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'Life Is Not a Standardized Test'

In this short, powerful paper a former district official and college president argues for re-setting the objectives and the assessment for both college and high school. "We have fallen into the trap of valuing what we measure," he says, "rather than measuring what we value". Education is about critical thinking, analytical reasoning and problem-solving. But these are not things taught in a course. The whole school must be responsible for these 'collective outcomes'.

SUBJECTS: testing, learning, achievement, performance

A Learning Revolution

This remarkable vision of schooling and learning rebuilt around the potential of digital electronics comes from the person in charge of education for the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation. In 1990 Mike Smith wrote the initial, defining paper on standards-based systemic reform. This was a talk to the Asia Society in Beijing.

SUBJECTS: technology learning motivation student-centered

A viable high school in a small rural district. (pdf)

Nontraditional forms of schooling do exist that are economically and educationally viable at the scale of 120 students in six grades. This has huge implications for K-12 public education in rural America's sparsely-settled areas. The trick is to think differently about teaching and learning. Most of the resources can then be devoted to learning. This is an article in the magazine of the superintendents' association in Minnesota, written for its members.

SUBJECTS: Innovation, productivity, small schools

Academic competitions are a learning experience outside school. (pdf)

Academic competitions are a largely-unexplored and little-understood aspect of student learning. Such competitions deserve attention from academic researchers, professional educators, and education policy leaders to better determine how students learn, what motivates students, and what skills and experiences are most relevant to the real world.

SUBJECTS: International competitions, non-school learning

Age3/Grade3 Schools: A new approach to early literacy

It would be wonderful to close the achievement gap...before there is one. Now when children walk into elementary school for the first time the achievement gap is so large that some never recover. The "Age 3 to Grade 3 Model" restructures the school, using existing financing, so that the literacy spans the 'early' years and the 'school' years. The model calls for restructuring child care, Head Start and other pre-K initiatives. Kindergarten literacy readiness is defined based on the "Individual Growth and Development Indicators (IGDI's)." Grade 1-3 reading targets are based on the AIMSweb passages aligned with state standards (r < .75). Response to Intervention (RtI) is used through the entire school. Training, coaching and mentoring is provided frequently to all staff.

SUBJECTS: early childhood, literacy, chartering

Charter School Dashboard from The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools

Find national data on the public charter school movement, public charter school data by state, or data for single public charter schools.

Charter Schools: Now What? (pdf)

The (then) executive director Colorado School Boards Association Randy Quinn wondered, after the chartering law passed over its opposition, whether this new idea might not really be “a blessing in disguise” for boards of education.

SUBJECTS: chartering, Colorado, Quinn, choice for boards

Clayton Christensen Explains Why Organizations Find Major Change So Difficult (pdf)

Clayton Christensen's presentation to a national meeting at Hamline University in fall 2001 shows how hard it is for existing organizations, even in the private sector, to change in more than incremental ways. He explains why significant change requires the creation of new organizations. His research and analysis has huge implications for a K-12 strategy that relies basically on the notion that it will be possible to change and improve the schools we have.

SUBJECTS: Change, strategy, leadership, new schools

CPRE's School-Finance Research

Over 100 years, Allan Odden says in this paper for the Consortium for Policy Research in Education, the increases in spending on K-12 public education have averaged 3.5% per year. And consistently 60% of that has gone to teacher-instruction. Basic data, for a discussion about costs, adequacy and productivity.

SUBJECTS: K-12 finance, adequacy, sustainability, spending

Creating the Capacity for Change. (pdf)

Ted Kolderie's book expands the 'theory of action' for state policy leadership... explains why governors' and legislatures' effort to open a new-schools sector is imperative for public education, to enable it to do the job it has now been given to do. To view the first chapter, click the caption above. To order the book from the publisher, Education Week Press, click here.

SUBJECTS: State strategy, theory of action

Describing Schools as Schools

Education research has had no way systematically to describe and classify schools. Now a researcher at the University of Minnesota is developing a framework for such a taxonomy.

SUBJECTS: Taxonomy, evaluation

Electronics Technology for Public School Systems: A Superintendent’s View. (pdf)

As long ago as 1981 George Young, then superintendent of St. Paul public schools, foresaw technology as a tool not to replace teachers, but to help them better carry out their role as educators. Using technology to individualize education is a way of reforming an archaic system where students are lumped into grades and instructed as a group regardless of their learning style and abilities. System-incentives, however, work against change. Prophetic.

SUBJECTS: Technology, individualizing learning

Essentials of the Charter School Strategy. (pdf)

A quick summary of the essentials of the charter idea, written in 1994, is still basically applicable today.

SUBJECTS: Charter, state policy

First Thoughts on Sustainability and Productivity

With the growing concern about rising expenditures—whether it will ever be possible for revenues to keep up; whether, if not, any concept of productivity can be developed—it seemed a good idea to think out the elements of such a discussion. This is Ted Kolderie's first effort to do that.

SUBJECTS: spending, adequacy, budgets, districts

How a Public School Looks When Managed by a Teacher Partnership

There's growing interest in improving (as some say) the "management of human capital" in education: teacher recruitments, teacher-retention, teacher compensation, teacher accountability. Usually this suggests 'better administration' in the standard boss/worker model. Yet it's possible these decisions might be made with greater integrity by teachers themselves within the framework of a professional partnership. This interview with Carrie Bakken is the most revealing look we've ever had at the way a teacher partnership handles the professional and the management issues in running a public school.

SUBJECTS: Teacher partnership, Teacher motivation, professionalism

How District Leaders Can Support the New Schools Strategy. (pdf)

School districts nationwide are taking bold steps by proactively creating different and better schools new as a strategy for education reform. Spurred by the innovations being introduced by chartered schools and other choices independent of school districts, district leaders are rethinking their past approaches and are beginning to create a “space” in which more schools can form new.

SUBJECTS: District change, leaders, open sector

How Information Technology Can Enable 21st Century School. (pdf)

This paper explains the 'how' of achieving greater innovation with Information Technologies in schools. The problem is one of structure, and requires both a redesign of schools and of the system. Recommendations are made for states and the federal government.

SUBJECTS: innovation, technology, new schools, policy, federal, state, government, new schools, newschoolsminnesota, self governed schools

How is the money used? (pdf)

Almost always in the policy debate the discussion about money is about ‘how much?’, with the conclusion almost always: ‘Not enough!’ This report looks inside schools and districts at differences in where and how money is actually spent. Its tentative findings suggest that the size of school and district, the governance arrangement and the degree to which teachers are involved in decision-making influence the allocation of revenue to instruction. That’s critical information for policymakers who are struggling to get resources into the learning program within today’s overall fiscal realities.

SUBJECTS: Financing, allocation, use of revenue

How National Organizations Can Support the New Schools Strategy. (pdf)

Some national organizations that find good schools a way to further their own mission are now moving to create—and support—new schools in the charter sector. The National Council of La Raza is one example. This can be done in some states through sponsoring (authorizing). Elsewhere it can take the form of partnerships.

SUBJECTS: Open Sector, strategy, national organizations

If kids don't want to learn, you probably can't make 'em. (pdf)

If students want to learn they probably will. If they don't, you probably can't make 'em. And motivation is individual.This is where education is failing; in the relationship between teachers and students. Motivating students is a teachable skill: It just isn't very often taught where teachers are trained. Jack Frymier sums up a lifetime of experience in curriculum-and-instruction, in discussions with Education|Evolving.

SUBJECTS: Motivation, teaching, individualization

Improvement really is a design problem (pdf)

While almost everyone wants schools to be “better”, Joe Graba likes to say, almost nobody wants them to be “different”. Yet in most fields becoming better involves changing the service or product; the model. Think about: improving travel, improving communication, improving computing. Systems need to be open to new models; to innovation. Now, with the states opening K-12 to new schools, innovation—and a new dimension of improvement—becomes increasingly possible.

SUBJECTS: Innovation, new schools, different

Innovation should be a part of the national strategy for improvement.

In a Commentary included in Education Week's 15-year retrospective on standards-based systemic reform, one of the authors of that strategy noted: It made no place for innovation. Mike Smith affirms the need for an element of innovation; looked to the charter sector to provide that.

Is Chartering, as a Strategy, Succeeding?

Ted Kolderie argues it's time to bury the term 'charter schools' and to think and talk separately about chartering—the state strategy of new-school-creation—and the schools-chartered. He says chartering is succeeding even though not all the schools-chartered are succeeding. The article appears in the December 2005 issue of UrbanEd, the magazine of the Rossier School of Education at University of Southern California.

SUBJECTS: Charter, evaluation, state strategy

Is it time to reconsider the notion of 'adolescence'? (pdf)

Not too long ago, one former state commissioner says, our high schools were filled with children. Today they are filled with young people who are essentially adults—being treated still as children. Is it time now to move young people more into adult roles by age 16. If we did, what would that suggest for K-12?

SUBJECTS: Students, change,

It would help, to Incorporate Student Voice into Teaching Practice. (link)

John Kordalewski writes that in some classrooms student voices are barely heard. The teacher monopolizes classroom talk, and knowledge is treated as residing entirely with the teacher. This is what Paulo Freire (1970) terms "banking" education (teachers "deposit" knowledge into students' heads) and describes as the antithesis of teacher-student dialogue. A range of approaches to teaching highlight the importance of dialogue. Some of these approaches focus on classroom processes, while others are especially concerned with how students' cultural identities help to constitute their voices. This digest explores different ways in which student voices can be heard in a classroom.

It’s a revenue game. (pdf)

Districts are unable to control their costs, Minnesota superintendents concede. This helps explain a central notion in K-12, that all budget problems are to be solved on the revenue side.

SUBJECTS: Finance, cuts, budgets, superintendents

Listening to Student Voices. (pdf)

Much might be learned about the design for schooling, if researchers and policymakers were to listen to what the students say. This has not been the tradition: How often do you see students present and participating in important discussions about education, about school and about policy? In these notes student-researchers at Avalon (chartered) High School in Saint Paul challenge adults to start allowing consumer input to be a driver in efforts to increase students’ motivation to attend, to learn and to graduate.

SUBJECTS: Motivation, teaching, adapt

Measuring Quality Health-care and Education. (pdf)

In health care, as in education, one of the strongest pressures has been to increase revenue. In education this results from a need to improve quality; in health care it stems from a need to expand access. Like medical clinics and hospitals, K-12 districts seeking additional revenue like to say "My cases are tougher". In this remarkable talk to hospital trustees, Walter McClure of the Center for Policy Studies describes new techniques for measuring quality that show major differences in effectiveness among the 'producers'.

SUBJECTS: Evaluation, Assessment, measurement

Mike Smith's plea to hold off reauthorizing NCLB

In this 'op ed' written in the spring of 2007 Marshall (Mike) Smith argues it is too early for Congress to proceed with reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind program. Smith, a senior official in the Clinton administration's U.S. Department of Education, was a key author of the strategy of systemic reform.

SUBJECTS: NCLB, national strategy,

Mike Strembitsky and Site-Management in Edmonton. (pdf)

Over 25 years ago a ‘discontented teacher’ who became superintendent gave Edmonton, Canada what might be the most-decentralized arrangement in North America. But Edmonton is different than American cities, and Mike Strembitsky's model does not transplant easily.

SUBJECTS: District change, leadership, Ouchi

Minnesota now reports revenue and expenditure by school. (pdf)

In 1999 the Minnesota Legislature required all revenue to be initially allocated by school. Boards may re-allocate, but schools and parents can now see how much money 'belongs' to the school as a result of the students enrolled.

SUBJECTS: Revenue, allocation, school-site financing, legislature

Mother Teresa As a Charter School. (pdf)

Institutions other than public education have found it useful not to let the mission depend on just a single organization. Historically the Catholic Church has been one of these. There is the hierarchy, but there are also the orders.

SUBJECTS: Strategy, chartering

New Minnesota Site-Governed Schools Law

The 2009 Minnesota Legislature passed new "site-governed school" legislation, which provides school boards a "charter-like" option. A district board may approve "site-governed schools," which are provided significant autonomy and flexibility to develop new models of schools in exchange for greater accountability... all within the district under the prevue of the board.

SUBJECTS: legislation, autonomy, site-governed schools

Nobody’s Success Depends on Whether the Students Learn. (pdf)

Until recently K-12 was built and operated so as to put adult interests first. Student learning was not an imperative. In a talk to the Citizens League in March 1997 Ted Kolderie set out the essentials of public education's system problem—underscored shortly afterward when the first results from the new testing program arrived.

SUBJECTS: System, incentives, districts

North St. Paul District Trims Its Budget

A common concern is that rising costs, not covered either by increases in revenue or by improvements in productivity, lead the districts to reduce the scope or quality of the program available. Here E|E looks at what happened in a district near Saint Paul after its 'budget crisis' appeared in the news.

SUBJECTS: sustainability K-12 finance productivity

Origins of the charter idea. (pdf)

A quick summary of the major mileposts in the evolution of the chartering laws. 2002.

SUBJECTS: Charter, state laws

Positive school culture is key for students and their families in Minnesota's chartered schools

'Positive school culture' describes in detail ten of the most unconventional schools appearing in Minnesota since legislators passed the state's chartering law in 1991. Opinions from students who attended the schools make clear that many families who choose fundamentally different schools are first seeking a positive school culture. To these Minnesota families, a school's success is measured by far more than its average test scores.

SUBJECTS: Parents, choice decisions

Professionals and Administrators; Two models of Organization. (pdf)

These are notes of a long evening with a group of teachers (assembled by the MEA lobbyist) and the partners and administrators in a law firm and a medical clinic. The discussion about the relationship of professionals and administrators, in law and medicine, compared to the relationship of principal and teachers in a typical school, is fascinating; especially the teachers' questions about relative pay and about who-decides-what.

SUBJECTS: Teachers, professionalism, unions, teacher roles

Ray Budde and the origins of the ‘Charter Concept’. (pdf)

Albert Shanker floated the idea of "letting teachers start small schools within schools" in a talk at the National Press Club in the Spring of 1988 . . . but acknowledged he picked up the term 'charter' from Ray Budde. In 1974 Budde had written a paper for the Northeast Regional Lab titled "Education by Charter". Ted Kolderie here recounts Budde's reaction to what developed from Budde's original idea, with lessons for today’s policy leaders on the virtues of diligence, patience, deference and humility.

SUBJECTS: Charter, Budde, history, Shanker

Reflections on Forty Years in the Profession. (pdf)

The late Albert Shanker, long-time president of the American Federation of Teachers, looks back over his then 40 years in the profession. In this little-known 1991 retrospective he was realistic about the economics of the union's traditional strategy—higher salaries and smaller class size. He looks toward others ways of accomplishing their goals: differentiated staffing, the individualization of learning through technology, project-based learning, performance-based assessment and extrinisic as well as intrinsic incentives. Altogether, an astonishing paper.

SUBJECTS: Shanker, teacher professionalism, unions, strategy

Resisting the temptation to 'comprehensive' action (pdf)

It's easy to be lured into regulation as a strategy. Everyone sees the problem is complex. From this comes an impulse to control all its elements; coordinating action toward a comprehensive solution. Everyone sees the importance of improvement. From this comes an impulse to command improvement. Together these produce the 'blueprints' we so often see: lists of actions all of which must be taken, in a certain order, over an extended period of time. But in the public sector blueprints usually fail. In this fascinating talk Professor Lindblom explains how limited is the 'mechanism of central authority' and why nevertheless this approach continues to tempt so many policy thinkers.

SUBJECTS: Change, systems, incentives, leadership

Response to Intervention: An Alternative to Traditional Eligibility Criteria for Students with Disabilities. (pdf)

This report describes and provides a review of the research on an alternative learning model called Response to Intervention (RTI). Under this model, student performance data are gathered frequently and are immediately available to teachers, psychologists and others. The data are then available to help evaluate that effectiveness of the instruction strategies being used and, when warranted, spur modifications in teaching and learning models that can produce better results.

SUBJECTS: Special education, alternative model, assessment

Rethinking the Student-Centered Classroom: Personalization and the Type II Application of Technology

Modern technologies, if applied properly, can personalize the process of learning for students without significantly increasing labor costs of the adult worker, the teacher. Before this can happen educators must understand there are distinct ways that technologies can be applied pedagogically, therefore maximizing its potential. The classifications of Type I and Type II, developed by Cleborne Maddux and LaMont Johnson, help in this regard.
Type I applications use technology to make traditional teaching methods easier or more efficient, while those uses that are classified as Type II make possible teaching and learning in new and fundamentally different ways. This article defines the professors' conceptual work, provides context, and applies it to the pedagogical goal of bringing learning to the level of each student: what we commonly call personalization.

SUBJECTS: charter, chartering, technology, project based learning, Type II, Type two, customization, personalization, Learning Management Systems, classification, center, student-centered

Shifting from "What We Spend" to "How We Spend It"

The total cost of the education system is rising at about 5 to 8 percent per year. If schools are not at the same time increasing "performance" or "productivity," their real cost to the public is increasing. This relationship is not sustainable. To reconcile this problem, schools will need to be designed differently.

SUBJECTS: finance, innovation, sustainability

Should require . . . Should require . . .

The old wisdom is that "All controls tend to spread". This process appears to be operating in the discussion under way about reauthorizing the national legislation enacted in 2002: "No Child Left Behind", a law setting an objective and trying to implement it with 'requirements' laid on states, districts, schools and students. A panel set up by the Aspen Institute has now proposed extending and reinforcing the notion of improvement through regulation.

SUBJECTS: Summary of commission report

States are creating a non-district sector of public education. (pdf)

Essentially with chartering the states are creating a new sector within the framework of public education—different both from the district sector and from private education. This graphic shows the two sectors of public education, as distinguished from private education.

SUBJECTS: Charter, districts

States Will Have to Withdraw the Exclusive. (pdf)

Written as Minnesota was in the early stages of thinking about what would a year later become the first chartering law, this paper zeroed in on "the exclusive franchise" as the heart of the K-12 system-problem. No change, no major improvement in learning, was realistically possible, Kolderie said, until the states withdrew the guarantee of success—for the districts and for the people in them—created by the public-utility arrangement traditional in public education.

SUBJECTS: State strategy, K-12 system, incentives, franchise

Staying In!! Youth on the path to quitting school explain why motivation is central to learning and graduating. (pdf)

"Staying In!!" examines the experiences of some youths who quit school, were attending a school with a low graduation rate, or were on the path to quitting. It describes their human, and democratic, desire to choose whether or not they will learn. Once engaged, they do learn better. It finds that different things motivate different students to choose learning; that no one factor is likely to motivate all students to learn well. It’s possible that states now doing best with motivation are those allowing for the creation of new and fundamentally different schools, advancing customization in addition to high standards for learning.

Students Respond: Should K-12 Policy By Redirected Toward Innovation? (HTML)

E|E asserts that student motivation is critically relevant to K-12 policy. The country has radically changed the assignment to its schools. A system earlier told to expand access to learning is now told it must ensure that students learn. But, what do young people think of E|E's assertion? Here is an overview of five students' responses.

SUBJECTS: motivation, student voices

Stunning advances in digital electronics

Rapidly in recent years the cost of information technology has been falling while the storage-capacity and the speed-of-processing have been rising. The numbers, the rate of improvement, are just astonishing. Yet the conventional approach to improving schooling scarcely looks this direction. It is time now to capture this potential.

SUBJECTS: technology, computers,

Teacher Partnerships and Teacher Unions. (pdf)

A teacher from Milwaukee describes for the Teacher Union Reform Network the arrangement in Milwaukee—a variation on Wisconsin's chartering law—that gives a partnership of professional teachers full authority and responsibility for the school while protecting both the teachers and the union on the economic front.

SUBJECTS: Professional partnerships, unions, TURN, Cris Parr

Teachers in Professional Practice: An inventory of new opportunities for teachers (Second Edition). (pdf)

This 2006 inventory of existing and developing teacher professional partnerships (TPPs) documents growing interest in a professional model of teaching. The inventory describes several teacher professional partnership models, offering a useful overview of the many ways in which teacher partnerships are organizing and functioning.

Teachers propose eliminating 31 jobs to improve their pay in Forest Lake. (pdf)

A newspaper reporter discovered a letter from the union to the board of education, offering to sacrifice 31 teachers' jobs in order to generate revenue for the salary settlement.

SUBJECTS: Finance, unions, budget cuts, sustainability

Tech-savvy students stuck in text-dominated schools: A summary of available research on student attitudes, perceptions, and behavior. (pdf)

"Tech Savvy..." summarizes available literature reporting student attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors when it comes to using digital technology, particularly for learning. The report describes our increasingly tech-savvy students and the various ways in which they use computers and the Internet. It outlines students’ frustrations with our still-text-dominated schools. Students suggest how education policymakers and school designers could better meet their needs.

SUBJECTS: Internet, technology, customization

The Case for Decentralized Management. (pdf)

Notes from a workshop on school-based management. Ron Hubbs, former chairman and CEO of a major insurance company, tries to explain to superintendents why it really is better to let people closer to the working-level make most of the decisions. There's an astonishing response from one superintendent present.

SUBJECTS: School-based management, decentralization, superintendents

The Coolest School in America: How Small Learning Communities Are Changing Everything. (pdf)

What is the experience of students who attend schools with project-based learning programs? This study of the graduates of Minnesota New Country School, a 7-12 chartered school that has no formal classes but rather supports student-directed projects, offers students’ perspectives about the school's effects on students’ project-based skills, individual responsibility, resilience/persistence skills, reflection skills, and relationship skills.

SUBJECTS: New Country School, project-based learning

The current theory of action contains a critical flaw

The current national strategy took both the arrangement of the K-12 institution and the traditional concept of school as given; assumed the problem was a 'performance' problem, and looked to a new framework of accountability—regulation—to get the institution and the schools to do-better. But it might be that the problem is, instead, a 'design' problem and that both the institution and the traditional concept of 'school' need fundamental change.

SUBJECTS: Strategy, NCLB, accountability

The Importance of Incentives and Rewards in Education. (pdf)

Albert Shanker said when visiting Saint Paul’s ‘Saturn’ school in 1991: “People in other fields dislike change too. But they have to do it. We in education don’t. Because for us nothing is at stake.” The absence of an internal dynamic for change is what has led so many of the advocates for improvement to mandates. Frustrated, they fall back on the idea that we can make kids learn well and can make teachers teach well. Perhaps it might be better to find what is blocking change inside K-12, and to change that.

SUBJECTS: Incentives, Shanker, change, union, teachers

The Internet and Education: Findings of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. (link)

The Internet has become an increasingly important feature of the learning environment for teenagers. Research by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in November and December 2000 shows that teens use the Internet as an essential study aid outside the classroom and that the Internet increasingly has a place inside the classroom.

SUBJECTS: Technology, students, internet, learning

The national government 'acts' by tying regulations to its grants-in-aid. This has not always worked well.

K-12 education exists in state law; cannot be reached by Congressional legislation or by action of the President. Typically, in these areas of domestic policy, the national government tries to 'do things' by tying requirements to its grants-in-aid. This approach has failed, in the past; as in the 1960s when the national government tried to take control of urban and metropolitan development. Ted Kolderie told the story in his book: Creating the Capacity for Change.

SUBJECTS: Strategy, change, NCLB

The Other Half of the Strategy: Following Up on System Reform by Innovating with School and Schooling. (pdf)

System-level reforms like standards, accountability, choice and chartering make it more necessary and more possible for schools to succeed with learning. But these reforms do not by themselves affect achievement. Kids learn from what they read, see, hear and do. So success in the effort at improvement requires capitalizing now on the system-level changes with a major effort to create new forms of school and schooling. Those who prefer conventional school should be able to stay with conventional school. But the traditional must not suppress the innovative. The strategy beyond NCLB should be such a 'split screen' strategy, transforming K-12 gradually as new models gradually replace the old models of school.

SUBJECTS: innovation, strategy, new forms of school

Visit chartered schools online.

The Center for Education Reform has compiled this state-by-state directory of chartered school web sites.

SUBJECTS: Schools, charter, websites

We cannot get the schools we need by changing the schools we have

We overestimate the ability of leadership to change organizations in more than incremental ways, Joe Graba told a national meeting of foundations in April 2004. The internal culture heavily constrains change. So does the 'satisfaction' of the organization's best customers. Most change comes through the creation of new organizations. The lesson here is basic both for state policymakers and for district boards of education.

SUBJECTS: Strategy, new schools, foundations

We need a taxonomy so we can talk about, evaluate, schools as schools

Much of the discussion about 'what's working' suggests that students learn because the school is public, private, district, charter, parochial or whatever. This is bizarre: Clearly, students learn from what goes on in the school; from its curriculum, pedagogy, materials and teachers. The discussion falls back on 'jurisdictional status', becomes simply political, because we have no set of concepts, no language, that lets us talk about schools as schools. The field of education research has never -- astonishingly -- developed a systematic and orderly way to describe and classify the subject of its study. Now, working with Education|Evolving and with help from the Spencer Foundation, a University of Minnesota researcher developed a framework that sets out characteristics and variables that researchers and evaluators can use. Hopefully, next, researchers will 'go out into the field and collect specimens' and organize these to create at last a taxonomy of schools. This becomes more and more important as schools become more and more different.

SUBJECTS: Schools, evaluation, research

What is a Teacher Professional Partnership? (pdf)

In most occupations we consider, ‘professional’ people do have the opportunity to work with partners in single- or multi-specialty groups they collectively own. But not in education. For heaven’s sake, why not? This is Chapter One from Teachers As Owners. Purchase the full book at Amazon.com.

SUBJECTS: Teachers, professional, partnerships,

Who Should Adapt: Students to School or School to Students? (pdf)

The discussion about education policy is dominated by people who themselves did well in school and who think as a result that ‘school’ must be OK and that students should adjust to it and do-better in it. Students—especially those who have quit or who have switched into ‘alternative’ programs—give a different view. But nobody much listens to them, or thinks the principal job is to adapt school to the students. This 1996 piece was written as a plea to people in the policy discussion to pause a moment and to “doubt a little of their own infallibility” on this important question.

SUBJECTS: Students, learning, school, change

Windows on the Next Generation of Charter Schools and Chartering. (pdf)

Jon Schroeder looks to the next generation of chartered schools and the environment in which they will live. He speaks on the need to diversify and create new charter school sponsors, to document the progress of existing chartered schools, to find ways to finance school facilities and pupil transportation and new ways to organize and finance extra-curricular activities.

SUBJECTS: Chartering, policy, sponsor, authorizer, financing

Young people today are skilled with digital electronics. National Education Technology Plan. (link)

Students understand the intricacies and opportunities presented by the technological revolution better than many teachers and administrators who did not grow up with the Internet. Susan Patrick, Director of the Office of Educational Technology, outlines the U.S. Department of Education's effort to solicit input from students.This site includes student-produced movies, blogs, and a series of streaming video clips.

SUBJECTS: Technology, students, US Department

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Student Voices publications

Visit the Student Voices Site »

Academic competitions are a learning experience outside school. (pdf)

What do students' choices for outside-of-school learning tell us about how we could design in-school learning models and education policy? Academic competitions are a largely-unexplored and little-understood aspect of student learning. Such competitions deserve additional attention from academic researchers, professional educators, and education policy leaders to better determine how students learn, what motivates students, and what skills and experiences are most relevant to the real world.

SUBJECTS: International competitions, non-school learning

Alternative-education programs: The quiet giant in Minnesota public education. (pdf)

Even those close to education policy were astonished by the size and growth-rate of 'alternative education'. Districts have been creating these new schools since the 1970s for "kids not doing well" in 'regular' school. This report includes quotes from alternative school students reflecting on their schools.

SUBJECTS: Alternative schools, Minnesota

Interviews with Minnesota alternative school students, 2002. (pdf)

Complete interview notes from conversations with students at a 2002 conference of student leaders from Minnesota alternative schools. For a separate brief of student voices entered into Minnesota House Testimony, click here.

SUBJECTS: Alternative, MAAP

Listening to Student Voices. (pdf)

Much might be learned about the design for schooling, if researchers and policymakers were to listen to what the students say. This has not been the tradition: How often do you see students participating in important discussions about education, about school and about policy? In this report, student-researchers at Avalon (chartered) High School in Saint Paul challenge adults to start allowing consumer input to be a driver in efforts to increase students’ motivation to attend, to learn and to graduate. Since publication, the students presented their findings to the Twin Cities Citizens League and to a conference of superintendents from throughout the state of California.

SUBJECTS: Motivation, teaching, adapt

Minnesota Students Describe Their Chartered School Experiences. (pdf)

At the Charter School Student Summit held in St. Paul in December 2004, students discussed, in small groups, their experiences attending Minnesota chartered schools. This document summarizes their discussions.

SUBJECTS: Achievement,

Positive school culture is key for students and their families in Minnesota's chartered schools

'Positive school culture' describes in detail ten of the most unconventional schools appearing in Minnesota since legislators passed the state's chartering law in 1991. Opinions from students who attended the schools make clear that many families who choose fundamentally different schools are first seeking a positive school culture. To these Minnesota families, a school's success is measured by far more than its average test scores.

SUBJECTS: Parents, choice decisions

Staying In!! Youth on the path to quitting school explain why motivation is central to learning and graduating. (pdf)

"Staying In!!" examines the experiences of some youths who quit school, were attending a school with a low graduation rate, or were on the path to quitting. It describes their human, and democratic, desire to choose whether or not they will learn. Once engaged, they do learn better. It finds that different things motivate different students to choose learning; that no one factor is likely to motivate all students to learn well. It’s possible that states now doing best with motivation are those allowing for the creation of new and fundamentally different schools, advancing customization in addition to high standards for learning.

Students inform legislators: What's important to understand about chartered schools and what motivates student learning? (pdf)

At the Charter School Student Summit held in St. Paul in December 2004, students discussed the growth and challenges facing the charter movement nationally and reflected on Dr. Howard Fuller’s theory that there can be greater capacity to achieve needed change in public education via chartered schools. Students also discussed their own experiences in chartered schools and exchanged their ideas for improvement of the sector. At the end of the summit, evaluations asked students to inform legislators about chartered schools and what motivates them to learn. Their feedback is summarized in this document.

Students object to standardized testing: Sampling of articles supports using other learning measures. (pdf)

While many students take standardized tests to meet graduation requirements, or simply because they’re told by adults that they must take the test, some conscientious objectors have emerged. This document summarizes their reasons, as reported in an admittedly unscientific sampling of newspaper articles from across the nation (all of which can be downloaded in the standards & testing section of our links page).

Students Respond: Should K-12 Policy By Redirected Toward Innovation? (HTML)

E|E asserts that student motivation is critically relevant to K-12 policy. The country has radically changed the assignment to its schools. A system earlier told to expand access to learning is now told it must ensure that students learn. But, what do young people think of E|E's assertion? Here is an overview of five students' responses.

SUBJECTS: motivation, student voices

Tech-savvy students stuck in text-dominated schools: A summary of available research on student attitudes, perceptions, and behavior. (pdf)

"Tech Savvy..." summarizes available literature reporting student attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors when it comes to using digital technology, particularly for learning. The report describes our nation’s increasingly tech-savvy students and the various ways in which they use computers and the Internet. It outlines students’ frustrations with our still-text-dominated schools. Students suggest how education policy and school designers could better meet their needs.

SUBJECTS: Internet, technology, customization

What matters to students and their performance? (pdf)

Current students and recent graduates of Minnesota chartered schools say they may have dropped out had they not left conventional schools to attend new and different schools. While all of the students appreciated improved relationships with teachers and peers, their different schools, in different ways, enhanced the students’ ability and motivation to learn. Read more in these notes from a panel of students at "The Changing Definition of ‘School’ and ‘Schooling’," a national leadership conversation hosted by Education|Evolving in 2006.

SUBJECTS: Students, motivation, dropout

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Sponsor Network publications

Visit the Sponsor Network Site »

Age3/Grade3 Schools: A new approach to early literacy

It would be wonderful to close the achievement gap...before there is one. Now when children walk into elementary school for the first time the achievement gap is so large that some never recover. The "Age 3 to Grade 3 Model" restructures the school, using existing financing, so that the literacy spans the 'early' years and the 'school' years. The model calls for restructuring child care, Head Start and other pre-K initiatives. Kindergarten literacy readiness is defined based on the "Individual Growth and Development Indicators (IGDI's)." Grade 1-3 reading targets are based on the AIMSweb passages aligned with state standards (r < .75). Response to Intervention (RtI) is used through the entire school. Training, coaching and mentoring is provided frequently to all staff.

SUBJECTS: early childhood, literacy, chartering

Cost of Sponsoring MN Charter Schools. (pdf)

Chartering cannot work without quality sponsoring/authorizing. Quality sponsoring requires good systems, competent people and time. That means: money. We studied what it cost three Minnesota sponsors to review applications, develop contracts and oversee schools, over a three-year period. The financial commitment varies as the functions performed change from year to year. We believe that when it was completed this was the only study of its kind in the United States.

SUBJECTS: Authorizers, sponsoring

District-Initiated Chartered Schools. (pdf)

Some districts see chartering as a part of their strategy for change and improvement. Here we review three Minnesota districts that sponsor chartered schools: Faribault, Hopkins and Waseca. The 'common market' approach - pooling the courses, facilities, programs and transportation of district, chartered, private and home schooling in Faribault is particularly striking.

SUBJECTS: District-chartering

Response to Intervention: An Alternative to Traditional Eligibility Criteria for Students with Disabilities. (pdf)

One of the aspects of education that has remained almost unchanged during the past 30 years is the special education process. The "Response to Intervention (RtI)" model is a lifeline to practices that will result in fewer students being referred for special education evaluation, it removes the reliance on discriminatory IQ tests and other norm referenced tests from the evaluation model and instead initiates "problem solving" strategies and frequently collected data used to inform instruction in regular classrooms. RtI requires the kind of "testing" that teachers learn to love. RtI brings special education into the classroom with the rest of education rather than having it's "private segregated silo." RtI is a significant improvement but schools are slow to grasp this new opportunity. This document discusses why this model is actually "whole school reform" and how it brings together NCLB, special education, ELL and other programs providing academic support to students.

SUBJECTS: Special education, alternative model, assessment

Restructuring Our High Schools for the 21st Century: Creating ‘Grade 11-13’ Schools. (pdf)

The current model of "high school" exists in its current design because....that's the way it always has been; holding students through 12th grade even if they can move faster. In 1988 the Minnesota Post-secondary Enrollment Options Program (PSEO) broke the myth that only a few bright high school students could possibly do well in college-level work. The Grade 11-13 model does more than let students take college classes....it restructures both the high school and the first year of college, un-duplicating the curriculum. Pre-calculus is only a college course as is French 4 and Astronomy. High school classes are the general education or intro courses. By the mid-11th grade, all students are taking college level classes. Some students might not graduate from high school. Does it matter that they do not have a high school diploma if they have a college degree?

SUBJECTS: High School, Grade 11-13

School Boards and Teachers Have Choices, Too. (pdf)

When people think about 'choice they probably think first about students and families. But school boards have options, too; have several ways to arrange its offerings. The school board need not feel that the only schools that are its schools are the schools it owns and runs. Schools the board charters are, equally, part of its program of local public education. And sometimes it is easier for a board to change its program through chartering than by an effort to change an existing, administered school. Teachers, too, have more choices than they might think. By forming professional partnerships teachers can move into real professional roles. See the TPP section of this site.

SUBJECTS: Boards, charters, district strategy

Sponsor/School Contract

The most important decisions are reflected in the contract developed between the school and the sponsor. The contract details both the accountability of the school and the responsibilities of the sponsor—and the accountability of the sponsor to the school. Accountability includes: the mission/goals of the school; governance; student and school performance; finance; and operations. For each there are performance measures, with special performance measures for the start-up year when the school is getting organized.

SUBJECTS: sponsoring, authorizing, contract

Sponsoring Chartered Schools: A Planning Tool for Sponsors. (pdf)

When an organization considers whether to charter a school it frequently does not understand what sponsoring involves, or know its own capability to be a good sponsor. This Planning Tool for Sponsors is actually an organization-analysis tool. It identifies the numerous sponsoring duties; asks whether the organization has the capacity to perform each responsibility, who in the organization would perform the responsibility, whether time is available for them to do so, and estimates the cost.

SUBJECTS: Authorizing, Sponsoring, chartering

Sponsoring Charters: A Resource Guide for Minnesota Chartering Agencies. (pdf)

This is a step-by-step analysis of sponsoring, from the decision to sponsor through the stages of public information, application review and contract development. It covers how to assist and oversee the school, down to the point of charter renewal. Since sponsoring (authorizing) is a new concept in most states, it is important to define organizational responsibilities. This clarifies the relationships and duties of the state department of education, the sponsor and the board of the chartered school. It explains a new way a sponsor can produce a new schools: This is the 'Sponsor-Initiated School'. Rather than wait for a proposal to be submitted to it, the sponsor determines the types of schools it wants to have created; then requests proposals from around the country (or around the world). The sponsor then selects from the very best proposals and awards them chartered school status.

SUBJECTS: Charters, authorizers, sponsors, accountability

Standards for Quality Sponsoring of Chartered Schools. (pdf)

This guide and self-evaluation rubric is intended to identify the indicators for quality charter school sponsoring in Minnesota, specify the criteria that defines each indicator, identify the incentives for why a sponsor would want to meet the quality sponsoring indicators, and develop a process by which sponsors can ascertain whether they are meeting these quality indicators.

SUBJECTS: sponsoring, sponsor guides

Volunteers of America "Charter School Sponsor Guide." (pdf)

This guide was developed by VOA-Minnesota as an example of what a sponsor guide might look like. VOA is one of Minnesota's largest and most competent sponsors. The guide demonstrates that "sponsoring" is a transparent process and is ongoing. The performance of a chartered school develops, improves; so should the sponsor's oversight of the school. The VOA Guide includes its actual review procedures from beginning to....never an end!

SUBJECTS: sponsoring, authorizing, accountability

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Teacher Partnerships publications

Visit the Teacher Partnerships Site »

Democratic Learning and Leading: Creating Collaborative School Governance. (pdf)

The above link is an excerpt from this book. In selections from this title, Ronald J. Newell and Irving H. Buchen describe the collaborative culture and democratic-governance structure embodied and promoted by EdVisions Cooperative—a teacher professional partnership. They describe how the collaborative school governance model works in practice, the critical success factors, and the perceptions of teachers who are actively engaged in the democratic practice.

SUBJECTS: School governance, teacher collaboration

How a Public School Looks When Managed by a Teacher Partnership

There's growing interest in improving (as some say) the "management of human capital" in education: teacher recruitments, teacher-retention, teacher compensation, teacher accountability. Usually this suggests 'better administration' in the standard boss/worker model. Yet it's possible these decisions might be made with greater integrity by teachers themselves within the framework of a professional partnership. This interview with Carrie Bakken is the most revealing look we've ever had at the way a teacher partnership handles the professional and the management issues in running a public school.

SUBJECTS: Teacher partnership, Teacher motivation, professionalism

Leased vs. Owned Departments (and Some Implications for Schools). (pdf)

Teachers, principals, superintendents, union leaders listen to an executive describe how a department store is a combination of ‘owned’ and ‘leased’ departments. Ted Kolderie shares his notes from the discussion. “We could organize a high school like this!”

SUBJECTS: School organization, decentralization, leadership

National Meeting on Teacher Ownership: Concept and Implications. (pdf)

Visitors look at a chartered school in Minnesota that has no employees—as well as no courses and no classes. Notes of the discussion at a national meeting at Hamline University in September 2001.

SUBJECTS: Teachers, partnerships, governance, professionalism

Professional Control of Practice: Physicians and Teachers. (pdf)

The medical director of a big multi-specialty hospital/medical group—in which the doctors are employees—describes how the professional and ‘business’ decisions are divided between physicians and managers. Ted Kolderie’s notes from a conversation with Dr. George Isham.

SUBJECTS: Teachers, school governance

Reflections on Forty Years in the Profession. (pdf)

The late Albert Shanker, long-time President of the American Federation of Teachers, summarizes public education over his then 40 years in the profession. He reviews years of teacher negotiations and identifies the unfair placement of responsibility and blame on teachers, as opposed to the system which under-funds and denies support. Shanker challenges the current structure of the education system with respect to meeting the needs of individual students, and ends with strong support for public education, noting its important place in U.S. ideals of equality and diversity.

SUBJECTS: Shanker, teacher professionalism, unions, strategy

Teacher Partnerships and Teacher Unions. (pdf)

A teacher from Milwaukee describes for the Teacher Union Reform Network the arrangement in Milwaukee—a variation on Wisconsin's chartering law—that gives a partnership of professional teachers full authority and responsibility for the school while protecting both the teachers and the union on the economic front.

SUBJECTS: Professional partnerships, unions, TURN, Cris Parr

Teacher Professional Partnerships: A Different Way to Help Teachers and Teaching. (pdf)

A brief and simple introduction to the notion of teacher professional partnerships. Teachers could have and should have the option to work if they wish—as many architects and engineers and consults and accountants and lawyers and doctors do—with colleagues, in a professional group which they collectively own, with the administrators working for them. Also, read what teachers have to say about what its like to work in a TPP.

An up-to-date version of the inventory of Teacher Professional Partnerships is maintained online here.

Teacher Professional Partnerships: Books and Media Source List. (pdf)

Click here for an HTML version of this document, with links to several of the resources.
Several articles and book-chapters have written up the teacher partnership/cooperative idea (in addition to what is provided on this Web site). Updated June 2006.

Teachers in Professional Practice: An inventory of new opportunities for teachers (Second Edition). (pdf)

This 2006 inventory of existing and developing teacher professional partnerships (TPPs) documents growing interest in a professional model of teaching. The inventory describes several teacher professional partnership models, offering a useful overview of the many ways in which teacher partnerships are organizing and functioning.

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