TheThird Way (To Make a Bundle in Education)
What is the Third Way? Well, whatever it is, it launches tomorrow (May 31) in Boston with featured guest appearances by Secretary of Education John King and Massachusetts Secretary of EducationJames Peyser (formerly honcho of New Schools Venture Fund). So maybe we'd better dig a little and see if we can figure out exactly what we're talking about.
The event is touted as The Emerging Third Way: Blazing an Optimistic Path Ahead in K-12 Education, and the blurb on the registration site starts with this little history lesson:
Since 1635, Massachusetts has been known for its district public schools- the “first way”. Since 1993, Massachusetts’ charter schools have led the nation in pioneering a “second way”. It is time to recognize a Third Way – an emerging set of strategies that combine school-level autonomies and energetic innovation with a commitment to universal service and local voice. The Third Way does not obviate the need and demand for either of the other ways but it does hold out a promising path for cooperative change that could raise student success, especially among disadvantaged students, on a large scale.
I'm just going to skip over the first part of the history lesson because arguing about whether or not Massachusett's charter schools have been nation-leading pioneers since 1993 is like getting in argument about whether or not a trio of alopeciac yeti infiltrated the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes during the eighties. It makes a damn good story, but not a very good evidence-based paper. So there goes our Common Core based writing score.
But can we close read a path to understanding the Third Way? Well, "emerging set of strategies" means roughly "we're still working on punching up the rough draft." Next, "autonomies and energetic innovation" are supposed to be the virtues of charter schools, while "universal service and local voice" are concerns of the public ed CURMUDGUCATION: TheThird Way (To Make a Bundle in Education):
Big Education Ape: CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: Goodbye, May! - http://go.shr.lc/1sZ0UzZ
