Transcripts For CSPAN2 K-12 Education Innovation Summit - Part I 20180108

There is water and coffee in the back so feel free to partake. The restrooms at the end of the hall. If you leave the building you can come back in but you will have to go through security. Those of you who will be participating in the conversation, you have microphones in front of you. You do need to turn them on when you are about to talk. I think theres a button that says talk. Turn it on, the red light will come on which will tell you the microphone is active. Were not speaking, please turn it off. We would appreciate that and you probably prefer we dont hear any private conversations as well. Those were speaking, we appreciate you being here. We ask that you keep your arm remarks to about ten minutes but i will be sitting with the secretary and try not to be obnoxious but i may waive or give you an indication if youre getting close to the ten minutes and asked that you wrap up quickly when that happens. We are looking forward to a great conversation talking about innovation in k12. It is my honor to introduce secretary betsy devos. [applause] thank you. Morning everyone. It is great to see everyone here this Morning Bright and early. I want to begin by thinking you for attending todays, and for all of you who are participating, we are very grateful for your participation and willingness to be here and share your thoughts. Last week we had a robust and very thought provoking program and how educators, innovators and institutions are transfer forming for their students. Todays focus for k12 education, we are very excited about and looking forward to hearing from the knowledge and expertise right here in the room with us. Before we begin, we want to say quick word about the focus on innovation. Earlier this year, i embarked on a really think school tour where we visited learning environments from wyoming to indiana. All of which are taking creative approaches to education for students of all ages. I continue to travel the country. Its one of the favorite parts of the job. We can go and visit and see great work that is being done in multiple places and ive really been inspired by the innovated educators that ive met thus far. There is still not enough innovation. We need more like them and we need more creativity and we need more like you here with us. The reality is there are a number of challenges and opportunities facing american students. In washington d. C. , they do not have all the answers. Government is not the best at finding new solutions to tough problems. Government isnt the best at being flexible or adaptable to constantly changing environments. In government certainly isnt the best at questioning the status quo. Government can be good at bringing people together to highlight the creative thinking and new approaches. So today, we brought education leaders and entrepreneurs from across country to share how they are improving education for the students they serve. While you hear represent a Diverse Group of schools and organization from across the landscape, common denominator is that each of you began by seeing a problem or deficiency or inefficiency. You questioned it and then you developed a solution to fix it or make it better. Your approach fall broadly under todays themes, helping each child realize his or her unique potential, shifting the paradigm and customizing learning. It is these types of thinking that we need more of. I would argue lots more in American Education today. We need to question everything. We need to look for ways in which we can improve and embrace the imperative of change. Each of you have embraced that mindset and your students are reaping the reward. Because, at the end of the day, success shouldnt be measured by how many dollars are spent or how many kids are passed along to the next stage. Success should be determined by how your educating and preparing each student for today and tomorrows challenges. Lets treat today as an opportunity to share what is working in your respective world and where impediments, at any level of government, are preventing you from achieving your mission of serving students. Thank you again for being here today. I am really looking forward to the conversation. Thank you. [applause] thank you madam secretary. We are going to get started. I have the honor of representing our presenters. I will introduce each person. They will speak for ten minutes and the other person will cooperate after words to speak after the second or last person, depending on the situation, when they are done we will start the discussion. First up, we will hear from two speakers in the topic of obtaining each childs unique potential. One is tom ernie and then we will hear from steven mooney, superintendent. Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to share a little bit about the lindsay journey and the work we have done for lindsay learners. This slide will give a little context as to who we are and some of the challenges that lindsay learners face. If you look at our demographics, we are a Rural Community in the Central Valley of california. One 100 of our learners are on free and reduced lunch. We have high numbers of english learners, and when you look at the bottom statistic of 44 of our learners from a home where one or both of the parents did not graduate from high school and the average education level is fifthgrade in the community, the only hope that the lindsay children have is an Effective School system to serve them. Keep these demographics in mind as you see some of the successes that we have demonstrated on one of the later slides. A piece of data that is not up there is that 13 of lindsays children meet the federal definition of homeless. To further help you understand our context, i want to start out with a story of a real lindsay learner. It was before we started our transition to performancebased system. The story goes back a couple days after high school graduation, around 2008 or 2009. We had just hired a New High School principal said he was in his office on packing his bags. While he was there, putting books on the shelf, there was a knock at the door. The secretary said mr. Hammons, mr. Gonzales is here to see you with his son junior. The principal said bring him in. I just started, but have him come in. Mr. Gonzales entered with his son. Hello, how are you. Come on in. Nice to meet you. Mr. Hammons, i want to let you know that my son just graduated from Lindsay High School two days ago. Oh great. How exciting. Whats the plan . He said well thats what im here to talk to you about. Come on, sit down. Whats going on . He said mr. Hammons, i son has a High School Diploma from Lindsay High School in his hand. Could you give me that newspaper up there on the shelf. Mr. Hammons reaches back, gives the newspaper to mr. Gonzales. Mr. Gonzales puts it in front of his son and settle had, read this newspaper for mr. Hammons. The new principal. Read the article right here. After a moment of silence, junior puts his head down and begins to cry and says dad, you know i dont know how to read. In the further content of what did we do then and what did we build . We all know this person, steve jobs. Now, steve jobs was creating the ideal listening experience. He was not seen how do i sell more is tvs. He was saying what is the ideal experience that listeners need and he created hijinks. I was an ovation. We know this person. Jeff pesos. What is the ideal reading experience. We used to buy our books here and now its not just books. But now i shop for everything because it is the ideal reading experience, the ideal shopping experience. Everybody knows these folks. I see a few starbucks. Cops on the tables out there. It wasnt about making Better Coffee or more coffee. It was creating the ideal coffee experience. What have we done inland sea . We took some of the things inside what is the egg yield learning experience . Not thats needed for adults so that it can be convenient, but what is in need of a at their level, ensure success, challenge them and make sure they can have academic and personal excellence in life. This is a simple visual because people ask us on this journey what it is youre doing in this visual captures it all. It is founded on a feature focused strategic design and that at the very bottom is the voice of the community saying this is what we believe for learners at a key part of our system is engaging our community to take ownership for the learners in the community and when the community invested in it, we become service to the community leaders. At the center is the ideal learning experience all around her various components we build from advancing and developing leadership to instruction to technology and you can see all those pieces. I can spend days unpacking each of those pieces of the puzzle and it all rests on a culture of them empowerment and investment, culture growth, mindset and Learner Centered, radically Learner Centered a compromise in the learning center. In wednesday, huge major element if its all about the learner in everything we do is about lindsay learners. One i want to talk about when you look at this, ultimately what we are building in lindsay. Not just meaning that their level, challenging them and making sure they are successful because its not about grade levels. Its where you are in the learning and when you meet a learner at their level come and experience success in a different way theyve never been experiencing before. An example would be a learner may be seven years old doesnt go straight into the second grade. But if hes ready for the fifthgrade content . If we allow the group in regrouping of learners to ensure they are at their developmental learning level but most importantly is the last line on the fly. With this system, literally, were children of poverty learning english, literally desire to come back to school each and every day and youll see some statistics that demonstrate that in a moment. A key piece of a focus on is Leadership Development. I cant stress enough the focus we would need to have in our Educational Transformation in their communities and country about focusing on the leadership because without the leadership it is limited as to how far it will go. This shows how Many Organizations operate. Unfortunately how many Public Schools in america operate. There is no clear direction. Its a lot of people working really hard coming deeply committed to children, but going in Different Directions. One of the key pieces he did was initially started with their community and created the strategic design which gave us the direction. A very clear direction about where we need to go to create a Learner Centered system. We also found a lot of people in our system still going in Different Directions than that the insider as you see in this visual. As the Development Focus on leadership and leadership at every level of the organization from the learners to this Teaching Staff to the secretarial staff to the formal leaders as principals and district staff because in lindsay this is what we have. Deep levels of alignment towards division and a commitment to our learners in every person in the organization working towards that. They transport children so they go to a learning environment to learn. They provide nutritious meals and they will tell you that. I have to stress the Leadership Development and how important that is to transform learning in our country. A key piece of that is transformational technology. Clearly same technology is not the answer. Its not about putting a device in front of every learner. That is not what customized learning is all about. It is more about using transferred technology to accelerate the learning and allows learners to work at different paces and developmental needs. One of the things we provided as a Community Wide wifi product will provide access to the computer and the internet at school and at home. When we provided a computer for every single than the learner and what we realized that only 40 had comic dignity to the internet. In communities, Rural Communities of poverty, having limited access to the internet is a great issue with regard to access to quality learning. In lindsay, we work with our local community and they now have access for 95 of our learners and parent have access to the internet and they have their own computer that they could use to access learning. What was done is weve put nearly all of our content in online. Some Management System to go after the learning and understand where they are and their progression of learning. A learner management assessment. Although those are housed so they can see where they are. They will say this is where im going next. They own their learning. We build structures in providing instruction to ensure they come to a point of owning their learning. And this is not where the only place learning happiness. We still have a dolt, learning facilitators working directly providing direct instruction, providing Small Group Instruction from individualized instruction, but when you have the content accessible via technology, it allows the 21st of learning to happen for many learners. We all believe this. People learn in different ways in different time frames. The traditional, educational structure of learners be grouped by age and grade level, the school year is 180 days long. I lot of those structures dont honor the basic principle that people learn in different ways in different time frames. If we replace the structures, not all structure, but many of them, giving a few examples. It does not exist in lindsay. Averaging grades, grade levels. We still have learners, but the way we understand is very different. The use of technology, the use of space happening anywhere, not just in classrooms. Credentialing requirements are all traditional structures that are convenient for dolt. Funding unseat time, governance models, Effective School boards can be very powerful for advancing learning but inEffective School boards can also be a great hindrance to advancing learning in Public Education in america. The focus unlimited only which you also have to demonstrate proficiency in what we refer to as their Lifelong Learning standards. And you have to have all levels from a 5yearold to an 18yearold. Not just the academics. Its what kind of human being for our baby coming. And what is it producing . Take a look at these results. Remembering our demographic. The Graduation Rate in the low 70s to 92 . 42 of our graduates go straight to a four year university. Even though 100 of them earn free lunch and 57 of the first group to finish our performancebased system got their degree in four years. You can see the numbers for others getting degrees. Discipline is greatly disgrace because they are now invested in their own learning and engaged in learning. If you look at this, and this speaks to the culture. Healthy kids survey is taken by over 500 high schools throughout the state in a survey taken by learners and they read things like drugs on the campus or there isnt. Olene pabon connect it to the adults in my school. There is alcohol use and you can note in 2010 prior to lindsay says send come out prior to our performancebased assembly ring to mount all schools 54 and similar schools of poverty a little higher. After implementing our performancebased system and continuing to refine her performance basis in, you can see the latest data, Lindsay High School ranks at the 99th nine percentile of the state of california, essentially making it the safest drug free, bully free, alcohol free learner connected high school in the state of california. That is something we can be proud if given the demographic and work we are doing for a community. Some things people need to learn more about is what is it that youre doing. We have published a book called beyond reform and many of the people in the Education Field know very well, one of the most educational researchers and training professional writers in the country. Hundreds of publications, many people read his work and are guided by his work. They wrote the foreword to lindsays story in his work and this is what he says. The person who knows thousands of schools and hundreds of School Districts throughout this country said they transfer an assistant to one that can and should be the model for k12 education for the next several decades. Im going to close with the story of another Lindsay Wagner at the end of her journey and as we work and continue to improve our work together. This story is about a senior whose completing their High School Exit interview. Everything you must complete an interview with a Community Panel and administrators and staff to demonstrate what theyve gone through in their life, challenges they face and where theyre going in the future. I was in this panel and this learner came forward and he started his presentation by stating when i was one and a half years old, somebody wrapped me up tightly in a blanket and they threw me out for a friend. Fortunately, my father caught me and then he ran. And that is how i came into america. When i was in the fifth grade, my father walked in and he said his son, and i bought you a latter. You are dead and going to school because tomorrow you are going to the fields of me and you will work in the field alongside me and bring in money for her family. With everything he had, this young man looked at his father and he said that, im never picking up that ladder and im not going in the fields of view. Im going to stay in school and am going to be a counselor. His father laughed and said sunday he will learn what a real man does and until then i will keep the in the garage for you. The next thing the young man did, he held a piece of paper and said this is an acceptance letter to Fresno State University and im going to be a counselor. I asked him, what about your father. This talks about the kind of person he is. He said my father knew nothing better. He was a good and honorable man and i loved him deeply. He knew nothing more and now he is supporting me in my journey to college. I have hundreds of stories on the front end of our journey and hundreds of stories on the backend about where we are now. I think the backend, but we are not on the backend. So much more to do. That is the lindsay churning in the work weve been doing to transform the lives of children and we would hope many of the lessons we learned, the work weve done in our transformation official to School Districts in dismantling the traditional k12 educational model in place for 125 years and replacing the Learner Center model that makes learners at their level to guarantee their success. Thank you. [applause] good morning. My name is stephen mooney. Mauney. We are located in North Carolina and we are a School District of about 6200 students and as far as School District goes in North Carolina, North Carolina, where an average sky School District in North Carolina, may be on the larger side that nationally we are average of 12. We are prek12 and we have eight schools, one high school, one middleschool, two intermediate schools and for elementary schools. Our free and reduced population is about 38 . Our expenditure of North Carolinas 7500 per student and a North Carolinas 115 School Districts, thats about 100 out of 115. But weve been able to do in on the map is soapy collar digital conversion. The digital conversion, we are one to one with k12, with typepad in kindergarten and first grade and Laptop Computers in second grade through 12th grade. We started our journey a decade ago and one of the biggest reasons behind our digital conversion was we wanted to close the Digital Divide that existed between our students, those with means and those that did not have economic means to have access to technology. What youll hear throughout the course of my presentation is similar to what happened that there was a disconnect between our students and what they were learning in education and in our schools and its almost like her kids had to power down when they stepped onto the school grounds. What we wanted to do was to prepare our students for their futures and our past. That quote came from dr. Mark edwards and he really believed technology was away to build engagement in their kids coming to tap into an intrinsic motivator that engage them in what was going on in our classrooms. It started off as a Technology Initiative transformed into something much more. Through technology, will make instruction more relevant, provide realworld experiences for kids and in order to justify such a large investment of resources, Capital Resources and Human Resources into a Technology Initiative, there had to be Academic Initiative tied to a because many systems we see that do wonder one will put devices in the hands of their kids and teachers and they see no real change in the instruction thats going on. And then we believe that it was a moral imperative to do so. Like i said, we do prepare kids for jobs we dont know that exist yet, to prepare them to achieve their biggest potential. Our digital conversion is a fusion of pedagogy digital resources and culture. He saw the same things in the slides from lindsay but it became much more than a Technology Initiative and today we will tell you it is much more than just a device in the hands of every child and every teacher. It is an effective integration of good sound technology and digital resources with solid pedagogy and teaching and learning practices. What we see in our district was a transformation from a teacher centered environment to a student centered environment. Weve seen a Transformation Firm grows and teachers standing giving them permission out with direct instruction to more group at the mideast, student accountability for their own learning and Student Engagement in whats going on in the classroom. What you see here is our empowerment strategy. Like i said, this is the computers were a catalyst for an instructional transformation that took place throughout our district. You will see everything on this wheel from a culture of collaboration and carrying two data driven instruction to align instructional practices, all those things very important to us and if they focus effort on increasing the quality of instruction in our classrooms. So what does this mean for students . Its great to say there is a onetoone district and great to say weve been doing this for 10 years now. We are kind of on the cuttingedge of i started this in 2007. If its not impacting a positive way our students and we are basically wasting our time and resources. As i mentioned before, North Carolina has 115 public School Districts in prior to digital conversion in 2017, it was a good School System in North Carolina. We were in the 40s and student achievement as you can see over the course of the last decade, we decade, we have risen in our academic rankings throughout our state as measured by our state mandated end of grade and end of course tests. We rank in the topfive and how how over the last five years and that is one indicator that we look out. A second indicator that we look at his our four year Graduation Rate prior to her digital conversion we had about a 77 Graduation Rate for high school in mooresville in the year before that it was in the low 70s. As you can see, last year Graduation Rate was 93 and has a 90 or above over the last five years. An interesting point is our africanamerican Graduation Rate prior to 2007 was in the 50 . Our Graduation Rate was at 89 last year. That is a significant increase but is also a good indicator for engagement going on in our classroom and is accepted that her students are having. Another indicator is the total scholarships received are accepted in scholarships offered to kids, but these are scholarships that we accept. You see from 2006 the 30 million of accepted scholarships through her graduating class last year obviously broke her record in our district to over 4. 3 million in scholarships excepted. What that tells me is not only our kids more engaged, more effect than learning more in the classroom, but also competitive on the National Scene with other children throughout the united states. And so, my wife and i. , we have five children in the School District paid first time we have a graduating senior this year, said going through a lot of new things at that child all the way down through kindergarten this started and i can say in my 25 years in Public Education and i will say im fortunate that all 25 years have been in the mooresville School District. I started off as a teacher and coach at Mooresville High School and its interesting in my early days of my career, i would have conversations with my colleague just about everything we can talk about anything except really what we were doing in the classroom. It is not unusual to talk in the hallway about the latest ballgame or whatever and go in our rooms and closed the door and i would teach what i taught by my colleagues teaching history with teach the way he or she taught in there is very little collaboration that went on. What has happened throughout her digital conversion was the level of collaboration between teachers have increased exponentially. We now share best practices more than ive ever done so in the past and as a result, our lessons are more aligned, higherquality and we are sharing that load. We are drawing on the best our teachers have to offer and thats a great benefit to our kids. I am very excited and feel proud about the level of education they are receiving because i know theres a culture of carrying in our district that we look at every child as an individual and what technology has allowed us to do is personalize instruction on a level that weve never been able to do so before. Kids are getting realtime information. They know specifically what strengths and weaknesses are and they can target those with the digital resources they use. About 100 pending in North Carolina and about faith and student achievement and i think that is a good indicator for all of us that its not necessarily about how much money you have to spend, the were you focus your resources and you get the biggest bang for your buck. I really believe through working cooperatively, that we can really change americas Education System and youll see a lot of examples of success here today and im anxious to hear about Everything Else everyone has to say. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you so much, thomas for starting us out in a really great way this morning. Before we get into the discussion section, i would like to go around the table and have everyone introduced themselves and your affiliation. That would be terrific. We will start on this end. My name is douglas ride with the Carroll County School System in Carroll County, georgia. Its a partnership with started 11 years ago. We work with students who are high need an increase over that period of time. It shows what a business can do a network with education and how it can impact the success of students. Im the ceo of masculinity Charter Schools in philadelphia. Highperformance k12 model with over 10,000 student diets waitlist. Leap innovations in chicago. Over 90 private charter and Public Schools throughout the city. Pilots focus on teaching and living research. [inaudible] i dont need to make today. [inaudible] which Service Teacher preparation programs [inaudible] at morning, and michael bully, public Regional High School in richmond, virginia. We accelerate learning through blended learning, through a new approach to instruction and through the Magnet Schools Assistance Program grant the next four years to get us started. Thank you. Well, my name is carol becker. Im an Educational Consultant. Im here to give a little bit of an introduction. Game and your heart. I represent fields academy. At morning. Tom bermudez, with the enterprise School District, california. Dian towner, founder and ceo in california. Good morning, elizabeth goettl. Good morning, ken wagner, christopher education secretary in rhode island. Travis works, executive director, mean works Public Charter School in the state of maine. Good morning, everybody. The coal train forthright Public Schools in san diego, california. Glad to be here. Good morning, everyone. My name is mashea ashton, founder and ceo of digital Pineview Academy a new Charter School year in washington d. C. , middleschool to focus on computer science. Hi, heather coffin. I work at the National Office of Community Rules and we are a nonprofit ndc to help connect families and students to address issues of emotional and academic development. Hello, chris hanks of the grand rapid Public School in grand rapids, michigan county partnership for grand rapids Public Schools, grand Rapids Public Museum a fair stake on university and grand valley state university. I work with a Nonprofit Organization in new york city. We place artists in the new york city Public Schools to help students and teachers learn to work and think like artists and to help change the Public Schools. Happy to be here. Thank you. Good morning. I have bad law says here in washington d. C. Welcome to my school. Rare participant in the federally funded d. C. Opportunity scholarship voucher program. Results the vga of research seems to suggest other programs have a Significant Impact on College Matriculation for it proud home of ms. Ashton has been. We clearly have a wide range of mixed hearing and expertise here with us this morning and i am eager to hear from all of you. I would like to start our discussion time by asking tom and steve if you could just elaborate a little bit more briefly so everyone has a chance to enter and on what you think the limiters are too wider spread adoption of your approach and child centered learning and both approaches you been taking in your districts and others enter into the conversation as well. I believe some of the limiters are just the lack of flexibility that Public Schools have, especially in North Carolina, you know, financial flexibility. We are so fortunate we have a Supplemental School tax that our Community Pays that gives us additional resources, but funding is a big issue in North Carolina and i believe the flexibility giving School Districts more autonomy and allowing them, especially districts who have proven that they can do good things in great things with their kids and not stifle the innovation i think is very needed in Public Education. Ill say a couple of key limiters that exist. One is that in a Learner Centered system, you have to empower the learners. You have to trust the learners and know that they can and will actively go after their learning and zero they learning on their future. So part of the challenges the adults are not willing or ready to allow the learners to actually take that level of ownership. So, one way the adults in the system are sometimes getting in the way of learners advancing in becoming all they can become. Another key limiter is going back to the leadership and recognizing this type of transformation when youre essentially creating a new model for learning, when youre dismantling traditional structures, it takes a tremendous amount of courage on the part of local Board Members and local leadership to move into this space and frankly there arent a lot of people who have that level of courage to say im willing to dismantle or do away with the old system and then replacing it with a Learner Centered system. Those are two key limiters. Sometimes people will say things like you must have a waiver from the state board that cant be done in my community for the Teachers Union will never commit to that. I would say looking at those in our experience in with about 300 visitors to come through our doors and those are some of the questions asked in the statements they made. What i would say if those are actually excuses in your learners are suffering because of that. It is a matter of engaging with all of those folks, particularly the unions than we do not have any new wavers, funding mechanism that every School District follows in which they are able to do which is best for our learners for the most part. Would you like to join that particular part of the conversation are posed another question . This is meant to be freeflowing in no pain. We have a lot of expertise and experience here from a wide range of approaches, so please listen. To respond to the flexibility issue and also the leadership issue. I agree schools can do much more than they are currently doing within the existing set of rules than rags but i agree also that can do more as a state leader they think about conditions incentives. To try to create incentives for people who innovate, create the conditions. But i also worry a lot about innovation within civil rights litigation. One of the things im particularly pushing on and my tone changes depending on the audience. If im talking to an immigration audience of caution. I evangelize and i think thats what we need to do. One of the things i do in particular worry about and i just had a conversation with those of the summit model is the curriculum. We convince ourselves to the things that are better than they are not sufficient condition to prepare students. One of the things we can do to help protect this work is equitable access to high curriculum resources, especially when it no longer have to cost a lot of money. They have invested in resources and a lot of people who have invested time in setting those resources. But its not perfect because most of the highquality curriculum resources were not created with personalized learning in mind. And were also not created culturally relevant lived experiences in mind. I am curious, how do you balance that innovation can we expect delivers a resources. How do you balance the innovation with equitable access to highquality resources to help as much as possible to ensure the kids coming through this are not just graduating because i dont think graduation is an official nature that are truly, truly prepared. A couple comments would make to that is a very good point on what you say they are. At the core a core element of what we do, one of the pieces of the puzzle is a guaranteed viable curriculum. We clearly do have identified this is the learning that must be mastered by every learner and this is the progression of learning from when you enter our system until when you graduate. It actually was where we entered the work. We initially began with really starting out with ensuring that the learning was transparent. When you make with the content is transparent, then it is critical. On the lines of not just academic transparency academic content mastery, but also the aspects of what we are doing, and they have to have good math, science, social studies, so forth and so, the nonacademic content we would say the nonacademic content is because if you are a high level of academic proficiency, but youre not a good citizen we are not hardworking or you can pick yourself up when you fail, those are characteristics that we also work to ensure that our learners master. I didnt stress this earlier, but her system is a competency based system as well. You dont go forward because fiscal year ended. You move forward for this semester when you demonstrate mastery. You may have a learner who finishes all of the content model math which is integrated math. They may finish that in january or november and they move right on. For the content mastery is critical, but also recognizing competency and academic and nonacademic and measuring the nonacademic competencies is very difficult and is a little less subject to and it is work we have to do to continue moving forward and there isnt a whole lot of miles to follow with regard to that, but its something we will continue to advance in. With the hope of engaging some of our other participants here, thinking about how you have uniquely approached meeting the needs of the students that you are serving, can you add to this discussion about ensuring power to advance for the students you are serving currently and perhaps advancing the offering eon where you are today. What are the limitations on what are some of your approaches to doing things uniquely in your school. Ill add my school has been opened yet, so im listening and learning from all the best practices that have happened over the last 20 years and am incredibly grateful for being here. That being said, i spent the last 20 years working and i would say the thing im most impressed than i think is really important is keeping the standards high for all students do not aspire to both of your presentations so we can never lowered the bar. The second challenge and i heard this over and over again with those around aligning the resources and incentives. I am a Charter School teacher and i feel like there is often a false debate private independent candidates about their family at the center and so its how we make policy spending are lined because at the end of the day thats why were all here. The last thing ill say is i am curious about how other people are thinking about this. When we put students at the beginning of learning a tremendous sense of empathy and listening to her students. Im also wondering how we listen to our families. Weve done them to communities at the beginning of learning we are listening and being responsive and i would not want to limit that and how are we bringing along teachers in being empathetic to her parents. To me that is the part that has to come along with everything thats been said. Im incredibly grateful. So as a Charter School, i feel like theres this great debate because of Funding Sources and so rather than necessarily serving kids the best way you can are having a model that his district charter friendly to be tough competition, which is usually a good thing. However, in some cases the limit become the way your schools are evaluated based on a traditional model. Charter school is supposed to be geared up to be differing or have some focus around some specialty and we add robotics to work a 12 string model and a lot of succession with 900 kids applying to almost 10,000 last year. Weve had all these different visitors from districts and charters and if you like to your point that teachers are willing to share and collaborate with the bureaucracy behind it and evaluation skills dont line up to that. To what lindsay is doing, you have to be willing to take the risk which is valid, but you have to explain to the public that is what youre doing. That is where its difficult to take. India specialize in an area thats not traditional. At the end of the day its connecting kids to graduation or connecting kids to something they can do at their lifestyle whether that be a job in workforce for college, but you have to be willing to understand that every child is going to be a whiz at math and reading, but maybe could conceptually with our common design. There needs to be some discussion around how you and i dont think its a waiver, but how the metrics work in each state because every stage is different. Theres nothing coming down saying this is how they can be accepted in our community. More people want those school models. Id like to hear some feedback about that. I would like to first thank our share is because those are inspiring stories. Also part of the district undergoing transformation over the last six years and has really turned around our School District in many similar ways. Graduation rates increasing by over 20 over the last four or five years. Weve turned around about 20 years of declining enrollment and over the last couple of years, stabilize back to growing enrollment. So, obviously there are a lot of pieces to that. I would like to highlight, piggybacking on superintendent rennies comment on courage and Teaching Staff and personnel, they have been made possible by courage and the community in a context of travis and shared commitment to Public Education and our superintendent talks about her kids, her learners and i think thats been infectious intercommunity. She built a trust through hard work, i expect patience and relentless commitment, but our school is considered the center of innovation. That means a partnership between the district and other entities come either private Industry Health services in one case. In our case other Public Institutions in Higher Ed Institutions as possible when the Community Comes together in believes in the mission unrecognized as that our success is critical not just schools, but entire communities and really the country. I would like to add a slightly different context from new york city where there are 70,000 educators and one plant 1 million students. So, to get to the challenge, Capacity Building is a challenge. Its a challenge of individual School Levels anywhere at district levels because there are over 35 districts in new york city, but about 15 years ago, we are reading articles in academic articles, what is the Knowledge Base for the teaching profession and how do you build a . It is individual schools that are the Building Blocks engaging teachers and an inquiry process that districts have done is essential from compliance to ownership and engaging your teachers and both of the top about collaboration and i think that those are cornerstones for your success and certainly cornerstones for success as well. I am riveted, mr. Wagner, by what you said about this notion of guard rails and how you put this out because i do think inundating education is trickier than innovating and other sectors. In the Business World or Center Capital built into any innovation is the idea that you might actually fail. Like this might not actually work. When a business fails, people lose their jobs particularly in a pc world they get their best with investments. Every parent in america secretly knows they are experimenting on their own children, right . Anybody u. S. Kids feels like i dont know, maybe i will try this. Part of the reason when parents seek out schools, and they often seek out certain teams and tradition and pattern partly because they feel like i think weve teased out to different instances already. One is a communication piece which is not at all connected and i would love to hear some innovators talk about how you get teachers who are exhausted with good reason and then you say hey, lets try this command is difficult. How do you get or how have you gotten teachers in your community to take risks with you. I would love to hear from the group about that. I also think im less familiar with government pieces. But the government can bring to the table is longterm funding is also a form of courage. You know, any innovation is worth doing in education will take more than one or two years to figure out. Our school implemented the program and it took us to feel like we havent had a sense of where were going and it wasnt until year seven when we felt like we were cranking. Most Government Programs dont run in seven year cycles. Wondering what the program can do for how they were funded. Part of the Opportunity Scholarship Program is not created more capacity for lowincome kids on a fiveyear government funding cycle. Kids dont go to school for just five years. Thank you for that. I will use it as a segue. We can certainly continue this conversation. The next topic is shifting the paradigm so i think its a Bigger Picture and so im excited to introduce the next set of presenters and everyone else who spoke in. Well hear from elizabeth goettl, carol becker at the homeschool cooperative and her hardcover ceo of of the oaks academy. Thank you. Can imagine a college and career preparatory education which only serve low income students in a private Catholic School and which in fact excludes students whose families make too much money . For most Young Students that damage is not reality. That is not the status quo. 21 years ago in the tulsa neighborhood in chicago, the jazz duet wanted to do something to serve this economically disadvantaged communities. They werent sure what they would do, so they walk the street speaking with parents and young people and asking what they needed most and what they learned most was the families wanted most for their kid a good school, a school that would disrupt the cycle of poverty and allow the children to develop their godgiven talent. So the jazz duet decided they would open a school, College Preparatory high school in the tulsa neighborhood. But how would they pay for it . They didnt have a plan for that. What if every student worked one day a week at an entrylevel professional job and the students earned wages supported a portion of the cost of their education. Thats the first was born, breaking the cycle of poverty, providing opportunities for neighborhoods where limited options exist for College Preparatory education. Heres how we operate our schools and sustain a movement. Decrease the network served exclusively low income students and provide the college and career preparatory education to every one of those students. We aim to disrupt the status quo by ensuring low income students have the same sort of actions for quality education quality College Access of high income students. The schools of 11,000 students and we continue to grow the typical ninth graders started about two years behind academically because through no fault of their own they usually have it enabled to access a quality k. Eight education. 40 are noncatholics. We aim to disrupt the status quo by providing the College Preparatory education about charging expensive tuition. The Financial Model is based on the Work Study Program and the education and peer at every family pay something and refineries the ballots. They come from the fortune 500 list for small locally owned businesses. Our students are not just college prepared, but career prepared, developing the skills for mothers best friend and persistence, product committee, written and Oral Communication skills. The georgetown education and workforce refers to a new silos we have an education where we have k12 and ones philo, postsecondary and a second silo and workforce preparation and a third comments to read one seamless pathway where students can develop college and career preparatory skills in the same process. Our students attend classes for longer days each week and then work one day every week. Students earn on average about 7500 each student every year towards the cost of their education. They have an opportunity to create relevance and learned most classroom learning and workbased learning connections occur. The strategies are nonpositive skills of project to the complex reasoning are blended in both the classroom and the work place in both venues. Every school organizes Employment Agency within the school, with a team of adult dedicated to developing, training and supporting our students in collaborating with corporate partners. This team supports the student in ensuring the students perform well at the workplace. Five students job share fulltime equivalent jobs. If you visit the campus and interview one of our student, you will hear our students say that they love their jobs. They love the opportunity to develop their competence and confidence in a real professional setting. Our students work across every major professional industry from all to health care to real estate and clerical traditional jobs like services, web design in the workplace. We develop students to be successful in the work based by starting before freshman year before students stepped foot on the campus, they actually participate in the threeweek training, where he developed in three main strands business this is, those Lifelong Learning behaviors as well as technical skills. Students enroll in College Higher than both their low incom income or their high income peers. Across america, 46 of low income students enrolled in post secondary education. 78 of high income students, 98. Cent, 90 , excuse me of these students are enrolling. These students complete a fouryear Degree Program at rates higher than their low income peers with 12 of students across the nation who are low income, completing a college degree, 31 of these students are completing a fouryear degree. 40 are completing fouryear or twoyear. We aim to meet and exceed 58 across nation of students from high income brackets earning fouryear degrees. It is a tall order. From the first school 21 years ago, weve continued to grow. 35 schools this year on our way to 50. Our goal is to provide education to students who otherwise wouldnt have the education opportunity in their neighborhood, to close the achievement gap and provide the opportunities for college completion. This innovative model for career and College Preparation seems to be working. We aim to achieve our 2020 vision, to ensure that every student is College Ready and workplace prepared. We aim to lead the education industry and College Graduates from low income neighborhoods and we aim to continue to grow this Largest Network of high schools that exclusively serve lowincome students. We aim to sustain our momentum so that young people can access and education that will develop in them the competence, confidence and aspiration to earn a college degree. Thus, transforming their lives and transforming their communities. Thanks for the opportunity to speak with you today. [applause] my name is carol baker. Im an Educational Consultant with Home School Legal Defense association and also i homeschool my kids so im going to give you a little bit of information about the homeschooling movement and also, one homeschoolers journey because its all over the map as far as everyone does it. Theres always good to have a measure to go by. This is a growing national and International Concern and i would like to give you some of the numbers i give you an idea. The fellow who prepared the slides for me, Mike Donnelly is a staff attorney with homeschool Legal Defense in the global outreach. We hosted international homeschool convention. Last year was in brazil. This year will be in russia. These are some of the faces of homeschoolers. You will recognize some of the more famous ones like tim tebow and sports and obviously Teresa Scanlon with one of the ms. Americas. The couple thats in the middle, it happens to be my daughter diane and my soninlaw dominique. That will be part of our school. The homeschooling stories are interesting. I just want you too realize the homeschooling crosses all religions, crosses all races and crosses all sort of social economic boundaries. That is one of the interesting things about homeschooling. It really just takes the fire and imagination of a family to the decide to step in and do something rather amazing. Heres something about how its growing. You will see weve grown in numbers from way back, 850,000 are the number of students. 3 4 of the schoolage population is homeschooled. 20 years ago it was hard to find curriculum in order to be able to homeschool but now we are a major market and so curriculum is being marketed to us. Now the big problem that the parents have is how to navigate the maze of curriculum in order to find stuff that is suitable to do at home and suitable to do for your student with your educational background. There is an awful lot that is going on in numbers as far as, we are almost to the 2 million and these are unofficial numbers because not all homeschoolers have to report in their states. Homeschooling is statebystate dependent. The laws are not national. They are state dependent. Each state has its own rules under which homeschooling operates. One of the things that homeschool Legal Defense does is helps parents navigate the laws in their state in order to legally homeschool in their state. So where is it in the world . Obviously we have a big, i cant read that. My eyes are just not good enough. I have to pick this way. We have a large amount that are here in the united states, but also worldwide, notice whats happening in africa, down in south africa. Notice what happening in russia and notice what happening in south america. Its very interesting. Its not legal to homeschool in all countries and we recently had some court cases dealing with german families where its illegal to homeschool and some have come here and gotten asylum through our government in order to homeschool. Its one of those things where it was not, 30 years ago it was not legal to homeschool in the united states. One by one, in each state things change so we would like to see that happen in more areas of the world. Its a huge market. What i want to talk about is why is homeschooling compelling. Why do parents leave the Public School model which is where most of our kids are educated. The people on this room are an amazing set of people. You know exactly what you have done to change the model and some dont have access to the marvelous school you have access too. The biggest thing about our journey is that realizing kids would actually take advantage of learning. Thats what homeschoolers are noticing. Its a lovely compelling reason for it seems to be not suiting the student to restore love of learning. It is also allowing kids who have unique interests and some unique disabilities in order to not only be accommodated to receive therapy and things that will benefit them. There is by more about learning styles studied in my lifetime. Those resources are now available in home schools can take advantage of those. There are options available for special needs students in the Public Schools but most parents are doing things themselves. It really can be the message for which tailoring things for their kids to do wellin school. The opportunity to be flexible and to really taylor, this is the epitome of and individualizing educational program. You are deciding where your kid wants to go and where you see them going and having them take some ownership in that and see where homeschooling will allow you to direct their paths. For me, i knew my kids were headed toward leadership, and so we take great advantage during homeschool year to define methods whereby they could grow in leadership, be directed by community leaders, and take on leadership. Sometimes the community isnt ready to see a High School Student take on leadership. Thats one of those things that we need to have opened a few more doors for. We also want to provide an environment for kids to feel safe. Homeschooling is not a place to hide. I would say homeschoolers on the road more often than Public School kids. The reason being is because we look for opportunities outside of our home, the resources that we can take advantage of, so some homeschoolers are so busy they call themselves car schoolers or van schoolers. The idea is that we are out in the community and were out there looking for what is available in the community, and the other thing that the Homeschool Community has was so many people involved is a great deal of academic and career ability in the homeschooling community that cooperatives can take advantage of. I just want you too realize thats one of the things the Home School Community does it seek to see how we can build off the specialties that we know within our own homeschooling community and be connected that way. There are many reasons why people homeschool. Some of them have to do a safety. Some have to do with academics, some have to do with worldview and philosophy, some educational. Theres lots of different reasons. To make this more personal, i will talk about why we homeschooled. We homeschooled because we realized that my son was extremely bright auditorily and he could listen to something and then read it back to you. But he wasnt learning how to read and that was a problem. Reading to him was here at and then just memorize it and say it back. We had to go through the hard part of learning how to learn how to read for someone who is so gifted auditorily but not gifted verbally and by sight. So that began our journey with homeschooling and is a homeschool parent, i can say i made almost all the mistakes possible for a homeschool parent to make, and therefore he still did succeed anyway. I just want you too realize thats one of the bright things to find out. The thing that most homeschooling parents struggle with is, especially as you go up in the High School Years is that theres going to be a subject that intimidates you. Mine was foreign language. I come from california so i did my regular three years of high school spanish. When my son explained to me he wanted to do german, becker is my married name, not my family name so i had to find resources for him to be able to do german which involved dual enrollment through a Public Community college. Once i had that part figured out, my daughter explained she would like to learn french at that point i really felt i needed to throw up my hands and find a new parent, but i found a resource and she went with a tutor to a friend for five years in order to learn french. I bring this up because this is something i have the ability to look back on my homeschooling. My daughter majored in french in high school and at the university of virginia which means i cannot read her Research Papers because i dont do french. Then she went to, she found a fellowship and went to an african country on the golf coast called senegal where she worked with Fellowship International visiting prisons in that area and through that, she met her husband and they went through a threeyear relationship on skype and then finally through the office, talisman frank wolf, we have a fiancee visa and we brought him home to our house i had the privilege of homeschooling my future soninlaw in english for three months before he married my daughter. I just wanted to give you an idea that there is so much in the home schooling community. Theres so much ability and yet there is intimidation for homeschoolers about some subject and yet we are driven by love to reach out and provide for our kids, we do find a way. What we would really like to do and stress is that this is an option that doesnt suit everyone, but for those it does, we would like the freedom to continue to do it. That is what hsl da stands for. We represent homeschooling families in the Court Systems as well as talk with legislators around the world in order to keep the freedoms of homeschooling alive now and for prosperity, we started when there were no homeschooling laws and now we see them in all 50 states. We are working internationally where. We are 85000 members strong and we help homeschoolers not be discriminated against when they going to the workforce or Community College or vocational. We are looking to open because this is a legal option in all 50 states. We would like all the states and all the corporations to honor them and we just feel this is a wonderful exposure to us and were very thankful for the opportunity to speak to you. When you think about homeschooling, you realize all the Amazing Things you are doing on the School System, someone is doing in their home and i get the privilege of talking to several hundred members every month on high school issues because thats usually where most people back out of homeschooling because that really matters. We want to prepare them for the workforce or the military or college so they are ready to go. I just bring this up because my son, he got his bachelors degree in engineering and a masters in Information Technology but then i have my daughter in the arts. My songbird, my musician, my vocalist and my french major. Theres something about homeschooling thats terribly intimidating and yet its a marvelous invention to walk through. I know how five, almost six grandchildren will all learn french. Im finally going to have to learn this language. [applause] imagine with me for a moment that you are four years old again. Just about to start school. You are about to embark on this great New Enterprise. My clicker doesnt seem to be working. So you are about to embark on this great New Enterprise of a formal education. You are taking a moment to reflect on the experience that lies ahead. I hope my teacher sees me just as my mom does, that is valued in who i am, not in whom i am becoming. I hope she doesnt see me as a test number or an empty bucket waiting to be filled. If she is like my mom, she doesnt see me as a blank sheet, a mound of clay waiting to be, waiting for the skillful trained teachers to create something dutiful, but she also doesnt see me as the czar of myspace, determining the space and pace of my learning. My teacher sees me just like my mom. She sees me as extraordinarily valued and brimming with potential. Yes, i make in the ways of the world and entirely week when it comes to my own Character Development and selfcontrol, but thats not what defines me. What defines me is that i bear the likeness of god and thats a great mystery that my teacher, just like my mom will grow to understand and appreciate. I hope when i am in my class i can be completely confident that i am known and loved. Maybe my teacher will conclude, instead, that im known yet loved, but either way i hope that defines the atmosphere of my school. I dont mean just knowing my name, well that is important of course, i mean knowing me personally with all my strengths and weaknesses and still loving me the same. When that happens, its amazing what happens to me. I just relax. My brain just lights up. Im safe and i can enter into this experience of learning without reservation, without condition. That is the real joy factor. Confident that i am known and loved. Then i can take risks, be challenged and challenge right back. I have a feeling this is not just what i hope for but is the hope for every student no matter their age. This is the longing of their heart, to be known and loved. I hope that what is presented to me, when i go to school, is worthy of my affections. Im not interested in learning for a test or learning just because thats whats needed for a job. I want to be inspired. I want to have my senses stimulated by beauty and by what really matters. Im not interested in a meal of intellectual sawdust. I want what has stood the test of time, what it has inspired generations before me too retire and to be heroic, rather than cheap chocolate, i hope my school offers swiss chocolate. If im you have lifechanging relationships with learning i wanted to be with the best available. I hope i can go mind to mind with authors and artists and scientists. Im not interested in everything being predigested or mediated by screen. I hope my sense of wonder and curiosity is developed. That im not prodded to learn by cheaper words that robert my learning of any dignity. I am quite capable of hard work and i hope my school gives me a chance to experience the fullness and beauty of learning. When i get to school, i hope its more than just getting a better job or a higher salary. I hope my school is committed to lifting my vision to something greater. Like renewal. Renewal of my own life and relationships. It would be great if i could be in a class with students who dont look like me. How great, and how rare that would be. It would be great if i could be in a class with others who are struggling in different ways and my family struggles. For me too be in relationship with others so different than myself would change my life. It would give me hope. I hope my school promotes renewal of families by caring and meeting the needs of our parents. It would be amazing to be at a school that has a vision for our neighborhood, because Great Schools can be a catalyst to renew and rebuild and restore us, families, neighborhoods and cities. This is the academy. We were started in 1998 with 53 children. We are now a network of faithbased, classical schools in urban indianapolis. Each day this year we welcome 815 prek through eighth graders, and by 2024 we will grow to 1225. Our school was started to serve the poor, by reserving half of our enrollment to children from low income households. The other 50 to children in high and middle income households. Historically and currently, our school is ethnically balanced. Half of our students are africanamerican and half of our students are white. They shine academically. We are consistently in the top two or three schools in our state based on the inner engine indiana standardized test. That is despite no time being devoted to standardized test prep. Last year we had 320 teachers, teacher candidates apply for 18 open spots. This year we have our first legacy students, children of graduates who are now enrolled in prek. The only commitment and requirement to attend is that caring and committed adult. The school has financed, through tuition payment that is everyone pay something, voucher funds, public voucher funds and philanthropic giving. Primarily through the state tax credit program. Heres my point it is possible in more places than indianapolis. It is not lightning in a bottle. We have now replicated three times, and yes we are cautiously considering future growth, but the tenants of our success are available to all today, right now. What we believe about children , our Character Development efforts, our teacher training, our 20 years of applying timetested curriculum and teaching strategies. We are honored to be a part of this conversation to consider how we can continue to innovate our k12 program. Thank you. Thank you so much elizabeth, carol, and andrew for your inspiring presentation and sharing with us your Innovative School approaches. I would like to open it up for responses, reactions to this segment of our program and for further discussion on how we might be able to further break down barriers that are artificially created between what we view as the public approach to education and all of these other models and approaches that are going on around us and yet i think we often sort of keep them in silos. I would like to welcome conversation. I think a lot about systems because we are all surrounded by systems and one of the things, to my mind, as soon as the system is created it focuses, to a certain extent on its own self perpetuation as opposed to the original reason why the system was created in the first place. To my mind, leaders of systems need to recognize that and embrace external pressures to improve. If you look at the narrative from leaders of systems around those external pressures, typically Charter Schools but not always Charter Schools, they typically argue against those external pressures because it undermines the system as opposed to arguing for those external pressures because its actually providing an incentive for those systems to stay flexible and stay strong. I think a lot of this has a portfolio approach were system leaders embrace the portfolio of options because we dont serve the system, we serve the people. Im curious for this round of presenters, what has been your experience about leaders embracing you as opposed to trying to defend against you as intruders upon their system of entitlement. I can respond as far as system leaders, wanting to do things the way things have always been done so if we look at Catholic Education as an example, the way things have been done at a traditional Catholic High School is that tuition is charged so, how can we break out of that paradigm . What opportunities are there to provide a quality education to families who cant afford that and almost every private faithbased school does something to support low income families, but how could we broaden that pool and create the opportunity for more people . I think thats the paradigm shift that needs to occur in the Financial Model change would need to occur for that to be reasonable for school to be able to do. Im sorry. I think the light might not wor work. We will make sure our online audience can hear. Okay. The other paradigm shift is the idea that parents can be educators, even if they dont necessarily have the academic qualifications that most people would consider necessary for being Public School or private school teachers. Some of the testing weve done within homeschooling is the idea that kids that are tutored, which basically homeschooling is, do score higher on all tests and its not based on educational background of parent or the social economic background of the family, its not based on race. Its based on the interest of the parent and the child working together but thats another thing to realize that parents, its a paradigm shift to realize they can teach all subjects or find resources in order to allow all subjects to be taught through sometimes through Online Education so that all things are being met during those pivotal years of high school. Just to get wonky for a moment and answer to your question, i think a really good program of federals and grants is a great thing. I think ensuring that person or that office has a mindset that is kind of sector blind can help foster innovation. I know we would not have been able to innovate the way we have as a nonPublic School without public title to a funding. I think the balance between regulation and openness to innovation that the d. C. Office of programs and grants has adopted over the past decade has had a measurable impact on our kids. I think having the mindset that you just articulated, ive also heard john talk about this in louisiana, this notion of how can multiple different sectors collaborate together and see themselves engaged in a common enterprise , i think one very tangible way in which that has an impact is within any state or Districts Office of federal programs and grants. A couple of us had a chance to chat yesterday and i was actually thinking about our conversation all night long and it was a conversation and question around more money doesnt always links to better results. What kept me up all night was the thought that not enough money also does not lead to better results and so, i was grappling with this and i thought surely there must be an answer. It cant just be, why guess there is no answer, but when i landed on, again this is just one person thought so i would love to hear what other people think about my crazy 2 00 a. M. Thought, but it was this idea of applying for extra funding for something specific because if i have a specific problem that i want to solve, thats really different than doing what ive always done and so the importance of having a way to say ive got this grand idea and what i have, whether im using it well or not well, i am using it. What is that thing that can fuel innovation or growth. I know lindsay has done some really Amazing Things with the innovation grant that you all have received and sometimes its just whether its the amount or the symbolism behind it, but i do think that injection, that booster shot of go, you can do this, i think it is really important and for what its worth that seemed really coherent at 2 00 a. M. I hope it still sort of makes sense now. [inaudible] i will inject something else, inject the spirit of humility in education reform. I know indianapolis is kind of a hotbed of reform. There is a lot of hubris around growth and performance which puts our district in a defensive posture and its difficult to be in a collaborative relationship when you are playing defense and youre looking to strike back. And to embrace some level of humility especially in approaching the district, we have been very careful so here is the counter to humility. We have been careful not to throw rocks at our beloved School District. After all we are in three former Public School buildings and we are reliant upon them for our title to funds and other funds and were grateful for them for administering those. What i would commend our colleagues in the charter nonpublic world is to embrace a greater level of humility as we are interacting with those who are working and living within the system. At what point does the alternative system become a system that that you then have another system that is competing and so its always a question of whos one up and whos one down as opposed to i love your idea of collaboration, and how can we collaborate because this confrontational defensive, angry, if i win youve got to lose, and if i lose, that means you win, i think it does not serve our students, our families and our Education Systems well anywhere and so that would be my air on the side of caution and looking at your own system as well. I would say, in our work in chicago, at least where we have partnership with the Public School, all sectors its working with central leadership so its not people running off, having to get everyone on the same pag page. I find we do some, whats been more fascinating, the ability to move it forward. There is a genuine sense of collaboration, putting students at the center drives the conversation. Theres a whole movement behind it and i think thats encouraging for leadership in communities and other not stepping off the edge and theres learning and Research Behind it and thats where you get the paradigm shift to move. I think, i would like to make is if we believe people learn in different ways and in different time frames, we need to honor whether its public, charter private and also as we believe in parent empowerment and believing parents should have that role to be directly involved and that is exactly why all of us are at the table here today and the power of collaborating, but also recognizing in a Community Like lindsay and others it means often we dont have the resources or the support or the conductivity or the language to actually access economic advancement. Please take our children and help our children out of the poverty that we have suffered for multiple generations were we have lived in for multiple generations. They rely on the highquality local Public School where they can drop their children off at the curb and trust them to the adults or put their children on the bus and know that they will be safe and become exceptionallexceptional people. What communities and other communities, parents just want their Neighborhood School to be a great school. Thats what they want. They want to be able to walk their child down the street and say this is a great school. Its important for us to collaborate and learn from one another and respect and honor Parents Choice and so forth. But also recognizing the need that exists for the Public School. An example i want to share with collaboration, im sitting here next to diane and lindsay and the Summit Learning have a strong partnership, a good Collaborative Partnership where we are working together to develop the educator workforce. In a customized area thats Learner Centered we are looking for the look force for adults. Capacity building is one. This tool will be available as they tested and refine it. Its essentially the partnership between the Public School and the Charter School that is providing a tool for adult capacity at the classroom level. Its an example of the advancements that can be made as we work together. They are headquartered in georgia, they are the largest distributor. They notice that with the Graduation Rate, what could they do to work with the School System to help that. We are a Public School. They approached the neighboring district and said what can we do. They were brainstorming ideas, computers for students, pizza parties, things to give incentives and what came from that is when you look at the students who are struggling, there are economic barriers. The idea was what if they had a facility where the students could come to work and earn some money while there in school. You think about, if youre worried about what you eat or where to stay, its hard to focus on your precalculus class. Since that time there were two other public School Systems have joined with us. The program has been replicated in several areas and again, it shows what can happen when there is this kind of partnership. The School System has received a grant to expand the program. Students earn up to nine dollars. Hour we always have a life skills class connected to the workday theres actually a school within the workplace. Its a neat way for the students to learn whats required and connected to the real world. I just wanted to mention that. There is a way to collaborate and the grants help School Systems make a school that connect all of it to the workplace. Can i just add i feel like ive been in this kind of discussion before which sometimes feels really intellectual and its this balance of confidence and humility. We love the conversation around collaboration but i dont want us to lose site in terms of the urgency of the problem and so we have a really tough challenge. We want to share and collaborate, but too many of our students who have the least amount of resources are not meeting the highest levels of standards and expectations. This is, if youre going to talk about it have to be about it. One of our values is optimism but it is acknowledging brutal facts well never lowering the standard and keeping it high. Think youre all doing that but if we dont talk about those real challenges, we want accountability but we also want to be empathetic. We want to collaborate. There are real obstacles. The incentives are not aligned for new Charter Schools to access a public building. They have to be aligned in order for us to collaborate. Too many of our students are not getting the education and we are doing ourselves and injustice. To build on that, weve seen fascinating collaboration. Specifically, there is a Charter School that really did some forward thinking work in ways that the same thing. We dont have expertise but that principle teacher to teacher discussion can move forward. Its a key part of research and understanding. Im always riveted by question of what the federal government can do better than state and local government. One of the things that would be interesting to look at when there is a sense of urgency, particularly around to different topics, one is educational performance and the other is the growing narcotic addiction crisis. Look at how we can form with organizations like hud. Its amazing youre pulling off the innovation with 13 of your kids being homeless. Im wondering if there is a way that a shared sense of urgency around problems, that at the end of the day, schools can house kids but kids without houses struggle in school in a way that kids in houses dont. Its hard to concentrate when your parents are addicted. It will be interesting to see how they can exercise their leverage to incite action by department. Thank you. Is just an, any of those who we have not yet heard from . So, as a School Leader but former practitioner and teacher, it was always frustrating to know what the research said in the 1970. Whats great pedagogy, implementation, and yet progress is so slow. We are 40 years in the making. We pull out elements in whatever curriculum or programmer models that we have and yet the progress is slow. I look at as a School Leader and think why is it so slow . Is it the federal level or the state level or at the local level. Really thinking about when decisions are made in your local community, one thing that ive come to recognize is that as much as we love the local control at the school board level or our community, you think about how inefficient that process can be and withhold the practitioners from making the informed decisions and impacting learners. For example, local school boards, people tend to join because they have an agenda. They may have an experience they want to change in shape policy which may counter what the research may say. Now, you flip that for a moment and you go to a private sector, lets say hospital. If we were a Community Member that were upset with a local surgeon, triple bypass surgery technique, we can walk into the hospital and demand to join the board or sit on the vacancy, help craft policy and restrict that surgeon from doing a particular procedure, but yet in education we do. That happens quite frequently and quite typically. So, theres something to be said for continuity of the board, theres something to be said for treating your professionals as professionals so the practitioners who are working with the kids, just like the surgeons were working with their patients have trust and faith that they are making the informed decisions using the best practices. If the medical model would have moved as slowly as the education model, we would be sitting here today deciding, do we or do we not use penicillin. Really think about that approach and how much medicine has advanced. Thats something to reflect on. And i just challenge this assumption, it seems to be implicit that its a zerosum game, that there are winners and losers. If the system leaders embrace, more people want to be served by that system. If the embraces for family vacancy it grow. I think denver sees that. They embrace the portfolio model and people were terrified that city and romans were going to go down and they didnt go down they were not. People moved into denver feeling like they would have to fight the denver system to get whatever was the right option, people got a confidence in the city and ended up enrolling. This idea that theres a misalignment of interest, it doesnt have to be that way as long as we keep our interest align with serving the people we have to serve. Its not my money, the money was raised for the sake of educating youth and we all can figure out ways to do that. It doesnt have to be winners and losers. It can just be you go over here, i think about miracle on t street. Macys was terrified because they thought they would lose the customers but they came back because they believed macys believed in their customer. Im a little awestruck by all the innovators around this table. Im hearing some incredible things. One thing that keeps coming back is something that they said talking about risk. I think we all have taken a lot of risks when the 13 superintendents of School Districts in virginia hired me they said take risks and try things. I kept saying wow, these are kids. I keep going back to a couple things. So, first of all risk takes innovation, it takes the ability to do Something Different and i feel like the educational system has been a very safe place to work for our young people so i have taught and worked with students coming to the system and they see it as a very safe place, and i dont think they see it as these people here see it as a place of innovation. I think they see it as a place of safety and i think a lot of these students that are coming through our Public Education system, going to our colleges, the innovators dont go to education as much. I keep thinking about what can we do as the government, and i think its about helping change the discussion about what it is to be a teacher and about the beauty of innovation and classrooms and in School Divisions across the country and about maybe doing some Public Service announcements that really put the focus on the innovation that is occurring in this nation. There are incredible things going on and i think they can also help us by taking the focus off testing measures and putting it on other. They say its hard to measure some of those things but helping us find ways to measure them, i applaud all the innovation around this table and i hope we can all bring some of these innovators in our Public Education system back into education as the new leaders of the next century. Thank you very much. Thank you too everyone for that conversation. We will take a short break and we will start again at 1045. Thank you. This week in congress, house returns today for the first legislative business of the second session of the 115th congress. This weeks agenda includes a resolution tuesday supporting the rights of the people of iran to Free Expression and condemning the Iranian Regime for its crackdown on legitimate protest. Members will consider legislation thursday to reauthorize provisions of the foreign Intelligence Surveillance act. That is set to expire on january 19, the same day current government funding runs out. The senate also returns today at 3 00 p. M. Eastern. They will consider the nomination of William Campbell to be a u. S. District judge for the middle district of tennesse tennessee. With a vote to advance his nomination at 530 eastern. For the rest of the week the senate will take up other judicial nominations for u. S. District court in tennessee, georgia and texas. As always you can follow the house live on cspan and the senate life on cspan2. We have more now from the Education Department rethink School Summit focusing on innovation in k12 education. Education secretary betsy devos leads the discussion with educators as they talk about ways to customize learning to each individual student. [inaudible conversations] we will get started again and keep us on track. We are moving into the next and final topic of customizing learning and again we have three presenters we are excited to hear from. First we will have the ceo of Summit Learning, diane