Lessons for L.A. on Improving District-Charter Relations
Michelle King, the new superintendent at Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), has been on a listening tour. A 30-plus year veteran of the district who has risen from the teacher ranks, King wants to connect with parents and share her plans for the district, then hear their concerns—standard practice for an incoming schools’ chief. […]
When Times Get Tough, States Must Double Down on Investments That Pay Off
Last week, the Louisiana House of Representatives approved $106 million in cuts to address a budget shortfall caused in part by falling oil and gas prices. As reported by the Associated Press, almost half of those cuts would fall on the state’s Department of Education, gutting the agency charged with overseeing public schools statewide by […]
How to Restore Local Control Without Going Backwards
New Orleanians can have it both ways—return schools to local control and build on the academic gains made since 2005. Yes, local control could mean the return of politics and bureaucracy that weaken schools and divert money away from the classroom. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Many critics of school boards invoke […]
Vouchers: Time for Thinking, Not Rhetoric
A new study by the National Bureau of Economic Research is one of the relatively few recent studies reporting a negative voucher effect—students using vouchers in Louisiana learned a good deal less than similar students in regular public schools. The reason: students with vouchers had few good choices, since the available schools were weak and […]
I Ain’t Talking to You If You Ain’t Talking About Structural Reform
In a compelling recent blog post, Nathan Gibbs-Bowling warned that as Washington State’s new Teacher of the Year he won’t be taking positions on most of the hot policy topics of the day (Common Core, charter schools, etc.). Rather, Nate, who teaches at a highly successful school-within-a-school for at-risk high school students in Tacoma, said […]
Can Districts Learn to Innovate? Lessons from NYC
We at CRPE have been watching the evolution of New York City Department of Education’s (NYCDOE) “iZone” for years. Betheny Gross and I did a paper on the early days of the iZone, when the district was asking about 200 schools to radically rethink their instruction, assessment, and staffing to revolve around personalization and customization […]
How Fordham’s Rankings Measure Up
This blog was originally published in Fordham’s Flypaper. At CRPE, we believe strongly in taking a city-wide view of education. The reality of urban education these days is a complicated mash-up of schools run by districts, charter providers, independent private schools, and sometimes even state agencies. It’s usually the case, however, that research reports (e.g., […]
The Tough Realities of School Turnaround in Tennessee
Tennessee is breaking ground on how it addresses its lowest-performing schools by employing both district-led (iZone) and state-led (Achievement School District) turnaround efforts. Very early results show both promise and concern—and illustrate how incredibly hard school turnarounds can be. A new analysis by Ron Zimmer and colleagues at Vanderbilt’s Peabody School of Education examines the […]
What’s in a Name? Portfolio, Charter Schools, and the Boy Who Hated Kreplach
There’s a Jewish parable about the mother of a boy who hates kreplach. The mother tries to ease the boy into liking the traditional dumplings by having him cook some with her. The boy is excited about the prospect of cooking together. He exclaims with delight at the addition of each ingredient—the beef, the potatoes, […]
Are Innovative K-12 Systems Solutions Hiding In Plain Sight?
Grappling with new ways to solve problems is a regular challenge in the K–12 space, yet good ideas don’t fall from the trees. Technology is now being used to try to solve problems like differentiating learning in classrooms, but could it help us address some of K–12’s stickier system-wide challenges? I was reading about these […]