Switching The Script: Kansas City Public Schools Operates Charter Of Its Own

The ecosystem of D.C. charter schools that has evolved over the last two decades represents a cornucopia of creative and nontraditional approaches to education, in addition to fairly traditional college-prep schools, and is now producing some of the highest graduation rates, college acceptance rates, and average test scores in public schools in the nation.

Bangladesh schools had very low attendance because children were kept home to work and conditions were unsafe for girls, ethnic minorities, and those with disabilities. BRAC, one of the world's largest and most comprehensive NGOs, has built new schools addressing all the reasons, at home and school, that were preventing children from attending.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans gave control of its schools to a Recovery School District that replaced the majority of the city’s existing schools with public charter schools. Following the reforms, research showed improvements in student achievement, graduation rates, and college matriculation, though the gains have slowed in recent years.

Rhode Island has stringent requirements for charter schools, with strong systems for oversight and accountability and provisions intended to limit harm to existing school districts and ensure the charters are representative of their communities. Charter school students in the state are making bigger standardized testing gains than their peers in traditional public schools.

Young people are graduating from high schools and not ready for college level work. Liz Willen describes different initiatives around the United States that have provided solutions for improving secondary education. She addresses the importance of STEM, role models for students, and project-based learning.

Last year, New York City began turning schools in poor neighborhoods into community schools—combining rigorous instruction and extracurricular enrichment with a broad social support system.

Across the globe, there are nearly 60 million students studying in Catholic institutions. In the United States, however, those numbers have been falling in recent years, forcing schools to come up with new ways to collaborate.

When students take ownership over their own learning, they are more likely to be successful, the executive director of Redmond Proficiency Academy in Oregon, believes. He has used this philosphy to develop a charter school where students choose their own classes and are assessed based on their proficiency in the related content and skills.

Educational nonprofit OneGoal has proven that its model of education helps provide low-income students in Chicago and Houston with the tools needed to pursue a college degree. Now, the nonprofit hopes to improve the college graduation rate in New York City by assisting high school students in understanding the basic techniques to achieve success.

The Charter School for Applied Technologies has the highest graduation rate in Erie County, despite its predominantly poor, minority student makeup, in large part simply by instilling high expectations.