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Education in the post-NCLB era

Education reform has taken a subtle but sharp turn in recent years, notes Kevin Carey of Education Sector in a thoughtful, lengthy blog post: “When I began working on education policy full-time in the early 2000’s, the center of gravity in education reform sat with the coalition of civil rights advocates, business leaders, and reform-minded governors of both parties who pushed NCLB through Congress in 2001. To find that same hum of ideas and […] Read more

Braving a new policy world

If the entrepreneurial education movement was a person, what would it want to be when it grew up? This short video – which debuted at the NewSchools Summit 2010 a few weeks ago – tells the story of how this movement was born and raised, and the different ways we’ll all need to work together in the years ahead. NewSchools Summit 2010: A New Policy World from NewSchools Venture Fund on Vimeo. Read more

Breakout #1: District and State Partnership – Boon or Detriment for Entrpreneurship?

Resolved: Entrepreneurs and Systems must Partner to Achieve Widespread Improvement This afternoon, a spirited oxford-style debate took place to examine this resolution.  Under the direction of moderator Mashea Ashton, CEO of the Newark Charter School Fund, the panel examined whether partnerships with districts and states were necessary for the success of entrepreneurial education organizations and ideas.  Panelists discussed whether partnerships helped spur further innovation or whether they lead to reversion to the […] Read more

The Secretary and the Chairman: A conversation with Arne Duncan and George Miller

Attendees at the NewSchools Summit 2010 were treated to a special conversation between Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Representative George Miller, and NewSchools CEO Ted Mitchell.  The lively conversation covered the topical Investing In Innovation Fund (application deadline is this afternoon!), Race to the Top funding, special education, financing college, teacher training, and much more. Secretary Duncan rallied the troops, calling the educational reform movement a “generational opportunity”. The excitement surrounding the […] Read more

i3: Anyone got a match?

For everyone who’s up late or early putting the finishing touches on an Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund application, this coffee refill is for you. Those i3 applications are due at 4:30 pm Eastern time tomorrow, May 12, so if you sneak out of Summit at 3:45, we’ll know why. (Yes, the due date got moved to May 12; it used to be May 11.) All the details are at http://www2.ed.gov/programs/innovation/, though […] Read more

Guest post: Closing the Achievement Gap – The Edupreneur Way

This guest post was written by  Ellen Winn of the Education Equality Project, a national, bipartisan advocacy organization dedicated to closing the achievement gap. The recent death of achievement-gap closing hero Jaime Escalante (whose story was brought to life via the film “Stand and Deliver”) has got me thinking anew about how we can close the achievement gap. If Escalante did one thing, he debunked the myth that “those” kids – the […] Read more

Guest post: What Race to the Top Says About Education Entrepreneurs

This guest post comes from Ariela Rozman, chief executive officer of The New Teacher Project, an entrepreneurial organization that is changing the conversation about teacher effectiveness across the country.Discussion of the Obama administration’s Race to the Top competition often resembles coverage of a major political campaign. Most of the focus is on the horse race—who’s winning and who’s losing. But more important than the handicapping is the long-term reform that this modestly-sized […] Read more

More Heat than Light

For evidence that the terrain has shifted for education entrepreneurs, one need look no further than last week’s much-publicized hearing convened by State Senator Bill Perkins (D-Harlem) in downtown Manhattan. In what has been described as hours of “volatile” and “testy” debate, supporters and opponents of New York charter schools traded barbs over charges of fiscal mismanagement and corruption in some charter schools. At one point during the marathon hearing, New York State Deputy […] Read more

Object lessons in political savvy

Yesterday, I woke up to the latest in a series of object lessons in political savvy for education entrepreneurs. My alarm clock radio is set to NPR, and this morning, I hazed into consciousness listening to a terrific piece by Claudio Sanchez on the growing field of teacher residency programs. The piece focused mostly on the Boston Teacher Residency Program, as a lens on this growing way of preparing teachers. Let’s be […] Read more

I see i3 …

With 29 days until the application deadline, we got a first look this week at what the giant pile of applications might look like. April 1 was the deadline for applicants for the Investing in Innovation (i3) fund to turn in e-mails indicating their intent to apply for grants under the $650 million fund. Take this information with plenty of grains of salt, because these notifications are totally optional, plus, there’s no […] Read more