Sunday, April 18, 2010

What we were looking at a year ago...



Green Dot Public Schools are transforming public education in Los Angeles. All these children are receiving the education they rightfully deserve be successful in college, leadership, and life. Green Dot works under three main bullet points - First, they create and operate high-achieving public schools where nearly all students graduate and go on to college. A pretty obvious step. Second, they help parents throughout the city organize to strengthen their neighborhood schools. This is where they really shine. Education is more of an urban planning/design/community concern instead of a isolated compartment of users from k-12. Schools are part of the neighborhood like they were in 50s. Third, they are pushing the Los Angeles Unified School District to move boldly to improve the city's public schools.

Instead of learning factories, Green Dot Green Dot envisions a public school system in L.A. as small, excellent schools that support teachers to teach creatively. The parents are encouraged to be involved, and help students learn everything they need to know - no matter what their background. Children learn more from their parents then they want to admit. Unfortunately, with the good comes the bad that they learn as well. Having parents acknowledge their impact on their children is a big step in improving the child's education and desire to learn.

Last November Bill and Melinda Gates gave a $335 million investment in teacher effectiveness, with major grants for experiments in tenure, evaluation, compensation, training and mentoring in three large school systems and a cluster of public charter schools.

The winners, picked from 10 applicants including Pittsburgh schools recieving $40 million and five charter networks in Los Angeles (Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, Aspire Public Schools, Green Dot Public Schools, Inner City Education Foundation and Partnerships to Uplift Communities Schools), $60 million. I would like to know what happened to the $40 m that PGH received.