Summer vacation may still be months away, but school leaders across the country are already gearing up to hire teachers for the next school year. Many will find themselves in the same predicament they’ve faced for years: scrambling until the last minute to fill open positions, especially in crucial subjects like math, science, and special education.
The Lens
Bringing vision and clarity to education policy
CREDO at Stanford University published a new report today, examining the impact and implementation of nonprofit charter management organization (CMO)-led school turnarounds under Louisiana’s Recovery School District (RSD) in New Orleans and Tennessee’s Achievement School District (ASD) in Memphis and Nashville. Both efforts were funded through a federal i3 grant and CREDO was the evaluator. There are three very important takeaways from this extensive report:
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently announced a new focus on supporting networks of middle and high schools. These Networks for School Improvement are intended to support continuous improvement—built on collecting data and testing solutions—in order to tackle some of public education’s most pressing challenges. As someone who studies education from a systems perspective, I am intrigued to see how these networks develop.
The national charter movement grew because people from diverse perspectives agreed on the need for a new form of public school free of bureaucratic and union constraints. As political scientist Stephen Page observed, the movement consisted of left-leaning educators supported by right-wing money.
In the absence of a guiding political mastermind, the members of the movement settled on a loose strategy:
School choice proponents argue that choice creates equitable access to quality schools and results in the shuttering of schools that perform poorly since few families choose them. However, this is based on families having the right tools to make informed and timely decisions.
America is trying to serve an ever-increasing proportion of its most at-risk students outside of traditional high schools. This should be studied carefully.
Denver Public Schools hosts endless visits from civic and district leaders looking for ways to reinvent public education. It has been a star portfolio district and a leader in charter-district collaboration. Over the course of a decade, multiple superintendents and board members have enjoyed strong backing to give parents freedom to choose outside their neighborhood schools, to partner with charter schools, and to increase autonomy for district-run schools.