Blogs

ASU + GSV: The Qualities of Rock Star Schools

By Ari Pinkus posted 04-22-2014 06:06 PM

  

By Ari Pinkus and Emily Porter

The new “rock star” K-12 schools continuously innovate with an eye toward improvement. In striving to grapple with the knowledge explosion, these schools shift focus to developing critical skills, including how to think, analyze, synthesize, research, and adapt for constant change. No longer is the curriculum one-size-fits-all but instead is customized to fit what best meets students’ particular needs and prepares them for this different future. Students gain agency over their learning experience, and teachers are in a position to help students make the best choices for their learning.

Those were the key takeaways in the session “Dreamworks: How Four Rock Star Women Are Leading Their School Systems.” Moderator Katherine Bradley, president of CityBridge Foundation, led a panel discussion with Dr. Barbara Byrd-Bennett, CEO of Chicago Public Schools; Cami Anderson, superintendent of Newark Schools; Kaya Henderson, chancellor of DC Public Schools; and Diane Tavenner, founder and CEO of Summit Public Schools in California.

Tavenner spoke of the continuous innovation happening in the charter schools she leads. “A couple of years ago as we were iterating, we gave kids choice of how they could learn math,” she said. They could work with peers, online, and in seminars. A seminar started with 30 students and over a nine-week period, the satisfaction rate for the seminar was continually low until the seminar had dwindled to two students. The satisfaction rate shot way up at that point. The students said, “I’m the only one there and they’re tutoring me.” In the midst of these weeklong innovation cycles, the teacher decided that instead of a seminar, there would be a sign for tutoring. The “tutoring bar” ended up being packed. "Now, we have tutoring bars in all schools and no more lectures," she said.  There’s a worry that with technology, we’ll lose the human relationships and human formations that we’ve relied on, but by making students the centerpiece of the process, learning becomes much more relevant and human as students' needs can be met more than ever before.

Anderson noted that from a systems standpoint, a one-size curriculum does not fit all for all kids. She’s been trained in the Montessori method and appreciates the value of choice, but also understands that for a lot of students, choice would be overwhelming. Good technology and curriculum are similar: they can be tailored to the individual student and should enhance the relationship between student and teacher. “We can’t people proof education but we can give teachers the same technology tools that sectors from retail to banking use,” she said. Otherwise, a digital divide will hold poor kids back as much as the inability to read.

Henderson described the challenge of scaling, with lots of schools and students with different needs. “We put a relentless focus on human capital. It’s how the technology helps humans build relationships.”

Rock star schools see social emotional learning as important as academic aptitude. “Those who have the biggest challenges have the most to teach us,” Anderson said.  We need to be aiming for:
        
        1. Relationships – students’ connection to adults regardless of whether they mess up;
        2. Relevance – the ability to connect curriculum to the world of work and real-life; and 
        3. Rigor – keeping standards high for all students.

A teacher becomes a diagnostician in the new school model. Byrd-Bennett described a new teacher evaluation system redefining what it means to teach. Teachers are coming together to learn from one another in a safe space with a dynamic principal leader who supports and understands the value of human capital.  

The views expressed on this post are ours and do not necessarily reflect the views of NAIS.

 

 

0 comments
128 views

Permalink