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Education
June 28, 2011

Facilities Guide for New and Expanding Charter Schools

New report offers best practices from successful Massachusetts charter schools to help other charter leaders navigate the facilities development process
Education
June 26, 2011

Virtually Worlds Apart

Mirror-mirror on the wall, which states are pushing innovation most of all? Not Massachusetts. A number of other states are at this point moving faster than Massachusetts on key educational innovations. The good news for Massachusetts is that last January the state...
American Citizenship, Education
June 16, 2011

Expanding School Choice through METCO

Non-partisan Research Groups Urge Lawmakers to Expand Minority Students’ Access to METCO Program
Education
June 14, 2011

Tide turning on municipal health savings

The Globe‘s editorial page came out with a very clear view on the House and Senate proposals on the issue of how to contain municipal health care costs. LAST-MINUTE provisions inserted in the Senate budget undermine much of the effort on Beacon...
Education
June 10, 2011

Uncommon and common goals

The dual mission of Phoenix Charter Academy—giving second chances to troubled youth and a relentless focus on academics—may seem a mission impossible. It isn’t, but the work to address systemic truancy and high dropout rates in our urban school districts presents numerous...
Education
June 5, 2011

Passion and Fellowship

Massachusetts charter schools have a strong record in serving urban and suburban minorities. What about children who are clearly at-risk or have special needs? Chelsea-based Phoenix Charter Academy (PCA) serves at-risk students from Chelsea, Everett, Lynn, Revere, Winthrop, and Boston. The school’s...
Education
June 3, 2011

Mother Courage

Earlier this week, I shared a couple of videos introducing the Chelsea-based Phoenix Charter Academy (PCA). PCA is unique in that it focuses on getting at-risk students back working at school, but also insists on high-quality academic achievement. The academic culture at...
Education
June 2, 2011

If walls could speak

Walk into a building and you can already tell a lot about an institution. An excellent teacher can be found in a building that screams stasis, but a culture of excellence in a school will not over time abide such a feeling...
Education
May 30, 2011

Phoenix Charter Academy's Mission Impossible?

The month of May opened with the official granting of 16 charters. That’s a great start by the Patrick administration on implementing the charter provision of the January 2010 education law. Full implementation of the law will double the number of students...
Education
May 27, 2011

School dollars and health reform

Calls for more funding for education are common. Policy organizations may have played a significant role in the ideas included in the framework for Massachusetts’ nation-leading education reform, but teachers unions played the big role in pushing for more dollars into schools...