The Real Secret of Success? Progressive Pedagogy at Scale
Success Academy doesn’t lack for press. And for good reason. There’s the eye-popping academic performance: 99 percent of students proficient in math, 90 percent in English Language Arts. There’s the charter school network’s astonishing growth: from one school in 2006 to 45 across New York City today, educating 17,000 children, mainly from poverty—a system nearly […]
Thinking Forward in 2020
A new year is always cause for CRPE to look forward, not back. We think hard about how we can apply our analytical tools to pressing problems in our public education system. We try to do so with creativity, optimism, and urgency. This year, some of our most exciting new research flows directly from our 25th […]
Dubious Research Used to Attack Charter Schools Program
The Network for Public Education (NPE) has just published a second report claiming that the federal Charter Schools Program (CSP) has “wasted” more than a billion dollars. Starting with its claims of financial loss, the report is strong on emotional appeal but weak on evidence, logic, and facts. NPE’s Still Asleep at the Wheel builds […]
Beyond “No Excuses”: Lessons from a Charter School Network’s Transformation
Introduction from CRPE director Robin Lake: I am delighted to introduce a new contributor to this blog and a new Senior Fellow at CRPE, Steven Wilson. I have known and admired Steven for more than 20 years. He was special assistant for strategic planning for Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld and co-executive director of the Pioneer […]
How Charter Schools Help Cultivate Good Citizenship
Editor’s note: This blog series examines common narratives about charter schools, separates fact from fiction, and highlights legitimate issues that must be addressed. The full series is available here. Americans are losing faith in democracy. Politics are becoming increasingly polarized. Civic engagement has been in decline for decades. Observers of these trends are right to […]
We Need to Ask the Right Questions about Corruption and Charter Schools
Editor’s note: This blog series examines common narratives about charter schools, separates fact from fiction, and highlights legitimate issues that must be addressed. The full series is available here. Do charter schools attract crooks? Recent headlines and commentaries could make one think so. Earlier this year, respected journalist John Merrow assembled diverse evidence from newspapers […]
An Innovation Network: A More Diverse and Inclusive Way to Innovate
This spring the Center on Reinventing Public Education launched the Big Think Network—a collaboration among six organizations that are working to build more just and responsive learning systems in their communities. In the process, we hope to build a new, more inclusive model of what research and development can look like in public education. Historically, […]
In Judging the Consequences of Charter Growth, Weigh Benefits to District Students Against Financial Strains
Editor’s note: This blog series examines common narratives about charter schools, separates fact from fiction, and highlights legitimate issues that must be addressed. The full series is available here. One of the most frequent criticisms of the charter school movement is that these alternative public schools are a financial drain on the system and make […]
What Does It Mean to Be an Ally in Efforts to Transform Public Education? The Answers Threaten to Tear the Movement Apart
What defines an ally? Competing answers to this question threaten to tear apart the increasingly fragile political coalitions working to improve our nation’s schools. I’m an education policy researcher who has spent 25 years exposing unequal opportunity and outcomes in public education and proposing ways to fix those inequities. When I began, I was compelled in […]
Charter Schools Advance Innovation—But Often Not in the Ways You’d Expect
Editor’s note: This blog series examines common narratives about charter schools, separates facts from fiction, and highlights legitimate issues that must be addressed. The full series is available here. A common criticism of charter schools argues that they are run-of-the-mill, nothing special, a big disappointment in light of promises they would be laboratories for innovation. […]