Tech-Based Learning: The New Frontier for Charters?
by Michael Horn When charter schools were created in the 1990s, they were intended to spur innovation in America’s K–12 school system. Charters, it was thought, would look radically different from what we knew: schools divided into conventional classrooms in conventional grades. Some charter schools fulfilled that hope. All too often, however, charter schools looked, […]
New Frontiers: An Overview of Charter Schools in 2012
by Robin Lake The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) has been producing Hopes, Fears, & Reality since 2005, after a set of major studies showed conflicting results about charter school performance and caused quite a dustup. CRPE created this annual report and its overall research program on charter schools with two goals in mind: […]
Incubate for America?
by Ethan Gray If you have a winning idea for a new business, the United States has the needed infrastructure to get the business off the ground. There are venture capital markets, economic development councils, mentorship programs, chamber of commerce programs, and myriad other supports to help your business idea become a reality. But what […]
2012 Year in Review
2012 was a very productive year at CRPE. Below is a recap of some of our more notable publications, and our webinars can be found here. New Book Strife and Progress: Portfolio Strategies For Managing Urban Schools (December 2012, Brookings Press) explains the underlying idea of the portfolio strategy. Based on findings from studies of […]
COMMENTARY – The Sleeping Giant Awakes: To Focus on School Performance, State Departments Must Adapt
For decades, the primary function of state education agencies (SEAs) has been a passive one: to ensure compliance with a vast array of regulations and rules. That won’t be enough for SEAs of the future. To meet growing expectations—and achieve better outcomes for students—SEAs will have to take an active role in managing the performance […]
District and charter leaders propel collaboration through “The Cleveland Plan”
Working closely with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s (CMSD) CEO, the school board, and the philanthropic and business community, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson has placed the improvement of educational options of the city’s 50,000 public school students high on his list of second-term priorities. His efforts include helping craft state legislation that will transform Ohio’s […]
Race to the Top-District: Portfolio School Districts Have the Advantage
The US Department of Education has released details of its latest funding competition, Race to the Top-District. The $400 million competition will award between $5 million and $40 million to districts that score high on the 200-point competition criteria. The competition emphasizes districts offering students a personalized learning environment leading toward college and career readiness—a […]
How district and charter compact leaders advocated for Connecticut’s Education Reform Bill
In January 2012, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy introduced a bold education reform campaign targeting Connecticut’s persistent achievement gap—the worst in the nation. Malloy’s campaign, entitled “2012, The Year for Education Reform,” called for increasing access to high-quality schooling models and “removing red tape and other barriers to success.” The resulting legislation that Malloy signed in […]
Learn about compact governance in Boston and Spring Branch
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has funded a multi-year initiative to support the design and implementation of district-charter collaboration compacts. Figuring out how to create effective cross-sector governance structures has been challenging in some cities. Several cities have created a dedicated “compact manager” position to oversee and help push the compact agreements forward. Boston […]
What are compact cities planning?
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has funded a multi-year initiative to support the design and implementation of district-charter collaboration compacts. In February 2012, 15 compact cities submitted district-charter collaboration concept papers to the Gates Foundation and 8 cities were invited to submit full proposals. Below we summarize common approaches and bold ideas proposed in […]