Charter Schools
Personalized Learning
Edu-innovation will improve quality, expand choice
A charter school investor asked me what innovation had to do with school choice. The answer is that adaptive content–engaging, personalized, online learning with continuous feedback–will improve student motivation, accelerate learning, and expand options for students and families in 3 ways: * Informal learning: Improved access to broadband and powerful…
Personalized Learning
This video will change LA, then USA
Parent Revolution offers a simple powerful promise—get 51% of parents to sign up and in 3 years you get a transformed school. Wow, that’s a big idea. Easier said than done and only possible: • in states where parents can vote to convert a school to charter (I’m trying…
Personalized Learning
Challenges for Charter Schools
Read this important piece from AEI on Challenges for Charter Schools. Hess makes some good points about the challenge of scaling: • Models that rely on heroic effort have inherent limits to scale (e.g., KIPP) • The quality backlash and focus on ‘what works’ has driven innovation…
Personalized Learning
Community organizing in a post school district world
“What will happen when school districts go bankrupt or are taken over by the state?” a community organizer asked. He was contemplating future scenarios with combinations of increasing charter school market share, decreasing state and local financial support, and persistent academic failure. Paul Hill has spent more than 15…
Personalized Learning
A new kind of B school: Kauffman shows the way
The Kauffman Foundation is clearly the most entrepreneurial philanthropy. Their deep understanding of the importance of entrepreneurship to job creation and economic vitality is, unfortunately, unique in philanthropy and public policy. High Tech High, San Diego, is my favorite school because it encourages kids to…
Personalized Learning
10 Notable CMOs
Following are 10 notable education leaders and their charter management organizations: 1. Larry Rosenstock, High Tech High: the best example of applied and integrated learning I’ve seen. 2. Dacia Toll, Achievement First: the best operator in the business—it’s the relentless pursuit for excellence through execution that…
Personalized Learning
Spectacular Hartford Magnet schools
Connecticut was a late comer to charters and still has relative few (but very high quality like Achievement First). The state has made a substantial financial commitment to magnet schools in part as a response to a desegregation case. Hartford is home to the Learning Corridor, a…
Personalized Learning
College in High School
1. The conversation we should have with every 8th grader In his state of the union message, President Obama challenged Americans to get at…