costs, not covered either by increases in revenue or by improvements in productivity, lead the districts to reduce the scope or quality of the program available. Here E|E looks at what happened in a district near Saint Paul after its 'budget crisis' appeared in the news.

NW Regional Educational Library: Listening to Student Voices Start Self-Study Toolkit. (link)

NWREL developed this tool kit based on research showing that students are more likely to care about their school when they contribute to its improvement. Students are capable workers and willing to serve as partners in school improvement work, contributing useful ideas and helping with data collection and analysis. Learn various methods for students to participate, from “data in a day” to student-led focus groups and survey analysis.

Of Innovators and School Improvement. (pdf)

The charge to America's system of public education has undergone a dramatic shift. Access was the maxim for many years. The assignment has since changed. Schools are now told that no longer is attendance the measure of success, but that all students must now learn. Education can no longer be an opt-in venture. Unfortunately the institution and its schools were built to provide students the opportunity to learn, but not to ensure that they did, in fact, perform. If we now insist our schools do this quite different job we will have to create new models that make that possible. We should provide opportunity for students and educators to unleash their creative capacity by helping to rethink education.

Origins of the charter idea. (pdf)

A quick summary of the major mileposts in the evolution of the chartering laws. 2002.

Paul Grogan on how foundations can leverage change

Paul Grogan was in the Twin Cities February of 2008 to speak to George Latimer's 'Mayors Forum' about the efforts of the Boston Foundation, which he heads. His message was timely for the efforts here to deal with the challenge of inner-city public education. Early, Grogan worked for two mayors of Boston. He ran the national office of the Local Intiatives Support Corporation in New York; then worked on external relations for Harvard University. He came to the Boston Foundation in 2001. This document merges his comments to the Forum and what he said in a private discussion earlier in the day with Education|Evolving.

Podcast: Curtis W. Johnson and Michael B. Horn talk about ‘Disrupting Class’ and application to Higher Education (MP3).

Podcast on the concept of disruptive innovation, and its application to US compulsory education as described in the book. The second half of the podcast moves beyond the topics covered in the book itself, and considers the state of Higher Education through this lens of disruptive innovation. Apparently radical developments within the sector such as iTunesU and OpenCourseWare may not be as disruptive as they first appear, and large swathes of the sector have no room for complacency.

Interview by Paul Miller at Xiphos

Positive school culture: Students help answer the question, ‘How are Minnesota chartered schools doing?’ (pdf)

'Positive school culture' describes in detail ten of the most unconventional schools appearing in Minnesota since legislators passed the state's chartering law in 1991. Opinions from students who attended the schools make clear that many families who choose fundamentally different schools are first seeking a positive school culture. To these Minnesota families, a school's success is measured by far more than its average test scores.

Professional Control of Practice: Physicians and Teachers. (pdf)

The medical director of a big multi-specialty hospital/medical group—in which the doctors are employees—describes how the professional and ‘business’ decisions are divided between physicians and managers. Ted Kolderie’s notes from a conversation with Dr. George Isham.

Professionals and Administrators; Two models of Organization. (pdf)

These are notes of a long evening with a group of teachers (assembled by the MEA lobbyist) and the partners and administrators in a law firm and a medical clinic. The discussion about the relationship of professionals and administrators, in law and medicine, compared to the relationship of principal and teachers in a typical school, is fascinating; especially the teachers' questions about relative pay and about who-decides-what.

Public School Choice News

A newsletter which provides links to current research, policy, and tools for implementation and improvement of public school choice. The publication relates news and information to the education provisions of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Developed through BuildingChoice.org, a website funded by the Office of Innovation and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education.

Publications of the National Association of Charter Schools (NACSA). (link)

NACSA has numerous excellent publications on sponsoring schools.

Rankings of the country's 40 charter school laws.

The Center for Education Reform has, almost from the beginning, analyzed and ranked the chartering laws in the states. There are different feelings about its basis for its rankings, but the summary and descriptions are all there and useful.

Ray Budde and the origins of the ‘Charter Concept’. (pdf)

Albert Shanker floated the idea of "letting teachers start small schools within schools" in a talk at the National Press Club in the Spring of 1988 . . . but acknowledged he picked up the term 'charter' from Ray Budde. In 1974 Budde had written a paper for the Northeast Regional Lab titled "Education by Charter". Ted Kolderie here recounts Budde's reaction to what developed from Budde's original idea, with lessons for today’s policy leaders on the virtues of diligence, patience, deference and humility.

Reflections on Forty Years in the Profession. (pdf)

The late Albert Shanker, long-time president of the American Federation of Teachers, looks back over his then 40 years in the profession. In this little-known 1991 retrospective he was realistic about the economics of the union's traditional strategy—higher salaries and smaller class size. He looks toward others ways of accomplishing their goals: differentiated staffing, the individualization of learning through technology, project-based learning, performance-based assessment and extrinisic as well as intrinsic incentives. Altogether, an astonishing paper.

Resisting the temptation to 'comprehensive' action (pdf)

It's easy to be lured into regulation as a strategy. Everyone sees the problem is complex. From this comes an impulse to control all its elements; coordinating action toward a comprehensive solution. Everyone sees the importance of improvement. From this comes an impulse to command improvement. Together these produce the 'blueprints' we so often see: lists of actions all of which must be taken, in a certain order, over an extended period of time. But in the public sector blueprints usually fail. In this fascinating talk Professor Lindblom explains how limited is the 'mechanism of central authority' and why nevertheless this approach continues to tempt so many policy thinkers.

Response to Intervention: An Alternative to Traditional Eligibility Criteria for Students with Disabilities. (pdf)

One of the aspects of education that has remained almost unchanged during the past 30 years is the special education process. The "Response to Intervention (RtI)" model is a lifeline to practices that will result in fewer students being referred for special education evaluation, it removes the reliance on discriminatory IQ tests and other norm referenced tests from the evaluation model and instead initiates "problem solving" strategies and frequently collected data used to inform instruction in regular classrooms. RtI requires the kind of "testing" that teachers learn to love. RtI brings special education into the classroom with the rest of education rather than having it's "private segregated silo." RtI is a significant improvement but schools are slow to grasp this new opportunity. This document discusses why this model is actually "whole school reform" and how it brings together NCLB, special education, ELL and other programs providing academic support to students.

Response to Intervention: An Alternative to Traditional Eligibility Criteria for Students with Disabilities. (pdf)

This report describes and provides a review of the research on an alternative learning model called Response to Intervention (RTI). Under this model, student performance data are gathered frequently and are immediately available to teachers, psychologists and others. The data are then available to help evaluate that effectiveness of the instruction strategies being used and, when warranted, spur modifications in teaching and learning models that can produce better results.

Restructuring Our High Schools for the 21st Century: Creating ‘Grade 11-13’ Schools. (pdf)

The current model of "high school" exists in its current design because....that's the way it always has been; holding students through 12th grade even if they can move faster. In 1988 the Minnesota Post-secondary Enrollment Options Program (PSEO) broke the myth that only a few bright high school students could possibly do well in college-level work. The Grade 11-13 model does more than let students take college classes....it restructures both the high school and the first year of college, un-duplicating the curriculum. Pre-calculus is only a college course as is French 4 and Astronomy. High school classes are the general education or intro courses. By the mid-11th grade, all students are taking college level classes. Some students might not graduate from high school. Does it matter that they do not have a high school diploma if they have a college degree?

Rethinking the Student-Centered Classroom: Personalization and the Type II Application of Technology

Modern technologies, if applied properly, can personalize the process of learning for students without significantly increasing labor costs of the adult worker, the teacher. Before this can happen educators must understand there are distinct ways that technologies can be applied pedagogically, therefore maximizing its potential. The classifications of Type I and Type II, developed by Cleborne Maddux and LaMont Johnson, help in this regard.
Type I applications use technology to make traditional teaching methods easier or more efficient, while those uses that are classified as Type II make possible teaching and learning in new and fundamentally different ways. This article defines the professors' conceptual work, provides context, and applies it to the pedagogical goal of bringing learning to the level of each student: what we commonly call personalization.

Revitalizing Public Education with Charter Schools. (pdf)

A superintendent and a former school board member from a Wisconsin school district wrote how chartered schools, because of autonomy from district leadership and state mandates, have revitalized public education. “Charter schools can expeditiously address the needs of today’s students in order to improve the quality of their lives for tomorrow,” they say.

School Boards and Teachers Have Choices, Too. (pdf)

When people think about "choice" they probably think first about students and families. But school boards have options, too; have several ways to arrange its offerings. The school board need not feel that the only schools that are its schools are the schools it owns and runs. Schools the board charters are, equally, part of its program of local public education. And sometimes it is easier for a board to change its program through chartering than by an effort to change an existing, administered school. Teachers, too, have more choices than they might think. By forming professional partnerships teachers can move into real professional roles. See the TPP section of this site.

Shifting from "What We Spend" to "How We Spend It"

The total cost of the education system is rising at about 5 to 8 percent per year. If schools are not at the same time increasing "performance" or "productivity," their real cost to the public is increasing. This relationship is not sustainable. To reconcile this problem, schools will need to be designed differently.

Should require . . . Should require . . .

The old wisdom is that "All controls tend to spread". This process appears to be operating in the discussion under way about reauthorizing the national legislation enacted in 2002: "No Child Left Behind", a law setting an objective and trying to implement it with 'requirements' laid on states, districts, schools and students. A panel set up by the Aspen Institute has now proposed extending and reinforcing the notion of improvement through regulation.

SoundOut.org. (link)

SoundOut works with schools, government agencies, and education organizations across the United States promote student voice in schools. The organization provides school-based programs, professional development for educators, training for students, and consultative services to a variety of organizations. SoundOut’s work focuses on connecting student voice with action in school improvement planning, professional development, and student training. Its “Meaningful Student Involvement Series” offers research on the importance of student voices in schools as well as resources on how to involve students. The series also inventories meaningful student involvement throughout the nation.

Sponsor/School Contract

The most important decisions are reflected in the contract developed between the school and the sponsor. The contract details both the accountability of the school and the responsibilities of the sponsor—and the accountability of the sponsor to the school. Accountability includes: the mission/goals of the school; governance; student and school performance; finance; and operations. For each there are performance measures, with special performance measures for the start-up year when the school is getting organized.

Sponsoring Chartered Schools: A Planning Tool for Sponsors. (pdf)

When an organization considers whether to charter a school it frequently does not understand what sponsoring involves, or know its own capability to be a good sponsor. This Planning Tool for Sponsors is actually an organization-analysis tool. It identifies the numerous sponsoring duties; asks whether the organization has the capacity to perform each responsibility, who in the organization would perform the responsibility, whether time is available for them to do so, and estimates the cost.

Sponsoring Charters: A Resource Guide for Minnesota Chartering Agencies. (pdf)

This is a step-by-step analysis of sponsoring, from the decision to sponsor through the stages of public information, application review and contract development. It covers how to assist and oversee the school, down to the point of charter renewal. Since sponsoring (authorizing) is a new concept in most states, it is important to define organizational responsibilities. This clarifies the relationships and duties of the state department of education, the sponsor and the board of the chartered school. It explains a new way a sponsor can produce a new schools: This is the 'Sponsor-Initiated School'. Rather than wait for a proposal to be submitted to it, the sponsor determines the types of schools it wants to have created; then requests proposals from around the country (or around the world). The sponsor then selects from the very best proposals and awards them chartered school status.