Carnival of Education
I’m in my first ever Carnival of Education this week for this post over at What It’s Like on the Inside. the most interesting post (and there are many!) to me was this one about starting a charter school based on a law firm model.
The method by which this could be accomplished is by using a state’s charter law. A group of teachers could apply for a charter with a school along a law firm model. In the model, there would be senior teachers on a managing committee, say 8-12 in total. Each of these senior teachers would have three roles, not unlike senior partners. First would be management of the school. Whether this is delegated to a staff person or handled by committee, they would be ultimately responsible for the schools bottom line–fiscally and educationally. While there may be other senior teachers at the school, this small committee is responsible, just like the management committee of a law firm, for the overall success of the school.
May 1st, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Dan,
Thanks for the link. There would be two possible outcomes (among many) that the teacher-led school would experience.
1. Teachers may learn how hard it really is to run a school, particularly a charter school with more budgetary control than a traditional school.
2. The pedagogy and methods chosen by teachers might reveal more about what those teachers view as successful methods than any “study” by academics, that is what front line teachers think is the best among the options–at least at the outset. As results for students come in you would no doubt see general shifts, but the initial choices would be highly instructive.
I would love to see such a model set up somewhere, but with the difficulties of some of the state charter laws, it might be hard.