Ventures in the News
Given the great work they are doing, our portfolio ventures are regularly featured in local and national news. Click on the links below to read recent articles showcasing their achievements.
Press Release: Teachers Trained by TNTP Earn Top Ratings for Third Consecutive Year in Louisiana Study: The New Teacher Project Earns Highest Ratings for Preparing Exceptionally Effective Teachers in Math, Reading, English Language Arts and Science
NEW ORLEANS - The New Teacher Project’s teacher preparation program consistently ranks among Louisiana’s most effective, according to the third-year results of a state-sponsored study by researchers at Louisiana State University. TNTP was the only teacher preparation provider in the state to earn the highest possible rating for training effective teachers across four core subjects: math, reading, English language arts and science. According to the study, new teachers trained by the program showed evidence of being “more effective than experienced teachers” in advancing student academic growth in each of these subject areas. New teachers enrolled in TNTP’s Louisiana Practitioner Teacher Program (LPTP) earn their certification during their first year teaching—a rigorous, field-based approach that immediately exposes teachers to the realities of the classroom and accelerates teachers’ post-certification impact on student learning. It is specifically designed to help career changers who are new to teaching be immediately effective in high-need schools. (The New Teacher Project)
New Orleans Schools Seize Post-Katrina Momentum
NEW ORLEANS--As public schools open all over the city this month, you don’t have to look far for signs of how the education landscape here has changed since Hurricane Katrina struck five years ago. There’s the towering billboard visible from Interstate 10 near the Superdome urging families to enroll at Sophie B. Wright Charter School, just one example of the dominant place charters now fill in New Orleans’ mix of schools. There are the arrays of portable classrooms that still serve as homes for some schools awaiting permanent facilities….. “We’re experiencing a dramatic increase in academic achievement,” said Paul G. Pastorek, the state superintendent of public instruction. “But perhaps more importantly, we have a revival of public schools in New Orleans. And it’s a revival that has a lot of legs.” .… Mr. Pastorek said another significant change is the influx of talented people from outside New Orleans who are now leading or teaching in the city’s schools. “We’ve been successful in creating a pipeline of talent to New Orleans that we’ve never been able to attract before,” he said, citing as examples the work of nonprofit organizations such as Teach For America, The New Teacher Project, and New Leaders for New Schools. “We have an environment where innovation and creativity is paramount. It’s welcomed, it’s nurtured. People see what’s happening, and they want to be here.” (Education Week – subscription required)
Katrina rewrites the book on education in New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS--Of all the things damaged by the storm and subsequent levee breaches, public education has arguably undergone the most far-reaching makeover. Most New Orleans schools were seized by the state and transformed into independently managed charters. Thousands of teachers were fired, and their union contract was never renewed. In a matter of months, the pre-Katrina New Orleans school system, infamous for corruption, rock-bottom academic performance and feces-smeared restrooms, was no more. On the fifth anniversary of Katrina, the city is in the midst of a vast educational experiment, with the futures of its most disadvantaged children at stake. Nearly three-quarters of the public schools are now charters, making New Orleans the first majority-charter city in the country and giving rise to a free-enterprise landscape that has spurred innovation but also created tiers of haves and have-nots. Test scores as a whole have risen rapidly, but some schools are performing abysmally, with others comprising a vast middle group, improving but still struggling to teach basic reading and math to low-income students who came in three, four, even five grade levels behind. … For now, Vallas allies like Jacobs wield enormous behind-the-scenes power. Each one of the city’s nearly 60 charter schools has an appointed board whose workings often remain mysterious to the public. Then, there are nonprofits like New Schools for New Orleans, whose names are unknown to the average parent, but who perform vital functions such as training educators and deciding which charters deserve seed money. (Times-Picayune)
Formative assessment that ‘clicks’ with students
NEW YORK--Williamsburg Collegiate Charter School, a member of Uncommon Schools, is the only school in New York City where every student in grades 5-8 passes the state exams. In grades 6-8, 75 percent of the students pass with advanced scores. Mathematics teacher Eric Green attributes this success to high student motivation and engagement. “The traditional procedural approach to math education doesn’t get the students thinking and therefore doesn’t lead to a full conceptual understanding,” said Green. “At Uncommon Schools we’re much more focused on the conceptual component than just showing students how to do it. Supported with direct instruction, our students explore problems and think critically.” (eSchool news)
East Palo Alto school test results soar -- too late: Boost in test scores too late to save Stanford charter school, shuttered in June
EAST PALO ALTO--Success is bittersweet for Stanford University School of Education Dean Deborah Stipek. California Star Test results shot up this spring for students in the Stanford-sponsored charter school, East Palo Alto Academy Elementary School. But results of the May test, posted last week, were too late to save the three-year-old school. Citing poor academic performance, trustees of East Palo Alto's Ravenswood City School District voted April 22 to shut down the charter school. It closed its doors in June. Stanford continues to operate a charter high school in East Palo Alto, the East Palo Alto Academy High School. The Stanford elementary school's approximately 250 students -- who, along with their parents, had packed the Ravenswood trustees' meeting to plead for renewing their school's charter -- will go back to attending neighborhood campuses when the new school year opens this week…. Stipek said the early scores of East Palo Alto Charter School (EPACS) -- now the top-performing public school in East Palo Alto -- were even worse than those of the Stanford school. "If (EPACS) had been judged on the same criteria, they would have been shut down a long time ago and we wouldn't have seen the incredible good work they're doing now," Stipek said. The 13-year-old, K-8 EPACS had a 2009 Academic Performance Index score approaching that of some elementary schools in the Palo Alto Unified School District. With high demand for spots at the public charter school run by Aspire Public Schools, admission to EPACS is by lottery. (Palo Alto Online)
With limited training, Teach for America recruits play expanding role in schools
WASHINGTON--Teach For America, based in New York, was founded in 1990 by a Princeton graduate who hoped to expose future leaders to the problems of education. It enlists college graduates from a variety of academic backgrounds and career interests, not just education majors. The recruits commit to teach for two years in low-income urban and rural public schools. The program was formed to match needy schools with elite teachers from schools such as Harvard, Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley. Its alumni include the founders of the KIPP charter school network, Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, as well as D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee. In an economy in which options have narrowed for new graduates, competition is intense. Applications are up by a third, and just 12 percent of this year's applicants were accepted. Starting pay for teachers rivals that in many other industries; new teachers in D.C. public schools will make $49,000 this year, and possibly more if they participate in a voluntary performance pay program. (Washington Post– registration required)
The 3-Minute Interview: Susan Schaeffler
WASHINGTON--Schaeffler is a former public school teacher who is the founder and CEO of KIPP DC, a group of four academically successful charter schools that are publicly funded and privately operated, and serve more than 800 low-income students in Washington. (Washington Examiner)
Lessons from Locke: Green Dot's takeover of the troubled Watts campus shows that education reform is never easy
LOS ANGELES--As Locke High School prepares for its third year as a charter school, operator Green Dot Public Schools has earned some bragging rights — as well as reasons for humility. There's no doubt that students at the Watts school are better off for the Green Dot takeover. Dropout and truancy rates are down significantly; more students are taking college-prep classes and passing the high school exit exam on the first try. Crime, especially on-campus fighting, is considerably lower. Scores on the state's standardized tests rose modestly this year. Yet Locke's students are far from even mediocre achievement. Only 15% score as proficient or better in English, and only 6.7% in math, and that follows a year in which scores barely budged at all. By the end of 10th grade, only 72% of the students who started as freshmen at Locke were still attending the school — though that's higher than when it was run by L.A. Unified. Still, the numbers are nowhere close to as impressive as at other Green Dot schools, where early and dramatic successes earned the charter operator a reputation as a miracle worker. Locke is different from those schools, and from almost every other charter school in California. It doesn't enroll students through a lottery, a system that tends to draw the most motivated students and parents. Instead, it takes all students within its attendance boundaries. Green Dot deserves appreciation for taking the challenge and for bringing about progress on several fronts. (LA Times – registration required)
Who's teaching L.A.'s kids?: A Times analysis, using data largely ignored by LAUSD, looks at which educators help students learn, and which hold them back.
LOS ANGELES--In Los Angeles and across the country, education officials have long known of the often huge disparities among teachers. They've seen the indelible effects, for good and ill, on children. But rather than analyze and address these disparities, they have opted mostly to ignore them. Most districts act as though one teacher is about as good as another. As a result, the most effective teachers often go unrecognized, the keys to their success rarely studied. Ineffective teachers often face no consequences and get no extra help. Which teacher a child gets is usually an accident of fate, in which the progress of some students is hindered while others just steps away thrive. … Nationally, the vast majority who seek tenure get it after a few years on the job, practically ensuring a position for life. After that, pay and job protections depend mostly on seniority, not performance. Teachers have long been evaluated based on brief, pre-announced visits by principals who offer a confidential and subjective assessment of their skills. How much students are learning is rarely taken into account, and more than 90% of educators receive a passing grade, according to a survey of 12 districts in four states by the The New Teacher Project, a New York-based nonprofit. Almost all sides in the debate over public education agree that the evaluation system is broken. The dispute centers on how to fix it. (LA Times – registration required)
Managing education in America
NATIONAL--… Despite nearly doubling per capita spending on education over the past few decades, American 15-year olds fared dismally in standardized math tests given in 2000, placing 18th out of 27 member countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Six years later, the U.S. had slipped to 25th out of 30. If Americans have been fighting against mediocrity in education since 1983, they are losing the battle. What could turn things around? At a recent event that I organized at the Columbia Business School, Klein opened with his harsh assessment of the situation, and researchers offered some stark options for getting American education back on track. We could find drastically better ways of training teachers or improve our hiring practices so we're bringing aboard better teachers in the first place. Barring these improvements, the only option left is firing low-performing teachers—who have traditionally had lifetime tenure—en masse. … There is a glimmer of hope, though, if we can learn to emulate a handful of small-scale school systems that seem to have had success making great teachers, either by picking stars or creating them. … Uncommon Schools is one of these superstar school systems, and one of its directors, John King, is now the head of K-12 education for New York State. Firing 80% of new teachers isn't possible in rural areas in the state and wouldn't play well in the State Legislature in Albany, either. Despite past failures, King remains optimistic: The U.S. government is giving out billions of dollars to fund education innovation through its Race to the Top fund, and methods of teacher preparation at places like Uncommon are being studied with an eye to integrating them into larger school systems. (Slate)
'Finish strong' to rebuild New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS--… The New Orleans area is a wonderful place to live, and the city is, in many ways, thriving. Families are reuniting, neighborhoods are being restored, and there is a shared sense of pride in the region's resilience. In Mayor Mitch Landrieu, we have a leader who is committed to uniting the city and bringing to government the true character of New Orleans' residents: inclusion, hard work and problem solving. An entrepreneurial movement is surging through the city, led by GNO Inc., Tulane University and Idea Village. Thanks to New Schools for New Orleans, there are dozens of highly effective charter schools, like Akili Academy, and because of a revitalized public school board, the chances are much better that children will receive the education that they deserve. (CNN)
Education Department Deals Out Big Awards
NATIONAL--Teach for America, the nonprofit group that recruits elite college students to teach in public schools, and the KIPP Foundation, which runs a nationwide network of charter schools, were big winners in a $650 million federal grant competition known as Investing in Innovation, the Department of Education said Wednesday. Each group won $50 million. Two others won large awards for proposals the department said were backed by significant evidence of success with students. The Success for All Foundation, a Baltimore group that helps to turn around struggling elementary schools, won $49 million. And Ohio State University, partnered with several other universities, was awarded $46 million to train some 3,750 teachers in the Reading Recovery approach, which focuses on struggling first-grade students. The department awarded the remaining $455 million in smaller amounts to 45 other nonprofit groups and school districts. About 1,700 groups applied for grants, the department said. (New York Times – registration required)
Scores: A wake-up call for NY schools (By Doug McCurry and Dacia Toll, Achievement First)
NEW YORK--As leaders of a local charter-school network, we've grown eager in re cent years for the annual release of state test scores and the usually high marks they've been giving our schools and scholars. This year was painfully different -- we scored 20 or more percentage points lower in math than in previous years, and the reading results were even worse. It was an Alka-Seltzer morning all across New York; the drastically lower scores were the result of a decision by the state's education leaders -- Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and Commissioner David Steiner -- to more accurately define proficiency in these subjects. …Some have said that it's unfair to change the standards at the 11th hour, that the state should have phased the bad news in over time. We strongly disagree: The children of New York needed them to pull off the Band-Aid, expose the brutal truth and force all of us educators across the state to raise our game. It's not easy for us to say that. Under the old scoring system, our Achievement First schools would have had 99 percent of our third and fourth graders (across three different elementary schools in central Brooklyn) marked as proficient in math, and 83 percent in English. Under the new, higher standards, it's only 76 percent in math and just 46 percent in English. These results aren't just disappointing -- they're unacceptable. (New York Post)
Change on the Menu at Some D.C. Schools: Taste, quality & nutrition will improve
WASHINGTON--Food for thought for students at some D.C. schools: Change is on the lunch menu. Fourteen schools will be part of a pilot program designed to bring fresh and local food to student lunch tables. Officials said the changes will dramatically improve the taste, quality and nutrition of meals. Two vendors were selected during a competition that included taste tests with students and school staff. Revolution Foods will provide fresh portable meals to seven schools, while D.C. Central Kitchen will provide meals made from scratch to seven schools. All other schools will be served by the current lunch provider, Chartwells-Thompson. The schools serving the lunches from scratch are: Kelly Miller Middle School, Thomas Elementary School, Burrville Elementary School, Aiton Elementary School, Kenilworth Elementary School, Marshall Elementary School and Prospect Learning Center. (NBC Washington)
D.C. schools names two vendors to provide healthful meals in pilot program
WASHINGTON--With one-third of the nation's children overweight or obese, improving the quality of school meals has become a fashionable cause. Michelle Obama has made it a pillar of her national "Let's Move" campaign. In May, the D.C. Council passed the Healthy Schools Act, which mandates strict nutrition standards for school meals and provides schools with an extra 15 cents per meal to increase the amount of fruits and vegetables and local ingredients. On Monday, D.C. Public Schools took its own step in improving school food when it announced the new vendors it has selected to provide more healthful meals for two pilot programs scheduled to begin this fall at 14 D.C. elementary schools. Revolution Foods, a California-based company that serves 25 D.C. schools from a kitchen in Glen Burnie, will provide prepackaged meals at seven schools that are undergoing renovations and have no student lunchroom. DC Central Kitchen will provide made-from-scratch meals such as vegetable stir fries and homemade quiches at seven schools in Northeast Washington. (
Washington Post – registration required)