Why Collaboration Can Be Harder Than Herding Cats
Researchers at CRPE use “Herding Cats” as a metaphor to describe the complications of district-charter school collaboration. I think they describe the challenges well, but they are also being polite. Really bad charter schools and the chance of changes in district attitudes toward them can make collaborating even harder than cat herding. As CRPE explains, collaboration […]
Taking a Lesson from The Boys in the Boat and Aiming for “Swing”
To be of championship caliber, a crew must have total confidence in each other, able to drive with abandon, confident that no man will get the full weight of the pull…. When you get the full rhythm in an eight, it’s pure pleasure to be in it. It’s not hard work when the rhythm comes—that […]
New Research Confirms…Everything We Already Believe
As many predicted, the worlds of research and journalism have changed with the advent of the internet and the explosion of social media. Gone are the days when research studies were mainly published via journals and extensive peer review processes. The pace of news has accelerated, as has the pace of consumption. This new reality […]
Herding Cats: Managing Diverse Charter School Interests in Collaboration Efforts
This paper looks at why many cities have missed opportunities to create more lasting relationships between their district and charter sectors, and offers suggestions for fostering stronger partnerships that could help improve outcomes for all of the students in their cities.
Can High Standards and Accountability Co-Exist? Lessons From the Common Core Assessment Consortia
The Common Core State Standards Initiative was designed to solve a problem that has plagued past standard-setting efforts. Many states responded to earlier efforts by watering down their standards for learning and lowering expectations for students in an attempt to artificially boost the number of students that reached proficiency. By creating a set of common […]
Suspending Belief
This piece was originally published as part of Fordham’s forum on discipline practices in America’s charter schools. Magicians rely almost exclusively on the technique of misdirection. In order for us to believe that the dove emerged from the handkerchief, the magician must “misdirect” our attention away from what would otherwise be the obvious sleight of […]
Tradeoffs, not absolutes, on suspension and expulsion
This piece was originally published as part of Fordham’s forum on discipline practices in America’s charter schools. The ongoing exchange about suspensions and expulsions in charter schools needs to be seen from the school’s perspective. As a school of choice, a charter has two obligations: to maintain a climate conducive to learning, as it promises the […]
There Is More Than One Way to Grow Great Schools
People who believe in a portfolio strategy believe great schools can prosper in many circumstances. The role of portfolio leaders is to create opportunities for innovation and improvement and to ensure all schools are getting results across all of a city’s public schools. For that reason, we have begun an effort to track and report […]
The Politics of the Common Core Assessments
CRPE research analyst Ashley Jochim and Drew University associate professor Patrick McGuinn explore why states are abandoning the assessments aligned with Common Core State Standards.
The State Role in K–12 Education: From Issuing Mandates to Experimentation
Betheny Gross and Paul Hill discuss the challenges and opportunities for state-level experimentation created by the Every Student Succeeds Act, in the Harvard Law and Policy Review.