School improvement providers that can ally with moderate Democrats need a presence in Washington if they hope to preserve and expand the industry. They need to kill off two impressions: First, that the industry sees a trade off between quality and profits, and favor the latter over the former. Second, that it hopes public education will be turned over to the private sector. Listen here.
S. 2118, introduced by Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Richard Lugar (R-IN), merely spells out standards for evaluation that define what school improvement providers have always done, will always do, and reasonably assumed NCLB mandated for everyone else.
Listen here.
Read the proposed standards.
Continue reading "This Week's Podacast: Real School Improvement Providers Back S. 2118" »
Nonprofits Teach for America, New Leaders for New Schools, Green Dot, and KIPP sell to the same school districts as for-profit school improvement firms. Their gross revenues are smaller than many for-profit providers. Most have no explicit marketing budget. Yet, they are as close we get to “household names” with the buyers of school improvement offerings.
It’s hard to beat their success generating free publicity. What’s the secret? Their leaders and staff understand education politics, policy and evaluation. And they “sell” their offerings in the context of the ongoing debate that is the real subject of all education reporting. Listen here.
The Miller/McKeon “Discussion Draft” signals the beginning of a very long end to the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind. I planned to go through it in this week’s letter for the purpose of spurring action, but my overwhelming impression is that the features relevant to the school improvement industry will not change much. To quote movie mogul Sam Goldwyn, it’s all over but the shooting. What is to be learned from this? Listen here.
