The Best School

Last night I was invited by the Education Equality Project to a screening of 2 Million Minutes, The 21st Century Solution and it was a really great night.

First, the film is about The Basis Schools. I have blogged about Basis before and had the honor of touring this school and meeting with the founders. These schools are so amazing and deliver such incredible curriculum that we should have a thousand more of these schools. If we did, we would regain our position amongst the educational leaders of the world – and that is not an exaggeration. Sadly, the don't fit the "foundation" mold for receiving funding (not unlike ABCTE), so they cannot expand. Which is odd, because I thought the point of funding education innovation was to fund groups that don't fit the mold. Irony - pretty ironic sometimes.

It was great so see so many education reform groups out to support this great work. The capstone was pretty great as well. We had the Reverand Al Sharpton and Speaker Newt Gingrich speak after the film. They are traveling the country, at the request of President Obama, raising awareness of how bad the achievement gap really is in this country. It is humorous and moving to see two people so diametrically opposed in opinion come together for such a great cause.

If you have a chance to see the movie and see Sharpton and Gingrich together, it will make you work harder for educational reform in this country.

A Reasonable Blog

Two nice things going on in Arizona in support of alternative teacher certification - give a read to Lisa Snell at the Reason Foundation to find out more!

Great Schools

Spent the last few days in Arizona and got to visit the Basis School in Scottsdale to see how a charter school can be the top ranked High School in the Nation. Taking a tour and meeting the directors, you can see why. They push and they push hard. The middle school students were doing advanced algebra (as a former engineer I really got into solving two variables and didn’t want to leave). They integrate the curriculum across subjects moving aspects from one subject to another to maximize time and effectiveness in class. The charter school at it's best.

They thoroughly address one of my pet peeves – they teach middle school students how to study. They let them know that studying for a test is not just reading a worksheet once. The one former TFA teacher worked with his Geography students to make sure they understood where they were weak and how to strengthen skills to ensure they were ready for the test. THIS IS HUGE! I spent way too much time working with my middle schoolers because no one taught them to study – it was left to parents. I always thought that it was one great way to ensure we continued the achievement gap since public schools don't teach kids how to study. In fact if kids come to Basis later in middle school they have to do some study skill boot camp in the afternoons so that these kids can keep up.

They have pass rate percentages on AP exams in the 90’s. These kids are motivated and because the curriculum is so demanding from middle school on, they are ready for college level courses at a very early age.

Could this be replicated through all schools? Probably not. But if we had thousands of these schools, we would really move forward as a competitive nation. It was amazing and I look forward to having some great ABCTE teachers there in the future.