Featured Articles

Learning

Study Validates Replacement of Big Bad Schools With New Small Schools

Graduation Rates at Small Schools, Which Serve Highly Disadvantaged Students, Are 8.6 Percentage Points Higher Than Other Schools. Effects Seen Across Every Subgroup of Students, Including African-American and Hispanic Males, Less-Proficient Students, and Low-Income Students

one year ago by Tom Vander Ark

Learning

Strategic Collaboration Yields Great Options for All Students

School district and charter collaboration is obviously a good idea. When collaboration leads to strategic coordination, it has the potential to create a single portfolio of quality educational options. Jim Shelton and I wrote about this in a 2004 paper—Good Urban Schools: A Portfolio Approach—that still holds up pr...

one year ago by Tom Vander Ark

Learning

Review: No Excuses Works But There Are Some Lousy Charters

The National Study of Charter Management Organization (CMO) Effectiveness released their final study, Diverse Strategies and Diverse Student Impacts. The factors that differentiate high performers from the dirt bags are behavior policies and teacher coaching--the high expectations, no excuses culture.

one year ago by Tom Vander Ark

Learning

Charters without contracts: Authorizers get an “F” on quality assurance

As independent public schools that are allowed freedom to be innovative, charter schools must be held accountable for improved student achievement. But in issuing charters, authorizers (including states, districts and universities) have all too often failed to ensure that they can enforce accountability. Currently onl...

one year ago by Joe Siedlecki

Learning

Kevin Johnson: Read to Succeed

“All students should read at grade level by the end of third grade.” Former NBA All Star and Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson visited the Northwest this week on behalf of our friends at the League of Education Voters promoting this simple but important idea.

one year ago by Tom Vander Ark

advocacy partner

Foundation for Excellence in Education

The Foundation for Excellence in Education is igniting a movement of reform, state by state, to transform education for the 21st century economy. Excellence in Action, the organization’s flagship initiative, is working with lawmakers and policymakers to advance education reform across America. Learn more at www.Exce...

Leadership

Staff Picks: Charter Authorizing, Charter Days, Solar Power & Cloud Textbooks

Karen picks the article "Emanuel Takes Push for Longer Day to Charter Schools." Sarah picks the article "Publishers Turn to Cloud Computing to Offer Digital Content" on McGraw-Hill Education's Cinch platform. Tom picks performance contracting as the idea of the week.

one year ago by Getting Smart Staff

Learning

Performance Contracting: Model for Governance, Provisioning & Accountability

I attend the National Association of Charter Sschool Authorizers Leadership ...

one year ago by Tom Vander Ark