Our Work: Projects
Symposiums - September 29-30 2009:
On September 29-30, 2009, we partnered with the School of Public Affairs at UCD and others in hosting two symposiums.
The first was: "How to effectively manage a portfolio of schools within a school district." A handful of districts around the country, including Denver, are moving to a model of running schools with various levels of autonomy. This shift in school management means that districts need to utilize diverse strategies to serve those schools. Managing a charter school, for example, requires a different type of service, funding strategy, and support from a district than is required to manage a district-run neighborhood school. This symposium will focus on what it looks like to effectively manage a portfolio district. Experts will provide information on best practices, and discuss what districts in Colorado should do to shift towards a portfolio-type system.
The second was: "What should be done about Colorado's low performing charter schools?" As we all know, there are "good" charters schools and "bad" charter schools. Charter advocates have long touted that the beauty of the charter contract is that it can be revoked or non-renewed. However, in reality, very few charter schools are closed. The politics surrounding any school closure are challenging. Yet, having low performing charter schools continue to exist is detrimental to the students and also to the charter school movement. The symposium will cover such topics as: intervention and authorizing practices that can lead to higher performing charter schools, accountability systems that have been enacted in other states to make the non-renewal/revocation process more transparent and systematic, lessons learned from Colorado authorizers that have been faced with revocation or non-renewal of charters, and small group discussions focused on targeted issues related to charter closures.
For more information, contact Amy Anderson.