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Breakout Session #2: Messages, Media, and Mindshare

As Walter Isaacson shared with the audience during the morning session at the NewSchools Summit, the world needs more storytellers – it has plenty of preachers. In the afternoon, participants dug into effective storytelling, particularly in terms of what it takes to enlist ambassadors as evangelists for a shared message and to engage the media. Steve Mancini runs the communications practice inside the Doris & Donald Fisher Fund, which supports messaging and […] 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

Guest post: Going to NewSchools

This guest post comes from Andrew Rotherham of Bellwether Education Partners, the voice behind the must-read education blog Eduwonk.com and a prolific writer whose columns and articles regularly appear in U.S. News & World Report and many other publications. I’ve been lucky enough to attend NewSchools Summits pretty much since they started. [Editor's note: we checked, and as of tomorrow, Andy will have indeed attended every single one of the 11 NewSchools Summits.] Back when I […] Read more

Teaching as Entrepreneurship?

Over lunch at the NewSchools Community of Practice event this afternoon, Teach For America’s Steven Farr, author of Teaching as Leadership, and Uncommon Schools’ Doug Lemov, author of Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques That Put Students on the Path to College, talked about what they are learning (and sharing, through their books) about the practices of effective teachers. It turns out that a lot of the characteristics are similar to those […] 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

Help welcome first-time attendees feel welcome at the NewSchools Summit

A whopping 25%. That’s the percent of people attending this year’s NewSchools Summit for the very first time. If you’re among that 25%, welcome! We look forward to meeting you. If you’re among the other 75% — and especially if you’re one of those longstanding, card-carrying members of the entrepreneurial education movement who has attended the NewSchools Summit for many years — we’d like to ask you to lend a bit of your […] Read more

Fueling the entrepreneurial fire

In a new Education Next article excerpted from his latest book, education scholar Rick Hess recounts the skepticism that the entrepreneurs behind KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) and Teach for America (TFA) encountered when they set out to drum up financial support for their then-nascent ventures. The KIPP founders fired off more than a hundred letters to local corporations, while TFA’s Wendy Kopp wore a former presidential candidate down with some youthful persistence. Little […] Read more

Guest post: Out of the shadows

This guest post is from Bill Jackson, founder and CEO of GreatSchools, who was one of the very first entrepreneurs to receive an investment from NewSchools Venture Fund. This year’s NewSchools Summit focuses on the promises and perils of education entrepreneurs going mainstream. Thanks to the Obama Administration, education entrepreneurs are no longer toiling off in the corner – they’re being asked to run the show. I see a lot of opportunities […] Read more

Visit a DC charter school during the week of NewSchools Summit

While you are in the nation’s capital to join education entrepreneurs and other leaders at the NewSchools Summit 2010, see what this work looks like on the ground by visiting one of the city’s many outstanding public charter schools. DC Preparatory Academy, E.L. Haynes Public Charter School, Friendship Public Charter School, KIPP DC, Maya Angelou Public Charter School, and SEED School have all invited Summit participants to tour their schools in the Washington, […] 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