Education

Our colleague and occasional co-conspirator Doug Ross wrote this short paper describing the Second Wave of Urban Education Reform that is emerging in urban K-12 education. It puts into context the successes and failures of public policies aimed at urban schools and makes clear what the next wave has to address and how it should unfold. Doug is a former Michigan State Senator, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor, and Chief Innovation Officer of the Detroit Public Schools. He founded the University Prep charter schools in Detroit in 2000, and most recently formed the American Promise Schools charter management group to focus on the challenge of turning around existing low-performing urban high schools.

An innovation scan in best practices in urban K-12 school performance conducted by Pete Plastrik and Margaret Trimmer-Hartley.

A presentation by Pete Plastrik on the challenges of innovation in the K-12 school market.

An overview of the design of the Urban Preparatory Academy charter schools in Detroit.

An article by Pete Plastrik and Doug Ross on the UPA charter school model and why it produces significantly different educational outcomes.

This excerpt from our paper, Learning on the Edge of Chaos, compared different models of how the brain and mind work.

An examination of the relationship between learning theory and complex adaptive systems theory. It was developed in partnership with Stephanie Marshall, former superintendent of the Illinois Math and Science Academy.

An overview of the paradigm shift in learning theory and its application to school design.

An introduction to the use of problem based learning in K-12 schools.

An overview of learning theory and its application to school design.