Beyond System Reform: The Need for Greater Innovation in School and Schooling

Article • March 2008

A commentary submitted to Education Week, March 12th 2008, summarizing EE’s paper “The Other Half of the Strategy: Following Up on System Reform by Innovating with School and Schooling”.

An Explosion of Pedagogical Agents

Memo • March 2008

The charge to K-12 has shifted from “access” to “achievement.” To meet this challenge, education should be open to new entrants, new authorizers of schools, and new learning programs. This paper argues for teacher-led and other innovations to better serve student needs.

The Other Half of the Strategy: Following Up on System Reform by Innovating with Schooling

Report • February 2008

System-level reforms like standards, accountability, choice and chartering make it more necessary 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.

Education, Microsoft, and the Individual Entrepreneur

Memo • December 2007

This article discusses the role of large corporations such as Microsoft in partnering with independent entrepreneurs in the classroom. Entrepreneur Bob Bilyk, has created an application LodeStar that, with the aid of Microsoft’s Class Server, enables teachers to more effectively customize learning materials to meet students’ individual needs.

Minnesota’s Charter Law is Providing Significant Innovations in School and Schooling

Report • October 2007

Chartering is hailed as providing a space for innovation in public education. However, research and reporting on chartered schools usually focus on test scores and student demographics, and not on the innovations taking place. This report outlines some of the innovations appearing in Minnesota chartered schools.

Teachers as Leaders: Short on Power, Long on Responsibility

Article • September 2007

Richard Ingersoll argues: to upgrade teacher quality, schools need to go beyond just holding teachers more accountable. They need to give teachers more control.

Staying In: Youth Explain Why Motivation is Central to Learning and Graduating

Report • April 2007

This report examines the experiences of youth who quit school or were on the path to quitting. It describes their human, and democratic, desire to choose whether or not they will learn. It finds that once engaged students learn better and that different things motivate different students; no one factor is motivating for all students.

First Thoughts on Sustainability and Productivity

Memo • April 2007

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.

Clearinghouse of Links to Student Voices in K-12

Web Resource • January 2007

Standards for Quality Sponsoring of Chartered Schools

Report • December 2006

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.