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It's been great to reconnect with many of you at various spring conferences over the past several weeks. Through the programming of those events - as well as our side conversations - It's become increasingly clear that communications, coalition building, and advocacy are areas where many in our sector are struggling. CEE-Trust is going to be building some robust programming and support for our members in these areas in the coming months and years. We're excited to share more details in the near future.
Thanks, as well, to the many members and friends participating in our effort to arrive at a network-wide definition (and measurement tool) of "high-quality" seats/schools. Key to our future work together is the ability to measure the rate at which cities in our network are expanding the number of great seats/schools for their students. We're working now to arrange the first meeting of our new advisory group and look forward to reporting out our findings.
Lastly, we share a bittersweet exit interview with Neerav Kingsland - outgoing CEO of New Schools for New Orleans and long-time CEE-Trust member and friend. We ask Neerav to weigh in on what it means to lead a great harbormaster, and how his future work will align with our CEE-Trust community moving forward.
As always, thanks for your partnership.
Ethan
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Special Section
How to be a Harbormaster:
Interview with Neerav Kingsland, CEO, New Schools for New Orleans
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NSNO has set a pretty high bar for city-based education reform organizations. What's the difference between "start-up" NSNO and "mature" NSNO? What do you know now that you didn't know then?
Well, still much to be learned! The biggest change has probably been moving from primarily a charter incubator to a city strategic leader. More than ever, we're trying to execute a comprehensive strategy that encompasses policy, advocacy, charter growth, and human capital. This requires a greater breadth of expertise on staff as well as deeper relationships with civic leaders. In terms of what we know now, I think we have a much better understanding that portfolio actions (scaling the best, transforming the worst) is the primary vehicle for change - and all initiatives in advocacy, policy, charter growth, and human capital need to be developed with this in mind. In short, we're now fighting for (and investing in) systems level transformation rather than one school at a time growth. If you were to distill the key roles that an education "harbormaster" should play in its city what would they be and why? - City Leader: set the vision for the city, both in terms of outcomes and system structure
- Strategic Coordinator: develop strategy that aligns advocacy, charter growth, and human capital initiatives around a common goal
- Investor: aggregate philanthropy and invest in highest impact entrepreneurial organizations
- Twitter Addict: well, this might be idiosyncratic to NSNO's outgoing CEO
What other harbormasters do you admire and why?
Many thing to learn from great harbormasters - a sample below: - Philadelphia School Partnership: engaging in systems level reform at the outset - they launched with a clear vision that they would be a systems level influencer
- The Mind Trust: stimulating entrepreneurial activity - open contests for entrepreneur driven ideas drives stake into heart of "funder knows best" mentality
- New Schools for Baton Rouge: rallying community leaders - despite fact that Baton Rouge's first charter reforms failed, NSBR has built civic will for a second wave (which is more likely to succeed)
You've stated that in the future you want to help scale the New Orleans model to more cities? What is the role of harbormasters in your future work and how important are they to helping scale the NoLa model?
They are essential. Scaling the New Orleans model means that the district transforms into a regulator, leaving the non-profit community to lead on strategy and program. Superintendents inevitably come and go. A harbormaster with an aligned board can be the strategic steward of a city, so long as it maintains legitimacy by consistently delivering results.
What advice can you offer to early stage harbormasters or leaders who are thinking about starting new harbormasters? What do you wish someone had told you back when you, Sarah, and Matt were launching NSNO?
Strategy is everything at the outset. Harbormasters will be pulled in a 1,000 different directions when they launch. Strategic clarity is the only thing that can win the day. Harbormasters have to get three things right: advocacy / policy to execute full non-profit school operated portfolio vision; charter school growth; and human capital. Pretty much everything else is non-essential at the beginning. This does not mean that other initiatives have no value - only that their value will generally pale in comparison to these three strategies. Structural reform + charters + talent - keep your eye on the prize. Kids deserve nothing less.
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Schools That Can Milwaukee's Abby Andrietsch & CityBridge's Mieka Wick Selected for Fellowship
STCM co-founder and Executive Director Abby Andrietsch and CityBridge Executive Director Mieka Wick were both selected for an education fellowship with the Pahara and Aspen institutes. In total, 24 people were selected for the two-year program, which is designed to support diverse and innovative leaders who are reimagining America's public schools. You can find out more here.
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Updates from Members & Friends
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The Mind Trust Launches a Fellowship
 The Mind Trust, in partnership with Indianapolis Public Schools and the City of Indianapolis, is launching a new Innovation School Fellowship that will maximize the impact of a historic new law enabling talented leaders or management teams to start high performing, autonomous schools in IPS. The law, Public Law 1321, allows for the launch of "Innovation Network Schools," in vacant or unused IPS buildings or in place of persistently low-performing schools. These schools will have key conditions for success: freedom for educators to innovate and accountability for results.
The Innovation School Fellowship will provide select leaders who commit to launching Innovation Network Schools the critical time and support needed to ensure those schools thrive. Fellowship winners will receive a full salary and benefits ($129,000 in total) so they can spend a year planning their schools' design and rollout. Fellows also will receive significant support during their planning year, including feedback on their school-design plans from national and local experts; opportunities to visit best-in-class schools across the country; access to a national network of school-incubation leaders; and sessions with IPS officials to learn district operations.
Statements of intent are due May 15, and final applications are due June 1 for this first application cycle. Interested candidates can follow this link to access the application or register for virtual and in-person information sessions at which candidates can learn more about the application process.
Rogers Family Foundation Oakland Reads 2020 Baseline Report Released
 Oakland Reads 2020, an initiative of the Rogers Family Foundation, has just released their Baseline Report, an in-depth analysis of the current state of third-grade reading proficiency in Oakland, California. The report, written by Urban Strategies Council on behalf of Oakland Reads 2020, focuses on third grade reading success as well as the four Oakland Reads levers: school readiness, school attendance, summer learning, & family engagement. The report highlights challenges, progress, and community assets already in place serving Oakland students and families. An accompanying one-page infographichighlights the most compiling data from the report.
Oakland Reads 2020 is a citywide initiative to ensure that more children in Oakland succeed in school and graduate prepared for college, a career, and active citizenship. To learn more, visit their website: http://www.oaklandreads.org/
Chicago Public Education Fund Announces Winners for Personalized Instruction Grants
 Breakthrough Schools: Chicago today announced that seven CPS schools have each won $100,000 planning grants to develop and launch next-generation schools which provide personalized instruction. The winners include schools that will open for the 2014-2015 school year, as well as existing traditional public schools, charters, magnets, and one AUSL campus. For more information read the press release here.
E3 Rochester Finances Charter School Facility With Private Lenders
 Facilities funding is a struggle in many cities. To house the PUC Achieve Charter School, E3 Rochester Inc. has financed the renovation of an abandoned church-school building by asking 25 people to "Stand up for the Children of Rochester" and lend $100,000 each for a seven year term at 6% interest, 25 year amortization, with a 7 year balloon payment at the end for the remaining principal. It is a way citizens can invest in their children and their city and still earn a good return. As it turns out, several people agreed to 2% interest, several have also made donations, and E3 has created quite a buzz about good charter schools. Twenty five more people are now advocating for charter schools and helping raise more money. The rent payments from the charter school are sufficient to pay down the loans and the school plans to buy the building within 7 years. This may be a sustainable model other cities could use, particularly those with high enough per-pupil funding.
New Schools for Baton Rouge Hosts Education Ecosystem Summit
 On March 27 and 28, New Schools for Baton Rouge (NSBR) convened nearly 50 local and national high-impact organizations, businesses, and foundations in Baton Rouge for its first Education Ecosystem Summit. Participants came together to reflect upon their efforts, reimagine what is possible in pre-K to college education, and respond to the Baton Rouge community's demand for excellence in schools.
NSBR was joined by local community leaders and national organizations as well as our friends and thought-partners from the CEE-Trust family: Butch Trusty, Christine Campbell (CRPE), Matthew Randazzo (Choose to Succeed), Neerav Kingsland (New Schools of New Orleans), and Mike Wang (Philadelphia School Partnerships). Working sessions addressed challenges such as early childhood and postsecondary education, the talent pipeline, and facilities financing. Learn more about the "education ecosystem" concept on NSBR's blog and read press coverage of the summit here and here.
CRPE's Paul Hill Discusses Privatization in Smart Contracting Means Delegating, Not Abdicating
 Hill discusses a recent report in The Atlantic on government privatization and outlines some strategies for the education reform movement. The full article is available here
CRPE has also launched a new LinkedIn group for Portfolio School District management jobs. Members can post openings and share existing openings with their networks. Join the group here.
Thomas B. Fordham Institute Releases Report and Hosts Event on The Role of State Education Agencies in the Education-Reform Ecosystem
 In recent years, policymakers and reform advocates have viewed State Education Agencies (SEAs) as the lead organizations for implementing sweeping reforms and initiatives in K-12 education-everything from Race to the Top grants and federal waivers to teacher-evaluation systems and online schools. But SEAs were not built-nor are they really competent-to drive such reforms, argue Andy Smarick and Juliet Squire in The State Education Agency: At the Helm, Not the Oar. And despite the best efforts of talented, energetic leaders, SEAs will never be able to deliver the reform results that their states need. You can read the full report here and view a video of the discussion here.
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Chicago Public Education Fund
Community Education Building of Wilmington, Delaware
New Schools for New Orleans
The Managing Director of Development will oversee the development and implementation of NSNO's fundraising strategy and will be responsible for managing the execution and pursuit of major grants.
America Succeeds
We are looking for a strategic thinker with a bias for action who can build and maintain client relationships. Candidates must have at least 10 years of work experience including a minimum of three years of education policy experience and we highly value an entrepreneurial spirit and ability to translate problems into practical solutions. We're just a year old so it's an incredible opportunity for someone to help build a national organization. The position is based in Denver and will require some travel. We are offering a competitive six figure salary with health and retirement benefits.
Families for Excellent Schools
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If you'd like to submit updates for future CEE-Trust newsletters, please contact Kevin Leslie, Executive Assistant ( [email protected]). Thanks for reading! |
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