Conserving Principal and Teacher Talent
Reformers taking over a troubled big-city school system are understandably pessimistic about the educators they inherit. How could there be any good teachers or principals in a district where not even one child in ten achieves on grade level? At CRPE, we have learned from working with more than 40 urban districts that such despair […]
Innovation in Progress: Proceed with Caution
A new study released last week provides first glimpses at how blended learning is affecting student performance. The report, published by the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and SRI International, is rich with information about blended-learning programs and implementation details, but the study’s new contribution to the field is that it presents an impact analysis […]
Buried Treasure: An Impossible Job? The View From the Urban Superintendent’s Chair
Over a decade ago, CRPE conducted a set of leadership studies funded by the Wallace Foundation’s Leaders Count Initiative. Of all the reports we produced, perhaps the most interesting was on the urban superintendency. (Other reports focused on the job of the principal, principal shortages, principal licensure, human resource development, and key indicators of school […]
Charter Regulation: How Much Is Too Much?
In a recent USA Today piece, Rick Hess and Mike McShane blasted what they see as a trend toward charter school re-regulation. Rick and Mike argue that charters are losing their ability to innovate thanks to lots of new rules and restrictions imposed by government. I’m with them in spirit, but the specifics matter a […]
Getting from Here to There in Governance Reform
Andy Smarick, Ashley Jochim, and I have been exchanging posts on new roles for school districts and state education agencies. We agree government should set goals and hold providers accountable for performance but rely on independent parties to run schools and deliver services. But we are exploring differences about what kinds of government institutions are […]
Buried Treasure: A New Look at Inequities in School Funding
In May 2002, CRPE produced a little publication with a huge audience. “A New Look at Inequities in School Funding: A Presentation on the Resource Variations Within Districts,” by Marguerite Roza and Karen Hawley Miles, was the most accessed publication on crpe.org for more than a year. One reason it was so popular was that […]
Common School Performance Frameworks
Thirteen years after NCLB was passed, and with 44 states now committed to using Common Core State Standards, how public school performance is measured continues to vary widely not only between states and cities, but also within cities. Across the country both traditional district and charter schools have developed their own ways of tracking how […]
Smart Contracting Means Delegating, Not Abdicating
Last week The Atlantic published a tough article on cities’ recent experience with privatization—by which they meant making contracts with private organizations to do what public employees previously did. The article gave examples of government contracts that led to lower performance, increased costs to users, and much higher costs to government. The article was fair—it […]
To Take the Helm, State Ed Agencies Need a Navigator
Today the Fordham Institute added to a growing stack of reports about what states can do to support dramatic improvements in K-12 education. It’s important to think hard about states, which have constitutional authority over K-12 and provide most of the money, but historically have done little to drive reform efforts. Enter our friend and […]
Buried Treasure: Unique Schools Serving Unique Students
As the charter movement grew, so did concern that charter schools would become boutique schools for affluent families. By 2010, that concern had been dispelled—half of the 1.8 million students in charter schools came from low-income families. But it was increasingly clear that many charter schools were exclusive in another way: they were not enrolling […]