Exhibiting at the National Charter Schools Conference

The campaign staff is in New Orleans today for the kickoff of the National Charter Schools Conference. The conference is the only national gathering of the entire charter school community with about 3,000 participating teachers, principals, policymakers, state leaders, funders, advocates, and researchers. My staff tells me there will be over 100 breakout sessions, 50 peer-to-peer roundtable discussions, and an exhibition floor.

ED in '08 will have a presence at the event with a booth in the exhibit hall and Adam Thibault, our policy director, will be leading a breakout session including clips from the education documentary, Two Million Minutes.

The campaign understands the important role that charter schools play in education reform and, as a result, has created a new one-pager on how charter schools can be a pathway for innovation. Here's a short excerpt:

Our schools and students are in trouble; we can no longer wait for the changes that are needed in order to prepare our students for success in college, careers, and life.  Non-traditional public schools, such as charters and magnets, are laboratories for experimentation and innovation, and hold tremendous promise for American students. The successes of many of these innovative schools often rely on some combination of ED in 08’s three policy pillars.  Public school choice that is carefully designed and dutifully implemented can serve as a pathway to implement ED in 08’s three policy pillars:  Common and rigorous standards; effective teachers in every classroom; and more time and support for student learning.

By design, charter schools have control over their own schedules and can create and adjust the school day and year as they see fit.  This gives them a tremendous advantage over the vast majority of public schools that are governed by district schedules, transportation schedules, and labor agreements that stipulate start and end times. The additional time allows these schools to offer more remediation, more enrichment, and more opportunities to develop a culture of high expectations. 

Charter schools represent a pathway to innovation and they can produce some dramatic results through the use of extended learning time and the creation of higher expectations. I look forward to hearing some of the latest best practices from the conference and I'll be sure to upload some photos from the event later this week.

Model Schools

As we've traveled around the country, the campaign has seen some great examples of schools that are using innovation to educate their students. These model schools can serve as a good example for other schools around the country that are looking for ways to improve their students' academic performance.

We're going to be posting our full list of model schools online shortly, but in the meantime I wanted to take a moment and highlight two of the schools on the list and share with you some of the things that they are currently doing:

Interlake High School -- Bellevue, Wash.

In order to ensure all students are prepared for college and work, Interlake implemented a rigorous AP and IB curriculum open to the entire student body, regardless of their academic history. They also eliminated basic math courses and now encourage all students to complete pre-calculus prior to graduating. With consistent student support, especially for entering 9th-grade students who struggled with math in middle school, Interlake has seen the number of 10th-grade students scoring proficient and above in math increase from 49 to 73 percent in just four academic school years.  Additionally, Interlake’s Class of 2007 had an average math SAT score of 550, nineteen points higher than the state average and thirty-two points higher than the national average.

Centennial Place Elementary School -- Atlanta, Ga. 

Centennial Place has a student population that is about 90 percent African-American and 60 percent low-income with a stream of students coming in from a nearby homeless shelter. All but a handful of students have met or exceeded state standards for the past few years, placing the school as one of the top schools in the state. The school utilizes a year-round schedule, meaning additional learning time for students who need it.  Centennial Place has adopted high standards that prepare students for high school and college. Older teachers are paired with newer teachers as mentors and coordinated instruction allows teachers to provide cohesive and coherent lessons. There is professional development on a monthly and yearly basis, and each teacher meets with the principal twice a year to discuss their class data, lesson plans, and plan for meeting standards.

Blogger Summit Wrap-up

P.S. I also wanted to share with you some other video clips from the summit. Feel free to view them and let me know what you think  in the comments. Keep an eye out for more videos from the summit all week long on our YouTube channel.

Here are Huffington Post blogger Dan Brown...

...and Teaching in the 408 Blogger Kilian Betlach:

Exploring KIPP

I mentioned on Monday that this week is National Charter School week and that I would be highlighting some charter school programs. I wanted to start off by pointing out the positive impact on student achievement attained by the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP). For those of you who are less familiar with the program, KIPP is a national network of charter schools serving low-income and minority communities.

The KIPP Academy in Lynn, Mass. has received a “high” in the categories of English Language Arts and Math for the 2007 State performance Rating. The school has also made some great progress particularly in their 6th and 7th grades, which you can find after the jump:

Math Awareness Month

Tomorrow marks the end of Math Awareness Month. Dating back to 1986, the goal of Math Awareness Month is to create public understanding of and appreciation for mathematics. The theme for this year's celebration couldn't be more appropriate – Mathematics and Voting.

From the announcement of the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics:

In a presidential election year, voting is uppermost on our minds. Candidates vie for attention, polls are taken, debates held, blogs written, primaries conducted, and, ultimately, a general election leads to the naming of the next president of the United States. Some of us are deeply engaged in these processes, and some keep them at a distance. Yet, most people wonder at some point: Does my vote matter? Is the election process fair? Are the votes being counted correctly? The answers to these questions involve great complexity, but fortunately, mathematics and statistics provide the means to deal with such complexity.

Math is part of our lives in places we don't even recognize it.  That's why it is critical that Americans put more emphasis and interest on the mathematics skills of our students. As I've pointed out many times before – compared to 30 industrialized nations, the U.S ranks 25th in math.

Check out the Math Awareness Web site – there are plenty of additional resources to download and you can also test your knowledge of math and voting.

Most importantly - let's make it a priority this year to "vote for math."

Singapore Math in the American Classroom

I had the opportunity to attend a forum dedicated to understanding the math curriculum in Singapore. From the results of the TIMMS report in 1999 – it is clear that the way Singapore prepares its students in math is extraordinary. The style and content of the textbooks they utilize to teach their students is something that the United States could benefit from. In fact, many schools, like South River Public Schools in New Jersey, have started incorporating Singapore math textbooks into their curriculum and they’ve found the following results:

In the 3rd grade:

• Advanced proficient scores increased by 12.2 percent
• Proficient scores increased by 3.18 percent
• Partially proficient scores decreased by 15.38 percent

In the 4th grade:

• Advanced proficient scores increased by 8.43 percent
• Proficient scores increased by 1.36 percent
• Partially proficient scores decreased by 9.79 percent

(Source: NJ Ask)

Philadelphia’s Charter Schools

Our team will be leading a discussion of the documentary Two Million Minutes Wednesday at Mastery Charter School in Philadelphia. In gearing up for the upcoming event, I've been giving a lot of thought lately to charter schools. As many of you know, charter schools are founded by parents, educators, community groups or private organizations and they are funded with taxpayer money. Essentially, they operate as deregulated public schools that accept increased accountability in exchange for decreased regulations and requirements.

A colleague of mine came across an interesting working paper published by RAND on "Evaluating the Performance of Philadelphia’s Charter Schools" and I thought I’d share it with you. The paper reports that Philadelphia has seen a dramatic increase in the number of charter schools since 1997. Beginning with only three, the school district now has over 60. The report examines the effects that charter schools have had on student achievement in Philadelphia and its results are quite impressive.

Traditional School Structure Needs Improvement and Innovation

Today, Ted Kolderie, a senior associate at the Center for Policy Studies, commented about the increased need for innovation in education. He says that, "To meet its goals, this country must next undertake a serious effort to develop new forms of school and schooling. It is time to redirect k-12 policy toward innovation." I happen to agree.

America's schools are not keeping pace with the demands of today's world.  Our schools are failing to prepare all students for college, for careers, and for life.  And they are failing to prepare our nation to compete in today's high-tech global economy. As I've mentioned previously, we need to move beyond the traditional schooling method that was instituted over a hundred years ago to a system that will do more to increase and inspire children's learning potential.