FAME Partnerships Meet Manufacturing Workforce Needs February 16, 2018 | Safal Partners Key Takeaway: Workforce development occurs when industry takes the wheel in technical education. When it comes to developing manufacturing talent, a national program is driving innovation in career and technical education and accelerating partnerships that address real-world needs. [...]
Improving Outcomes for Adult Learners Monday, October 23, 2017 | Margaret Patterson More than 40 percent of adults age 16 or older participate in some form of adult education activities. Safal Partners recently concluded a contract with the national Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE) in the U.S. Department of Education to [...]
Schools providing personalized learning integrate student interests and self-pacing into their curriculum by combining student-centered practices with technology. There are many approaches to personalized learning, and schools may incorporate various degrees of personalized learning methods. When implemented in a rural setting, personalized learning can provide a unique educational option for families who otherwise [...]
A recent Fordham Institute study, Three Signs That a Proposed Charter School Is at Risk of Failing, compared the details of charter school applications to the performance of the resulting schools. According to authors Anna Nicotera and David Stuit, schools trying to implement “child-centered” models were more likely to struggle academically than schools pursuing other models. [...]
America grows more diverse every day. In the future, today’s young people will need to be able to thrive amid a multiplicity of nationalities, perspectives and practices; our society and economy count on it. But too many of our public schools continue to isolate students from peers and adult role models of different backgrounds. One promising [...]
There is a small but growing number of leaders engaging in intentionally diverse charter schools. To understand these schools and everything they are trying to achieve, it helps to listen to people creating, working in and sending their children to them. Intentionally diverse educational settings can be incredibly beneficial. These schools aim to bring students, staff [...]
Simply put, charter school governing boards and authorizers need to take responsibility for strong oversight of financial matters. This means appropriately overseeing a school’s financial operations, including responsible budgeting, financial controls, and procedures, as well as preventing, identifying and remedying fraud. While this may not sound controversial, too often, discussions of charter school quality [...]
The charter school movement includes a lot of very reasonable people. Case in point, last week the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools released the latest version of the model charter school law. Like its predecessor, this is an important and pragmatic document. Just as the original model law has been instrumental in the growth and success [...]
In the debate about charter school discipline, the voices of people who work in charter schools deserve more attention. Many charter school leaders have improved their approach to discipline to help more kids learn while reducing exclusionary practices like suspension and expulsion. You can hear from some of them through a set of video case [...]
Much of the conflict over school discipline stems from whether you treat student discipline as a school practice or a student outcome. Discipline has parts of both. We should treat the parts differently. The charter concept has two related assumptions: autonomy and accountability. Like most aspects of schooling, charter schools should have autonomy to control their disciplinary practices while authorizers [...]
