The Charter Blog
February 28 2006
Netflix founder makes donation to form new network of charters
Comment »28 Feb 2006
Growth through replication
Netflix founder, longtime charter supporter, and all-around good guy Reed Hastings has made a generous contribution to a group starting a network of charters in California. This idea--growing the movement through quality replications--is one of the most important in chartering today.
The idea is to find a school that works and then increase its enrollment and/or grades served or expand its model onto multiple campuses. It's a brilliant plan because it focuses on quality schools and makes use of the wisdom of those who've already gone through the headaches of a charter start-up. Ideally, replication would avoid many of the stumbling blocks that get in the way of those starting a single school (formulating a culture and curriclum, developing payroll and monitoring systems, etc.)
This has been going on for quite a while. KIPP does it, Achievement First does it. Edison does it. As a matter of fact, there are organizations that will help schools do it, like the Charter School Growth Fund and the New Schools Venture Fund.
Reed, who knows a little something about building an innovative, high-quality organization and bringing it to scale, is a real leader in this area. And he has lots of other nuggets to offer the charter movement: check out his remarks at this summer's charter school summit.
This topic will be discussed at the national charter schools conference (beginning TOMORROW), including in one session moderated by yours truly (third from the top).
Comment »
Chicago law firm starts charter school
Comment »CA's charter school of the year
Comment »27 Feb 2006
New industry, new training
The skill set needed to be a charter school developer and operator is vastly different than the skill set needed to be the principal of a traditional public school. So you would think that colleges of education would have created new and exciting programs for these new leaders. Well, think again...
This article shows how different the two gigs actually are. Not only are you more likely to be responsible for a disadvantaged student population as a charter leader, you're going to have to deal with facilities issues, payroll, budgeting, fundraising, and reporting in ways foreign to tradional principals.
Traditional teacher and principal training programs are notoriously calcified (some would say inadequate to appalling), and they haven't responded to this emerging market. Thank goodness for the handful of programs that have bubbled up outside of colleges of education, like KIPP's, New Leaders for New Schools, Building Excellent Schools, and the LEE program.
Dog-ear this subject. Colleges of education are bound to change eventually. (Hey, didn't Eisenhower say that about Cuba?)
Comment »
February 27 2006
GREAT article about chartering in New Orleans
Comment »February 26 2006
Fascinating story about charters, court-ordered desegregation, and funding in Kansas City
Comment »Hawaii article highlights facilities issue
Comment »23 Feb 2006
Come Together
Nearly 3,000 people are coming to the 2006 National Charter Schools Conference. You’ve got to be encouraged by the numbers alone. But a walk around the convention center or a quick look through the program shows you another dimension of charter schooling—its diversity. Race, gender, geography, profession. It’s a great statement that so many different types of people are committed to charter schooling. But...
Charter supporters come at this issue from a lots of different directions. This paper took a look at the preambles of the various state charter school laws and found that the movement was created with at least 18 different goals in mind. Of course, we all want families to have more public school options and we want to improve the education opportunities available to disadvantaged boys and girls, but we have different ideas of how chartering schooling will make that happen.
This issue got some discussion at the Chartering 2.0 summit earlier this summer. Check out the proceedings publication. Even if this specific topic doesn't get you fired up, take a look through this document anyway. Lots of smart, provocative things were said by some really smart, provocative people.
But for those of you who are interested in how chartering is going to bring about the changes we all want, personally I'm partial to the ideas formulated in here by the sage of Minnesota.
Comment »
