A Court Decision Only the Kremlin Could Love
This blog was first published in Fordham Institute’s Flypaper. Last Friday, in a 6-3 decision, the Washington State Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the state’s voter-approved charter school law, throwing nine new schools and more than 1200 students into chaos. The ruling was not based on the merits of the law (one of the strongest in […]
School Discipline Isn’t Working. Let’s Not Attack It or Defend It, Let’s Fix It
Last month, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute put out talking points on six education issues for the 2016 presidential candidates. A number of these positions—strong accountability, parent choice, paying attention to our poor standing globally, and providing instruction on civics—enjoy support from all sides of the political spectrum. More importantly, these positions are largely supported […]
School Systems Need a Disaster Response Plan
What happens to a city when “the big one” hits? Depending on where you live, the big one could be a flood, a tornado, a hurricane. For me, it looks like it’s going to be an earthquake, at least that’s what a recent scary New Yorker article says as it lists a parade of horribles […]
The Best of Both Worlds: Boundary Spanners & Co-location
CRPE has produced two new reports on district-charter collaboration. District-Charter Sector Boundary Spanners A growing number of districts are moving away from the idea that charter schools are the enemy. Instead, districts are breaking down barriers and openly discussing how to share resources, responsibilities, and knowledge of what works. This report explores a lesser-known form […]
Hiring District Leaders From the Charter Sector: A Conversation with Superintendents Tom Boasberg and Duncan Klussmann
Listen in as two successful superintendents discuss an under-the-radar trend in school district hiring practices – the bold move to fill high-level central office positions with leaders from the charter sector. Between them, Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg and retiring Spring Branch Independent School District Superintendent Duncan Klussmann have pushed the thinking around how […]
Governance and Its Limits
Ashley Jochim explains how the formal tools of public education governance can be limited because of institutional inertia and a weak leadership pipeline in this blog originally published in Fordham’s Flypaper. The push to raise standards and boost outcomes for students has placed states at the center of efforts to improve public education. But as […]
An Alternative View on Charter Schools and Backfill
After more than 20 years of working together, Paul Hill and I have finally found something we might really disagree on. Paul has legitimate concerns about the “backfill” issue (whether charter schools should be required to take students mid-year or after traditional entry grades), concerns that are grounded in his research with Gail Foster and […]
The Obligations of High-Output Charter High Schools
For good reason, the most widely admired charter high schools are the ones that take kids from the highest-risk categories (poverty, one parent, big city, black or Hispanic, male) and get them into and through selective colleges. It’s a big deal for one school to double or triple a big city’s numbers of potential minority […]
Lessons from the Trenches on Making School Choice Work
This blog was originally published on the Brookings Brown Center Chalkboard. In the United States, what school a child attends is determined in large part by where she lives. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, nearly three-quarters of American children attend schools assigned to them based on their residence. When combined with deep […]
Opening Doors: OneApp Improves Enrollment Process but Shows Need for More Good Schools
Bringing a greater sense of order to the school choice application and enrollment process is getting a great deal of attention these days. In the two months since we released our report on common enrollment systems in New Orleans and Denver, I’ve fielded several calls from individuals in charter advocacy organizations, mayors’ offices, school districts, […]
