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The Latest GREAT News

The ayes have it! Last Thursday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee approved Senator Michael Bennet’s GREAT Amendment to the omnibus ESEA reauthorization bill by voice vote. (For more background on GREAT, you can read previous blog posts here, here and here – the essential idea is to improve teacher and principal training by focusing on admissions selectivity, clinical training, and accountability tied to student achievement.)For those who weren’t riveted […] Read more

Overcoming the Beta-Test Blues

The brainy, out-of-touch computer geek has long been a sitcom archetype. From Doogie to Leonard and Sheldon, these intelligent yet hapless characters’ struggles to communicate with normal folks is a source of amusement.But these delightful storylines about experts frustrated by the need to occasionally communicate their esoteric knowledge with the laypeople in their lives hyperbolizes a challenge recognized by many real life ed-tech entrepreneurs.Most developers realize that their chances of building a (commercially […] Read more

Drone Submarines, Flying Cars, and the Classroom

What does education have in common with a pilotless submarine and remote-controlled insects?In short, the letters ARPA. Stay with us for a moment — because we’re going to need your help.In 1953, Congress created DARPA — the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — to catch up with a Soviet Union that could turn innovation into workable defense projects faster than the United States could. It was idea-heavy and bureaucracy-light, freed from the […] Read more

Mapping the K-12 Ed Tech Market

When Amerigo Vespucci made a map that showed how to find North America, people liked it so much they named the place after him.Having now finished up a map of the known world in education technology, with generous support from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, we are not expecting to find it in any history books. But we were delighted, when we released it yesterday at a meeting of the Philanthropy […] Read more

The Future of Education

We invited leading education entrepreneurs to share their thoughts about the future of education. Hear their hopes and goals for the future of education and the education reform movement in this final installment of the NewSchools Presents video series. You’ll hear from Larry Rosenstock (High Tech High), Jessica Cunningham (KIPP DC), Sal Khan (Khan Academy), Marijke Smit (Project Frog), Bill Jackson (GreatSchools), Alexandra Bernadotte (Beyond 12), Scott Given (Unlocking Potential Schools), and […] Read more

The Risks of Waiving to the Top

Last Friday, President Obama delivered the long-awaited news: it’s the end of No Child Left Behind as we know it. In a short speech delivered to a virtual Who’s Who of the education community, the President announced that NCLB’s uniform, national system of school accountability is no more. It has ceased to be. In its place, the Administration is now offering states the opportunity to receive a waiver from NCLB provided that […] Read more

Live, from New York: It’s Education Entrepreneurs!

This week, as part of the NBC News Education Nation program, NewSchools is partnering with NBC to put a spotlight on education innovation.  Three teams of early-stage entrepreneurs who want to use their imagination and technological savvy to help educators are competing for a $100,000 prize from sponsor Citi, as well as organizational support from NewSchools. All week, the young entrepreneurs are engaging in events and challenges that will help them improve and […] Read more

Celebrating Education Entrepreneurs in Video

Education entrepreneurs are as diverse as the communities they serve. This week we continue our celebration of these passionate social innovators by featuring three entrepreneurs that are making a difference in lives of children in ways often overlooked by education reformers. During the life of our second fund (2002-2006), NewSchools identified an important need in the education market around charter school real estate. One of the biggest hurdles that charter schools face in […] Read more

Hacking Education: Detroit

As someone with family ties in the area, I’m constantly challenged by the majority of stories about Michigan. But, it’s not hard to see why Detroit is so frequently used as the poster city of our collective economic straits. Inner city blight, the exodus of college graduates, deep cuts in social services, and a shocking adult illiteracy rate: Detroit has all the hallmarks of a city in the throes of disaster. It’s […] Read more

NewSchools Presents: Bill Jackson, GreatSchools

In 1998, Kim Smith, a student at Stanford Graduate School of Business, teamed up with famed venture capitalist John Doerr and Brook Byers to build an organization whose mission was to transform education by supporting education entrepreneurs. The trio recognized that entrepreneurs had revolutionized the fields of science, medicine, and technology, and wanted to bring that same innovative spark to the world of education.Their idea became NewSchools Venture Fund, and an entrepreneur […] Read more