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Trend Accelerating Toward an ‘Open Sector’ in Public Education. (pdf)

A policy brief providing an update on the current status of chartered schools and charter-ing in Minnesota. Includes the latest statistics on the charters that are operating in the 2004-2005 school year, information on the most recent round of charter approvals, an update on Minnesota’s growing cadre of sponsors and more.

U.S. Army Embraces Informal Learning

As the need for tacit knowledge to address non-routine situations rapidly increases, the U.S. Army has embraced informal, experiential learning that data show accounts for that 70 to 80 percent of the knowledge gained on the job. The pace of operations and the generation of best practices and lessons learned have outpaced any organization's capacity to develop, vet and approve formal curriculum. A new approach, advanced blended learning, allows for rapidly creating current and relevant content and engaging students in courses with learners in units.

Video: Clayton Christensen presents Disrupting Class to Education Commission of the States

Clayton Christensen, business professor at Harvard Business School, says: Improvement requires states to make room for disruptive innovation in public education.

Virtual education growing up: Five online schools already operating in Wisconsin. (pdf)

In Wisconsin some districts are pulling home-schooled students into online schools set up by the districts.

Visit chartered schools online.

The Center for Education Reform has compiled this state-by-state directory of chartered school web sites.

Volunteers of America "Charter School Sponsor Guide." (pdf)

This guide was developed by VOA-Minnesota as an example of what a sponsor guide might look like. VOA is one of Minnesota's largest and most competent sponsors. The guide demonstrates that "sponsoring" is a transparent process and is ongoing. The performance of a chartered school develops, improves; so should the sponsor's oversight of the school. The VOA Guide includes its actual review procedures from beginning to....never an end!

We cannot get the schools we need by changing the schools we have

We overestimate the ability of leadership to change organizations in more than incremental ways, Joe Graba told a national meeting of foundations in April 2004. The internal culture heavily constrains change. So does the 'satisfaction' of the organization's best customers. Most change comes through the creation of new organizations. The lesson here is basic both for state policymakers and for district boards of education.

We need a taxonomy so we can talk about, evaluate, schools as schools

Much of the discussion about 'what's working' suggests that students learn because the school is public, private, district, charter, parochial or whatever. This is bizarre: Clearly, students learn from what goes on in the school; from its curriculum, pedagogy, materials and teachers. The discussion falls back on 'jurisdictional status', becomes simply political, because we have no set of concepts, no language, that lets us talk about schools as schools. The field of education research has never -- astonishingly -- developed a systematic and orderly way to describe and classify the subject of its study. Now, working with Education|Evolving and with help from the Spencer Foundation, a University of Minnesota researcher developed a framework that sets out characteristics and variables that researchers and evaluators can use. Hopefully, next, researchers will 'go out into the field and collect specimens' and organize these to create at last a taxonomy of schools. This becomes more and more important as schools become more and more different.

What is a Teacher Professional Partnership? (pdf)

In most occupations we consider, ‘professional’ people do have the opportunity to work with partners in single- or multi-specialty groups they collectively own. But not in education. For heaven’s sake, why not? This is Chapter One from Teachers As Owners. Purchase the full book at Amazon.com.

What Is Innovation... and what isn't?

The discussion about 'innovation' in K-12 education is now coming on rapidly, as the sense grows that K-12 requires radical change. But -- as is usual early in any discussion -- there is unclarity about concepts, terms. Partly, this is because we are all still learning; thinking about the idea and how it applies. This brief paper will try to distinguish the various meanings of 'innovation'.

What matters to students and their performance? (pdf)

Current students and recent graduates of Minnesota chartered schools say they may have dropped out had they not left conventional schools to attend new and different schools. While all of the students appreciated improved relationships with teachers and peers, their different schools, in different ways, enhanced the students’ ability and motivation to learn. Read more in these notes from a panel of students at "The Changing Definition of ‘School’ and ‘Schooling’," a national leadership conversation hosted by Education|Evolving in 2006.

Who Should Adapt: Students to School or School to Students? (pdf)

The discussion about education policy is dominated by people who themselves did well in school and who think as a result that ‘school’ must be OK and that students should adjust to it and do-better in it. Students—especially those who have quit or who have switched into ‘alternative’ programs—give a different view. But nobody much listens to them, or thinks the principal job is to adapt school to the students. This 1996 piece was written as a plea to people in the policy discussion to pause a moment and to “doubt a little of their own infallibility” on this important question.

Why President Obama Should Speak to the States

'Lateral thinking' is a familiar and treasured strategy in public life. If there's fire ahead of you and fire behind you, look for a side door! Something like this is the situation facing the new Obama administration with respect to strategy for K-12 policy and for NCLB specifically. And it makes sense on the merits: The country does have the governmental relationships upside down, with the states setting the targets for results and Washington leaning on the states, districts and schools to make it happen. In this 'draft statement' Education|Evolving suggests how President Obama should go about getting the federal and state roles right -- so that the national government is "pushing buttons that are connected to live wires".

Windows on the Next Generation of Charter Schools and Chartering. (pdf)

Jon Schroeder looks to the next generation of chartered schools and the environment in which they will live. He speaks on the need to diversify and create new charter school sponsors, to document the progress of existing chartered schools, to find ways to finance school facilities and pupil transportation and new ways to organize and finance extra-curricular activities.

Youth organizing: an emerging model for working with youth

The Funders Collaborative on Youth Organizing published three articles and an annotated bibliography released in February 2003 to provide a comprehensive look at the growing field of youth organizing, presenting the history of the movement, profiles of current groups, and its impacts on youth.