New from Public Impact

Stimulating Excellence: Unleashing the Power of Innovation in Education

Investing in Charter Schools: A Guide for Donors

Stimulating Excellence: Unleashing the Power of Innovation in Education

Some highly-successful entrepreneurial ventures in education have begun to transform schools with innovations that serve students more efficiently and effectively. Yet federal, state, and local policies often hinder these types of innovations: rigid bureaucracies, lack of access to capital, limited supply of professional talent, and other barriers inhibit entrepreneurs’ entry and growth. This report, 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. Based on research and interviews with leading education entrepreneurs, it outlines ways in which policymakers can support the success and growth of entrepreneurial problem-solvers, including:

• Collecting and using better information to create a performance culture in K-12 public schools;
• Opening the K-12 education system to a more diverse set of providers;
• Transforming districts and schools into genuine users of entrepreneurial services; and
• Using public policy to encourage financing for entrepreneurial ventures.

Read the full report here.

By Julie Kowal and Bryan C. Hassel

Investing in Charter Schools: A Guide for Donors

Charter schooling remains one of the nation’s most promising efforts to produce more excellent public schools, especially for low-income and minority students. Questions in the charter sector largely focus on quality and expansion: How can we help take the best of the charter sector to scale, while at the same time improving the sector’s standards of quality? Drawing upon the experience of many of the most active charter funders, Public Impact prepared this guidebook for The Philanthropy Roundtable to offer a menu of strategies that donors can use to support a high-quality charter school sector, including:

• Building a robust supply of high-quality new schools;
• Priming the teacher and leader pipeline;
• Addressing critical operational challenges;
• Defining and improving quality standards; and
• Forging charter-friendly public policies.

The guidebook examines these five priorities by describing how current funders are addressing them, providing suggestions for new donors and exploring the next phase of philanthropic support in the charter sector.

Read the full guide here, or see an excerpt in the Roundtable’s magazine Philanthropy.

By Julie Kowal, Bryan C. Hassel, and Sarah Crittenden

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Public Impact is a national education policy and management consulting firm based in Chapel Hill, N.C. We are a small, growing team of researchers, thought leaders, tool-builders, and on-the-ground consultants who help education leaders and policymakers improve student learning in K-12 education. We believe that if we focus on a core set of promising strategies for change, we can make dramatic improvements for all students.

To see all Public Impact resources, visit www.publicimpact.com.

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If unable to use links above, copy and paste the addresses below into your web browser:

Stimulating Excellence: Unleashing the Power of Innovation in Educationhttp://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/05/pdf/education_entrepreneurs.pdf

Investing in Charter Schools: A Guide for Donorshttp://publicimpact.com/publications/Investing_in_Charter_Schools__A_Guide_for_Donors.pdf