Front-Runners and Dark Horses: How Districts Are Faring on Portfolio Strategy Implementation
Every spring for the past three years, CRPE has reviewed how school systems implementing the portfolio strategy are faring. Through phone interviews with key contacts in these districts—sometimes the superintendent, sometimes a cabinet member—we look at each of the strategy’s key components, catalog work underway in each area, and score results based on a rubric. […]
How Choice Strengthens Schools and Families
In the course of a small study with Tricia Maas about the “backfill” issue in charter high schools (question: What are the schools doing to offer vacant seats to transfer students, and how are they helping the newcomers come up to speed?), I’ve been struck again by the importance of informed choice. Choice is a […]
Uncovering the Productivity Promise of Rural Education
The Council of Chief State Schools Officers is meeting this week to discuss rural education. While worries about America’s public education system often focus on large cities, rural districts educate millions of American students, and they do so with less support and attention than their urban and suburban counterparts. CCSSO deserves praise for providing a […]
Avoiding the Comprehensive Schools Trap for Charter High Schools
In any city, there are plenty of neighborhoods with few or no good schools. For the students and families in these areas, even just one or two soundly conceived and well-run charter schools can make a difference. Things start to change when the number of available options expands. Local leaders committed to the portfolio strategy […]
Shining a Light on Common Enrollment
What do school choice and power supply in South Asia have in common? Turns out, more than you might think. As we learned when researching our new report, Common Enrollment, Parents, and School Choice: Early Evidence from Denver and New Orleans, common enrollment is an important step in making school choice work for families. Common […]
Retooling the District Operating System for Dynamism
I’ve written extensively about the “District Operating System (DOS):” the set of unsexy, below-the-radar functions like procurement, contracting, IT, and HR that determine the look and feel of what schools do. Ultimately, it also determines how effective and responsive schools can be, since it is through the DOS that districts define their problems, seek their […]
The Charter-District Relationship: Is Generating Goodwill Enough?
With the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, there are now 21 cities in which leaders have signed official District-Charter Collaboration Compacts. These leaders represent district superintendents, charter school associations and networks, individual charter school leaders, community groups, and even city mayors and private school leaders (notably Boston, where Catholic parochial schools participate). […]
The High School Challenge to Districts and Charters
Despite little bits of progress here and there, the problem of big-city high schools—how to motivate students to stay engaged and learn what they need to be eligible for college and good jobs—remains unsolved. Graduation rates for African American boys remain below 50 percent in some cities. New York City stands out as the one […]
Schools Can’t Innovate Until Districts Do
Every sector of the U.S. economy is working on ways to deliver services in a more customized manner. In the near future, cancer treatment plans will be customized to each patient based on sophisticated genetic data and personal health histories. If all goes well, education is headed in the same direction. Personalized learning and globally […]
Charter High Schools and the “Backfill” Debate
A debate about “backfill”—whether charter high schools should add students to replace those who drop out—has just begun (see here, here, and here). Some argue that successful charter school models should not have to deviate from their focus by admitting children who don’t enter at the beginning of 9th grade. Others believe that a school […]