Big Ideas for Education

Opportunity at the Top: How America's Best Teachers Could Close the Gaps, Raise the Bar, and Keep Our Nation Great

OpportunityTHUMB80Even if current reform efforts to recruit more great teachers and dismiss low performers were wildly successful, nearly two-thirds of children still would not have great teachers. But if we add high-performer retention and reach extension, 87 percent of classes could be taught by gap-closing, bar-raising teachers—in a mere half decade. This outcome is within our reach—but only if we vastly expand the opportunities for top teachers.
 

3X for All: Extending the Reach of Education’s Best

3x_for_All_cvr_100 [pdf] Instead of just trying to recruit more great teachers, what if we could reach dramatically more children with the great teachers we already have? This report explores ways we could redesign teachers’ roles and use technology to give millions more students access to the best teachers.
 

Going Exponential: Growing the Charter School Sector’s Best

Going-Exponential_2011-1The supply of seats in the nation’s best charter schools is not growing rapidly enough to serve the millions of low-income children who need better schools.  Based on lessons from the fastest growing organizations in other sectors, this report for the Progressive Policy Institute provides breakthrough solutions for growing the best charter schools and charter management organizations. With specific advice for charter sector leaders, policymakers and philanthropists, Going Exponential offers strategies that could enable every child living in poverty to have access to schools as good as today’s top ten percent charter schools by 2025. Recommendations address the major barriers limiting growth of the sector’s best, such as scarcity of excellent school leaders, funding for growth, and motivation of charter leaders to grow while maintaining excellence.
 

Performance Guarantees in Education: Shifting Risk to Create Opportunity

PerformanceGuaranteesEducationcover[pdf]  In this report, authors Bryan Hassel and Daniela Doyle note that to improve upon the successes of entrepreneurial providers and raise student achievement, more districts and states must be willing to give new education services a chance. Districts, however, are hesitant to hand over schools and school functions to outsiders. The authors suggest that performance guarantees, similar to car warranties or a home builder's bonded contracts, could provide an incentive for districts to experiment with new services by shifting risk from the district to the provider. The report explores a range of design issues that districts, providers, and investors could work through as they set up viable performance guarantees.
 

Stimulating Excellence: Unleashing the Power of Innovation in Education

education_entrepreneurs [pdf] A small number of highly-successful entrepreneurial ventures in education have begun to transform schools with innovative solutions that have extraordinary potential to serve students more efficiently and effectively. Yet federal, state and local policies often hinder these types of innovations. This report, written by Julie Kowal and Bryan C. Hassel and jointly released by Public Impact, the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for American Progress, and New Profit Inc., offers politically viable solutions to address these barriers.
 
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Going Exponential

How could every low-income child have access to the very best schools by 2025?
Click here to find out

Opportunity Culture

How a new focus on America’s best teachers could close the achievement gaps, raise the bar, and keep our nation great.
Read More

Try, Try Again

Triple Your Turnaround Success Rate... Without Getting Better at Turning Around Schools.
Find out how here. (pdf)

3X for All

What would it take for every child to have an outstanding teacher, every year?

Click here to see our white paper (pdf):
 3X for All: Extending the Reach of Education’s Best.

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