Welcome to the inaugural post of the Schools 2.0 blog! We've created this blog to discuss the approaches, organizations and the innovations which seem most likely to eliminate the achievement gap.
We are at an incredibly exciting, interesting time in public education in the U.S. Although major studies continue to debate the pros and cons of charter performance, there are plenty of organizations such as KIPP, Achievement First, Uncommon Schools, YES, Aspire, Green Dot, and Alliance who are eliminating the achievement gap – every day. Today, there are hundreds of successful charter schools across the country. In California, 12 of the 15 highest performing low-income schools are charters. And kudos to innovative district schools, too: despite the excessive regulation and rules, 3 of the top 15 in California are traditional district schools. So it can be done.
The next challenge we all face, what I think of as “Schools 2.0”, is about achieving massive, pervasive reforms for ALL schools in our country. That's only going to happen with disruptive innovation, by doing things differently. As we consider this goal, to finally "Go Big" successfully, there are a few realities (some promising, some challenging) that we need to accept:
First, less means less – probably forever. It’s likely that education budgets will never again grow at the rates they did before this recession began. Each day, we all read grim headlines about cutbacks and school closings. But doing things the way we've always done is no longer an option: we cannot just reduce the length of the school year, or the school day (or both), in order to cut staff and / or pay teachers less. Instead, we have to figure out new ways to make students’ existing school time more productive, more pedagogically rich, and more personalized to address individual needs – and do it all with less money.
The second reality is that the political winds are blowing with us. President Obama and Secretary of Education Duncan have challenged charter schools to help solve the problems of U.S. education. As recently as this past month, President Obama was vocal in his support of charter schools. That’s the good news. The country is ready for a change. However, it’s a tall order: with 13,000 failing schools in the system, responding to the President’s call to action means innovating at mass scale.
Third, technology has evolved to where it can actually help us transform our schools. Not only at Rocketship, but organizations such as Florida Virtual School and School of One are using technology to re-imagine how to educate students more effectively. Software vendors such as Dreambox and Reasoning Mind provide adaptive systems which quickly diagnose each student’s needs and tailor the lessons to meet these needs. This level of individualization just isn’t possible with a single teacher serving 20+ students.
At Rocketship, our Response to Intervention program (a tutoring program using Individualized Learning Plans to individualize tutoring) has already helped us move 90% of our lowest-performing students to levels of basic proficiency (and above) each year. Technology and tutoring can be especially useful for students practicing basic skills and for remediating their learning gaps.
Fourth, we are witnessing the birth of a new breed of superintendents, who collaborate rather than mandate. These new superintendents know that their district has thousands of individual students, and are willing to serve many of them through partner organizations that specialize in meeting these needs. This ‘collaborative portfolio’ approach of district management – as espoused by the Broad Foundation, Joel Klein, Chancellor of New York City schools, Arne Duncan when he was running Chicago public schools and many other courageous superintendents – has transformed the relationship between school districts and charter schools. Among other topics, this blog will explore how these collaborative superintendents approach their partnerships and the triage of their schools.
Fifth, we are seeing the emergence of philanthropic foundations interested in pushing innovation in the system to the absolute limit. Funders such as the Gates Foundation Next Generation team are looking for ways to help more students, scale up learning approaches and drive whole-system changes. Yet these foundations face their own important questions of growth and effectiveness. For example, how do foundations need to change, in order to foster innovation? Should foundations act more like venture capitalists and invest in opportunity and innovation, rather than worrying about the risk of failure?
Finally, how will unions change as the system changes? How can teachers benefit from new ways of working? We are very encouraged by AFT’s desire to change and we hope to see accelerated cooperation as the unions lend their hands in the schools’ transformation. At Rocketship, we believe that using online programs to reinforce students’ basic skills acquisition and to remediate skills deficits will give our teachers more time and energy to do what they do best –teach students how to think critically. Reconstructing the teaching paradigm also offers a great opportunity to make significant boosts in teacher salaries. We imagine a near-term future in which a six-figure salary for effective teaching is the norm and a classroom is all about critical thinking, rather than memorizing basic skills.
No doubt, these proposed changes will cause a lot of ruffled feathers. But it’s my sincere hope that, regardless of the approach each of us is advocating, we keep our common goal in mind – eliminating the achievement gap. If 20 years from now every kid in America has an equal shot at being ready to attend and graduate from college, then all of the adult discord and disputes will have been well worth our collective efforts.
Is “Schools 2.0” even possible? Can we drive widespread change across the entire U.S.? Can we continue to close the achievement gap, but at a scale that addresses the President’s call to action? Can we scale up successfully without compromising quality? Can we work with school districts to support courageous superintendents? Can we work with union leaders to make this transformation for our kids?
The simple answer is “yes” to all of the above. The really tough questions all start with, “how do we…?” And that’s where you come in. I’ll stop here and eagerly await your responses!
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