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 […]
Communities in the driver’s seat: Black Mothers Forum microschools raise sustainability questions
The Black Mothers Forum (BMF), established in 2016 to combat institutional racism in Phoenix-area schools, responded to the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic by creating a network of microschools. With Black leadership and a focus on racial justice, BMF fills a unique niche in a region where Black families are often underrepresented. In 2022, CRPE documented […]
School choice: Vital, but not automatic
Post-pandemic America is in a heyday for school choice, at least in red states. From Florida to Ohio to Arizona, parents can get new state subsidies via education savings accounts (ESAs) to choose extracurricular activities, support homeschooling, or pay at least partial tuition in private schools. Elected officials and advocates behind these new supports for […]
Literacy for all: The story of Sobral
The scorching, arid northeastern state of Ceará, Brazil has long been known for growing cashews and coconuts. Now, it’s defied expectations by cultivating one of the world’s best public elementary school systems, despite high rates of poverty. How Sobral transformed its public school system and attained near-universal literacy offers lessons for communities everywhere. With 85 […]
2024: Reflecting on 30 years of CRPE
Happy New Year! With the start of 2024, we kick off a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Center on Reinventing Public Education. For me, this anniversary is personal. I have been with CRPE nearly all 30 years—the majority of my life. It has been a true privilege. Humble Beginnings CRPE began with a simple […]
The rise of unconventional teaching roles: How do educators in these roles feel about them?
Many are talking about ways to rethink the role of teaching these days, whether by reorganizing teachers into teams, leveraging community educators, or allowing teachers to teach in unconventional school models like micro-schools. In the past, the motivation to experiment with new staffing models was sometimes in response to teacher labor shortages, teacher burnout, or […]
Teachers and tutors together: Reimagining literacy instruction in Oakland
High-quality tutoring has become a critical tool for addressing pandemic learning gaps and accelerating student learning, but access to tutoring programs remains an issue. CRPE took a deep look at how Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) designed and implemented a literacy program with embedded tutoring support from community partners—and the impact the effort had on […]
Communities in the driver’s seat: Intensive training, deep investment power parent-led literacy programs in Oakland
Across the country, school systems are struggling to implement effective, research-based literacy instruction and to help students recover from lost learning time during the pandemic. At the same time, school systems sit near pools of untapped talent—community members who have personally experienced the harm of inequitable school systems and now brim with passion for addressing […]
ChatGPT turns one today: Seven reasons why education leaders should step up on AI
It’s been a year since OpenAI released ChatGPT. Educators (and the rest of the world) were caught off guard by this new technology that could write college essays, plan vacations, and even compose a new poem or song based on the style of an original author. As we said back in May, “This changes everything.” […]
Teaching, reinvented: How unconventional educator roles pave the way for a more fulfilling and sustainable profession
As school systems struggle to recover from years of disruption, new programs, policies, and nontraditional organizations that support innovation in the teaching role will need to grow to support all students’ learning. But what is it like to teach in new ways? What are the advantages and drawbacks? What brought educators to these unconventional roles […]
