Public Impact News & Views

As Stacey Childress and many others have pointed out, Andy Kessler’s closing remarks at this week’s big ed-tech conference at Arizona State University went way off track. By positioning technology as a way to replace teachers, Kessler missed the mark on two key points. First, great teaching will matter more, not less, in the digital age. As we’ve written here and here, digital learning has the potential to…

How could cities see their charter school sectors take off in quality, matching or besting the performance of their district schools, and the state? Public Impact researchers working with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute on a new study found that replacing low-performing charter schools while replicating high-performing ones could dramatically improve quality within just a few years. (For Fordham’s take on this, see…

For several months now, Tom Vander Ark has been issuing rich installments in his Smart Cities series, building a detailed map of where innovations in learning are happening. Here, we profile an organization connecting Smart Cities–the Cities for Education Entrepreneurship Trust (CEE-Trust)–and its work helping city-based organizations support the emergence of high-quality blended learning.

By Public Impact In this abridged version of the Commentary that appeared in Education Week, Celine Coggins of Teach Plus joins Public Impact’s Bryan Hassel and Emily Ayscue Hassel to discuss why schools and policymakers must expand the impact of excellent teachers, now. With new information demonstrating the great variation in teacher effectiveness and the availability of better teacher-evaluation systems, schools have increasingly accurate data to identify which teachers are exceptional. Plus, recent reports have shown that early-career…

In this blog post for the Innosight Institute (now the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation), Bryan Hassel and Emily Ayscue Hassel argue that “schools – and nations – that excel in the digital age will be those that use digital tools both to make teaching more manageable for the average teacher, and to give massively more students access to excellent teachers.” While digital learning can help solid teachers become more effective, one of its greatest…

We’re excited about the prospects, but we all know it will take time for digital learning to transform education. Meanwhile, the effectiveness of teachers will continue to be the single most important school factor in student learning. That doesn’t mean innovation isn’t important. On the contrary, it’s vital for moving from today’s reality–in which only a fraction of students have excellent teachers–to what students need: consistent access to excellence. Here’s a prediction: Digital developers whose products…

As more schools use technology and new staffing models to reach more students with personalized learning and excellent teachers, how will evaluation systems keep up? It’s been a heavy lift for pioneering states and districts—examples here—just to begin measuring the basics in a one-teacher-one-classroom mode. What can schools do to select, develop, and evaluate teachers in new roles—such as those working in elementary specialist teams, <a href="http://opportunityculture.org/reach/time-tech-swaps-rotation-in-person/"…

Follow the money. Usually good advice to find out what’s actually important—or not—to people or organizations, regardless of the values they profess. In education, what’s most striking is where the money doesn’t go: to a variety of engaging roles and opportunities for education professionals, and expanded impact and opportunity for those who demonstrate excellence. In everyday lingo, that’s called “career paths.” Public Impact has published new career paths stemming from our…

Everybody loves a good infographic (even you wonky researchers – just wait ‘til nobody’s looking), and we hope this one will change how you view education reform efforts.