Apollo 20 Initial Results Show Rising Math Scores, But Questions Remain
An ambitious experiment created by Harvard economist Roland Fryer to export and scale the practices of high-performing charter school chains to public schools in Houston appears to be bearing early fruit, according to Fryer's findings in a recent report. But the results are preliminary, and the method has its critics.
The three-year project, called Apollo 20, is focused on turning around nine low-performing public schools in Houston using five practices Fryer found to be effective in New York's top charter schools. Apollo 20 aims to close the black-white achievement gap, and, as Fryer said during a presentation made in Houston, "boil down charter school successes into translatable, scalable practices for public schools."
"When charters were first established, there were two goals: to educate kids in bad schools and be an incubator for best practices," Fryer told The
Posted: 10/12/11 03:32 PM ET