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.
Notes from December 2007 conversations with L. Scott Miller about minority achievement in K12 and at the university levels. Scott argues that some of the greatest disparities in performance come "within-class," and that greater focus placed on African American and Hispanic students among middle and professional classes.
Notes from remarks by Paul Grogan, head in 20008 of the Boston Foundation, on the challenges of inner-city public education, and how foundations can leverage change. Early, Grogan worked for two mayors of Boston. He ran the national office of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation in New York.
A commentary submitted to Education Week, March 12th 2008, summarizing EE's paper "The Other Half of the Strategy: Following Up on System Reform by Innovating with School and Schooling".
The charge to K-12 has shifted from "access" to "achievement." To meet this challenge, education should be open to new entrants, new authorizers of schools, and new learning programs. This paper argues for teacher-led and other innovations to better serve student needs.
System-level reforms like standards, accountability, choice and chartering make it more necessary for schools to succeed with learning. But these reforms do not by themselves affect achievement. Kids learn from what they read, see, hear and do. So success in the effort at improvement requires capitalizing now on the system-level changes with a major effort to create new forms of school.
This article discusses the role of large corporations such as Microsoft in partnering with independent entrepreneurs in the classroom. Entrepreneur Bob Bilyk, has created an application LodeStar that, with the aid of Microsoft's Class Server, enables teachers to more effectively customize learning materials to meet students' individual needs.
Chartering is hailed as providing a space for innovation in public education. However, research and reporting on chartered schools usually focus on test scores and student demographics, and not on the innovations taking place. This report outlines some of the innovations appearing in Minnesota chartered schools.
Richard Ingersoll argues: to upgrade teacher quality, schools need to go beyond just holding teachers more accountable. They need to give teachers more control.
With the growing concern about rising expenditures—whether it will ever be possible for revenues to keep up; whether, if not, any concept of productivity can be developed—it seemed a good idea to think out the elements of such a discussion. This is Ted Kolderie's first effort to do that.
