Teachers Alone Can’t Address the Literacy Crisis
This commentary was originally published by EdSource. Improving literacy instruction is once again in fashion among America’s policy circles. Between 2019 and 2022, state legislatures passed more than 200 bills that sought to push and pull public schools to embrace the “science of reading.” But one year into closely following a big city school district’s effort to remake […]
A Future beyond Test Scores Alone: Innovative Schools Need Support to Measure Other Learning Outcomes
Imagine a time traveler from 1924 arrives in 2024. She’s overwhelmed by how the world has changed, from ubiquitous smartphone use to widespread vaccine access. Then, she steps into a typical school, and she’s confused. While the kinds of jobs Americans work in are barely recognizable to her, classroom learning still feels much like it […]
Ten Predictions about Learning Recovery and Education Innovation for 2024
This piece was originally published by The 74. The ever-quotable Yogi Berra said it well: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Nevertheless, we at the Center on Reinventing Public Education are jumping into the deep end with 10 predictions about the prospects for learning recovery and innovation in public education in 2024. […]
“We Can’t Blow It.” District Leaders Are Optimistic about AI but Need Urgent Help
AI is on the move, and it’s not slowing down. The education field is both excited and concerned about the lightning-fast pace of advancements in generative AI. Over the past several months, we at CRPE have interviewed dozens of district leaders across the country about how they view AI and what kind of support they […]
Crossing the Chasm: Moving Innovative Staffing Models from Pilot to Mainstream
This blog is part of our series profiling three school systems several years into implementing workforce innovations or strategic staffing solutions. Scaling up innovations within school systems is a notoriously difficult process. While new instructional approaches or staffing strategies may catch on within a few classrooms or schools, they often fail to become integrated system-wide. […]
Leader-to-Leader Collaboration: Real Talk, Real Results
This past November was a dream come true for The Oakland REACH—and for me as a leader. For two days, leaders from Rochester, Birmingham, New Orleans, Greenville, Jacksonville, Providence, Boston, and San Francisco, Richmond, and Oakland, CA, gathered together for our first-ever REACH Way Institute (RWI).
These leaders represented the opportunity to impact 350,000 students. I still cannot find the right words to express how much it meant to have groups from all over the country come to learn—not just from us, but from one another. We built an instant community that affirmed just how critical leader collaboration is.
If We’re Serious about Pandemic Recovery, We Need Summer School at Scale
For everyone committed to educational equality, an ambitious new analysis from researchers at Stanford and Harvard today brings grim news. In most states studied, the gap in student achievement between low-income and high-income districts grew dramatically between 2019 and 2023, in many cases by a half-grade or more. We have long known that student performance […]
A “Good Life” for Every Student: High Schools Embrace Many Pathways to Success
CRPE & CPRL hosted a webinar on this report with the co-authors and report stakeholders. Check it out! Can the lessons schools learned in the Covid-19 recovery period contribute to more lasting, transformative shifts in high school? Researchers from CRPE and the Center for Public Research and Leadership (CPRL), with support from the Barr Foundation, […]
Breaking the Teaching Mold—with Help from the Teachers’ Union
This blog is part of a three-part series profiling school systems that have been implementing workforce innovations or strategic school staffing models for several years. Through innovative and strategic school staffing solutions, efforts to reimagine the teacher workforce have grown over the past several years. This is in response to prolonged teacher shortages and consistently […]
The Passing of Linda Brown and the Elephant in the Room
The school reform community has lost one of its brightest lights. Linda Brown is dead at 81. I met Linda in 1993 at the dawn of the public charter school movement. Her unrelenting commitment to excellence in urban schools inspired my work through the decades, and I was fortunate to serve for years as board […]