Creating Opportunity Schools: A Bold Plan to Transform Indianapolis Public Schools

The report, prepared by Public Impact for The Mind Trust, outlines a comprehensive plan for transforming Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) by shrinking and redefining the role of the central office, and redirecting responsibility and tens of millions of dollars in funding for services from the central office to schools. The plan also describes how IPS can create the conditions needed to support and grow successful schools, including talent development, new school incubation, universal Pre-K, and extensive autonomy at the school level over curriculum, staffing, budget, and other key decisions. The report concludes that mayoral accountability offers the best option for IPS to realize the vision set out in this bold plan.

Student-Based Budgeting: A Better Way to Fund Students and Performance

In a two-part policy report, Partnership for Learning partnered with Public Impact to assess the state of school finance in Washington and explore the benefits student-based budgeting (SBB) could have for the state. Part one analyzes how Washington currently allocates funding, explains how the current funding model falls short, and describes how SBB would be a better alternative. Part two includes an extensive analysis of the state’s most recent school finance data and the impact an SBB model could have on district-level funding. The site also includes a simulator that allows users to develop their own SBB formula and a motion graph that allows users to visually explore how the relationship between student characteristics and funding would shift if Washington adopted an SBB model.

Incubating High-Quality Charter Schools: Innovations in City-Based Organizations

[pdf] Charter incubation is the process of intentionally building the supply of high-quality schools and charter management organizations by recruiting, selecting, training, and supporting promising leaders as they launch new charter schools. This white paper identifies and analyzes four critical focus areas for charter incubators: attracting and developing effective school or CMO leaders; partnering strategically to help leaders open and operate high-quality charter schools and CMOs; championing school leaders in the community; and coordinating advocacy to support new charter leaders. The authors distilled these four areas from research and discussions with members of the Cities for Education Entrepreneurship Trust (CEE-Trust), an initiative of Indianapolis-based education reform organization The Mind Trust . The white paper discusses these focus areas and presents innovative responses by CEE-Trust members to the challenges of charter incubation in each area. This white paper is part of a three-piece series continuing the discussion from a National Charter School Resource Center / U.S. Department of Education conference exploring emerging city-based movements that embrace high-quality charters as an integral component of their reform strategy. On September 21, 2011, Joe Ableidinger joined Ethan Gray, vice president of The Mind Trust and director of CEE-Trust, to offer a webinar based on the white paper, Expanding the Supply of High-Quality Charter Schools: Innovations in Incubation, available through the National Charter School Resource Center at http://www.charterschoolcenter.org/webinar/expanding-supply-high-quality-charter-schools-innovations-incubation.

Expanding the Supply of High-Quality Charter Schools: Innovations in Incubation

This webinar explores charter school incubation, a promising strategy for intentionally accelerating the growth of high-quality charter schools by recruiting, selecting, training, and supporting promising leaders as they launch new schools. Presenters discuss the need for incubation, the promise of incubation, and some of the early evidence from established incubators. They introduce Cities for Education Entrepreneurship Trust (CEE-Trust), an initiative of Indianapolis-based education reform organization The Mind Trust, and discuss the work that CEE-Trust members have been doing to incubate new high-quality charter schools. The webinar then details four critical focus areas for charter incubators as described in the companion white paper, Incubating High-Quality Charter Schools: Innovations in City-Based Organizations, and innovative approaches taken by CEE-Trust members in each focus area. Finally, presenters discuss five major policies that policymakers can address to support charter incubation, and how changes in these areas would help incubators.

Policy Research and Development for 50CAN

Public Impact is leading policy research and development to help 50CAN, the 50-state Campaign for Achievement Now, close America’s achievement gaps by building public support for proven models of effective public education. With 50CAN’s first two state affiliates, RI-CAN and MinnCAN, our team is conducting policy research and advising on topics such as educator evaluations, charter school facilities financing, alternative certification, and early learning programs. With the 50CAN team, we are also crafting issue briefs and other publications to explore best practice and research on each reform topic and help build support for change.

Stimulating Excellence: Unleashing the Power of Innovation in Education

[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.

Fund the Student: A Plan to Fix Rhode Island’s Broken Public School Finance System

The Tab: How Connecticut Can Fix its Dysfunctional Education Spending System to Reward Success, Incentivize Choice and Boost Student Achievement