Smart Regulation for Strong Schools
I recently read a fascinating Wall Street Journal article by Raymond Zhong, a Delhi-based reporter, about regulating global financial markets. I’m by no means a finance person; what caught my interest were the insights relevant to education and how we oversee and regulate schools. Zhong presented leading theories from Andrew Haldane and others about how […]
School Facilities Shouldn’t Be Political Spoils
The uproar over charging rent to New York City charter schools proves that control over facilities is a powerful but easily misused governance tool. Mayor Bill De Blasio and Chancellor Carmen Farina don’t like the people who operate certain charter schools, or the philanthropists who donate money to those schools. So they want to impose […]
Shouldn’t Principals Speak for Their Schools? A New Approach
A reporter wants to know what has led to big gains in reading scores at an elementary school. Why funds for a choir program have been redirected to math interventions at a middle school. Why a high school’s parking lot isn’t plowed. Who should answer these questions? Traditionally, it’s the district—but let’s rethink that. Districts […]
Advancing and Sustaining College Ready Compacts: Outcomes from the January Superintendents’ Meeting
Late last month, district superintendents and charter leaders from 29 U.S. cities were invited to Houston to consider how to reach across the charter-district divide. Hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the two-day meeting was designed to help these cities leverage their diverse strengths to improve outcomes for all students. Attendees represented a […]
Wait, Who Chooses My Kid’s School?
In many cities, it makes sense for universal enrollment systems to replace existing enrollment processes that are messy, opaque, and at times unfair or even unlawful. But—as a recent contentious community meeting in Philadelphia made clear—entrusting enrollment decisions to a computer can be a bitter pill for parents and schools to swallow. The universal enrollment […]
Shortsighted board action in L.A.
I was dismayed by news this week that the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) school board failed to renew two Aspire Public Schools charters because these schools are not participating in the district’s special education services (in California, districts provide special education services via what’s known as a SELPA: Special Education Local Area Plan). […]
Rethinking the State Role in Education
States can do a lot more to promote effective schools. But what? Answering this long-neglected question is one of the next frontiers of CRPE’s work. As we and other thought leaders, like Andy Smarick at Bellwether, take it on, the experiences of leading states—Louisiana, Massachusetts, Florida, and Tennessee—provide a starting point. The state’s responsibility in […]
What Does It Mean to ‘Engage’ the Public?
For district leaders impatient to implement school reforms for students’ sake, the question “How do we engage the community?” can sometimes be another way of saying “How can we get people to support what we’ve already decided to do?” Last week in Houston, CRPE brought together the people driving the portfolio strategy in 26 cities […]
City Spotlight: Collaboration and Resource Sharing in Spring Branch, Texas
In Spring Branch, Texas, co-location of charter and district school programs is an intentional strategy designed to support sharing best practices across sectors; it evolved from a history of school choice within the Spring Branch Independent School District (SBISD). Co-located programs are at the heart of the SKY Partnership, a formal collaboration between SBISD, KIPP […]
A Tale of Two (Charter) Cities
I spent the beginning of last week in Detroit, a city that spawned one of the nation’s early charter laws, now home to one of the most unregulated charter sectors I have seen. I believe that Detroit families are better off as a result of choice. There are some very strong schools that wouldn’t exist […]