Teachers Launch Odyssey Initiative « InterACT

Teachers Launch Odyssey Initiative « InterACT:

Teachers Launch Odyssey Initiative

by David B. Cohen

In a recent post I wrote about the Education Department’s bus tour of the nation.  It was quite the production, with high ranking department staffers, teacher ambassador fellows, public relations, media and logistics.  But on the same afternoon, following the ED events, I also had the opportunity to learn about a smaller but more interesting project.

Teachers Brooke Peters, Michelle Healy, and Todd Sutler have launched a project they call the Odyssey Initiative.  Working together at Community Roots Charter School in Brooklyn, the trio began kicking around ideas of opening their own school.  To approach such a serious challenge, they began to wonder how they might learn more about what makes various schools effective and successful.  Rather than rush headlong into the work of opening a school, they’ve raised money to travel around the entire country this year to visit a variety of schools to see what they can learn, what they can share, and what they can apply to their own efforts in New York City.

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Todd Sutler is the executive director of the project, and the afternoon I met him he was in Palo Alto, CA, to