Opposite the Editorial Page
Op-ed /op-ed/ n. 1940s. 1. Denoting or printed on the page opposite the editorial page in a newspaper, devoted to commentary, feature articles, etc.
From the time she was a teenager, Runa Alam knew she wanted to do work that brings private capital into emerging markets as a means to reduce poverty.
“Even in the 1970s, I realized that most capital sits in the private sector, and without that capital coming into countries that need development, they are not going to develop,” she says.
Continue reading in AllAfrica.
In providing advice on investing for beginners, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission explains the concept of diversification by using a simple maxim: don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
For personal investment, diversification means investing money in different asset categories—stocks, bonds, real estate, etc.—and spreading investment around within those categories, such as having a stock portfolio that invests in a range of companies from different sectors. A diversified portfolio makes it possible for investors to pursue different types of opportunities and reduce the risk of losing money.
Continue reading at MarketLinks.
(Photo: USAID)
As the Covid-19 pandemic began to spread around the world in early 2020, gloomy predictions about the coronavirus’s effects on Africa also made headlines.
Human-rights groups feared that the lack of infrastructure and gaps in health services could result in a widespread public health crisis. The economic outlook for Africa turned bleak as the lockdown measures designed to control the spread of the disease resulted in the continent entering its first recession in 25 years.
So far, however, the pandemic has largely spared Africa, which has reported significantly fewer cases and deaths than other regions. While finance experts still worry that Africa’s firms will bleed from the economic impact of the coronavirus, Runa Alam, Co-founding Partner and CEO of Development Partners International (DPI), reveals that her portfolio companies have found ways to adapt and grow even in the face of the pandemic’s challenges.
Continue reading at ImpactAlpha.
An African Model for This Moment: Local Institutional Funding of Infrastructure
with Vanessa Holcomb Mann. June 2020.
Governments in the region are pushing for more high impact infrastructure investments, but public resources are increasingly under pressure. Kenyan Pension Funds Investment Consortium (KEPFIC) is a leading initiative in Africa investing in infrastructure and private equity with potential for replication.
Continue reading at AfricaInvestor.
(Photo: AfricaInvestor)
How High-Impact Businesses in Emerging Markets Are Pivoting in the COVID crisis
with Kristin Jangraw. May 2020.
(Photo: ImpactAlpha)
Local texture manufacturers in North and West Africa are pivoting to meet demand for personal protective equipment. Flower growers in Kenya are switching to grow basic foodstuffs.
Small and mid-sized companies create 80% of Africa’s jobs, (compared to 60% in the U.S. and 50% in the European Union) and are at risk as the COVID crisis ripples through emerging markets. Local advisors and intermediaries that straddle investment and international development in emerging markets are playing a critical role in helping them adapt, survive and contribute to the economic recovery.
Continue reading at Impact Alpha.
Overcoming an Outdated Narrative: Why Investors Need to Recognize Africa’s True Potential
with Cameron Khosrowshahi. April 2020.
When Nigerian author and MacArthur Genius grantee Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie arrived in the United States for college in the 1990s, her roommate was surprised that she knew how to use a stove. People asked her where she had learned English, and her writing professor informed her that the African characters in her novel weren’t believable because they drove cars. For the first time, Adichie found herself confronted with what she now calls the single story of Africa, “a story of a place of beautiful landscapes, beautiful animals and incomprehensible people, fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty and AIDS.”
Continue reading at NextBillion.
Blended Finance 101
March 2020.
UN Women/Narendra Shrestha
In 2015, the United Nations developed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—a global checklist of objectives designed to ensure the sustainable development of our world and the prosperity of its people. Unfortunately, the annual funding gap for reaching the SDGs by 2030 is trillions per year—a figure that vastly exceeds the resources of development agencies. After all, official development assistance from government aid worldwide is only about $150 billion a year.
Continue reading at Marketlinks.
Basis.ed
Wasting no time in wooing the nation’s largest labor union, Democratic primary candidates have come out strong against public charter schools. Sen. Bernie Sanders led the pack with the most aggressive anti-charter stance, insisting that all charters abide by the union contracts in their local districts and calling for a total ban on for-profit charter schools. Not to be outdone, Sen. Elizabeth Warren recently rolled out an education plan designed to appeal to unions: It ends the main source of federal funding for charter schools and echoes Sanders’s call for a ban on for-profit charters.
Continue reading at The 74.
The Progressive Roots of Chartering
with David Osborne. October 2019.
Listening to the rhetoric of Democratic presidential candidates, one would think charter schools were a Republican initiative opposed by all progressives. Bernie Sanders calls for a halt to all federal funding for charter schools. Elizabeth Warren joins him in condemning for-profit charters.
Continue reading at Medium.
Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post
It started with a bartender.
For transplants to the District, it can be hard to find a sense of community. On the day my husband and I went to visit the apartment we would end up renting for the next two years, we decided to have lunch around the corner, enticed by the open-air dining room, as well as the menu of Belgian food and beer. The exchange with the bartender was full of pleasantries, nothing more than you’d expect, excellent service with a friendly demeanor. It was, like most beginnings, the kind when you don’t realize that something’s begun.
Continue reading at The Washington Post.
SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Central to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ cantankerous mystique is his anti-establishment stance and uncompromising vision for radical economic change. When it comes to public schools, however, Sanders is no revolutionary. On the contrary, he sides with the education establishment in defending a status quo that is failing poor and minority students.
Continue reading at New York Daily News.
During the year I student–taught in Washington, D.C., I was fortunate enough to observe and teach at multiple public schools, both district and charter. The two charters schools where I spent many hours were vastly different from one another.
Washington Latin Public Charter School had a diverse-by-design student body, a classics-based curriculum and a Socratic approach to teaching. SEED Public Charter High School, on the other hand, was a college-preparatory, residential school located in one of the District’s poorest neighborhoods.
Continue reading at The 74.
Nearly 14 years ago, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana’s elected leaders decided to rebuild New Orleans’s failing public education system from the ground up, as a system of public charter schools. Prior to the storm, the district was considered one of the nation’s worst. Half the students dropped out, and four in 10 adults in the city could not read beyond an elementary school level.
Continue reading at Forbes.
Emery Lower loves to read. She loves Harry Potter, Bridge to Terabithia and Pride and Prejudice. Since beginning sixth grade, she’s developed an interest in graphic novels, especially mangas; in particular, she recommends The Tea Dragon Society. Each year that Emery has taken the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness exams, she’s earned a "masters grade level" score on the reading section.
Continue reading at Forbes.
Fixing the Weak Link in the Charter Chain
April 2019.
Photo: Getty
In Washington, D.C., D.C. Bilingual Public Charter School recently celebrated its 15th birthday by throwing a quinceañera for staff, students and families. In the traditional fashion, this coming-of-age Latin American celebration involved a lot of food, music and dancing.
Continue reading at Forbes.
The Montessori Comeback
March 2019.
Because Montessori schools are often associated with progressive suburbanites and well-to-do private schools, many people don’t know that Dr. Maria Montessori originally developed her pedagogical approach while running a school for some of the poorest children in Rome. Unfortunately, with the exception of some Montessori magnet schools created as part of desegregation initiatives in the 1960s and 1970s, the Montessori model has been largely relegated to the arena of private schools since it arrived in the United States over 100 years ago.
Continue reading at Forbes.
Photo: Associated Press
Most people who know me know that I’m a big believer in public school choice. To me, it’s a no brainer that when school districts create school attendance zones based on students’ home addresses, they are creating systems in which poor students will most likely attend poorly performing schools. Forcing students to attend a chronically failing school because of where they live sets them up for failure and reinforces cycles of generational poverty.
Continue reading at Medium.
Charter schools serve about three million students across 42 states and the District of Columbia. To clarify, charter schools are public schools operated by independent organizations, usually nonprofits. Most are schools of choice, and unlike magnet schools in traditional districts, they are not allowed to select their students. If too many students apply, they hold lotteries to see who gets in. Charter schools are freed from many of the rules that constrain district-operated schools. In exchange for increased autonomy, they are held accountable for their performance through contracts with authorizers.
Continue reading at Forbes.
Photo by Digital Pioneers Academy
With 2019 barely underway, the nation has already witnessed another set of highly publicized teacher strikes. Teachers unions and anti-charter activists have wasted no time in painting public charter schools as the culprit, blaming them for “draining money from public schools.”
To clarify, charter schools are public schools. They’re supported by taxpayer money and overseen by public organizations—often school districts. All charter students must participate in state tests and related accountability measures.
Continue reading at Forbes.
When Aaron Cuny and Will Stoetzer were thinking about how they wanted to structure their own D.C. charter school back in 2012, they kept returning to the same question: “When were we doing the best work for kids?”
Continue reading at The 74.
Photo by Ingenuity Prep
Photo by DPA
“When I finish writing the statement, that cat will move,” promises Deshaunte’ Goldsmith, a sixth-grader at Digital Pioneers Academy Public Charter School. She presses enter on the keyboard and, sure enough, the animated cat on her screen begins to pace back and forth.
Continue reading at The 74.
Photo by Thurgood Marshall Academy
“Coats off, scarves off, hats off! Belts on; shirts tucked,” Stacey Stewart, Thurgood Marshall Academy’s director of student affairs, yells at the two lines of students waiting to check in and begin the school day.
“Ms. Stewart, I’m early today,” a student says as he approaches check-in.
Continue reading at The 74.
A D.C. School Meant to Inspire Teachers and Students
January 2019.
Photo by ITDS
Artwork and projects decorate the light blue walls of Inspired Teaching Demonstration School, an inquiry-based learning public charter school now in its eighth year.
Continue reading at The 74.
Three rows of second-graders stand facing the front of the classroom. A speaker emits sounds. First, a door creaking. Then, footsteps thudding and a wolf howling, all followed by the unmistakable opening riff of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
Continue reading at The 74.
Photo by Center City Public Charter Schools
Who is Lewis Ferebee, D.C.’s New Chancellor?
with David Osborne. December 2018.
Photo from The Washington Post
After 11 years of centralization, Lewis D. Ferebee, the choice of D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) to be the next D.C. schools chancellor (subject to confirmation by the D.C. Council), will bring a fresh perspective to D.C. Public Schools. As superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools, his signature strategy was empowering principals and teachers.
Continue reading at The Washington Post.
After two years of teaching pre-kindergarten, Cristina Guadalupe was ready to transition to the elementary level. Dedicated to working with low-income students, she began applying to schools in underserved communities across Camden, New Jersey. She sent out application after application but heard nothing back.
Continue reading at Forbes.
“Good morning, scholars!” principal-in-training Jackie Navar yells, kicking off the community meeting at Ogden Elementary School, part of the 78207 zip code on San Antonio’s struggling West Side.
Hundreds of children echo Navar’s salutations.
Continue reading at The 74.
Where Politics Make Charters Difficult, 9 Tips for How Urban Districts Can Create Charter-like Schools — and Improve Their Success
with David Osborne. September 2018.
Over the past 15 years, the fastest improvement in urban public education has come from cities that have embraced charter schools’ formula for success — autonomy, choice, diversity of school designs, and real accountability for performance. To compete, many districts have recently tried to spur charterlike innovation and increase student achievement by granting their school leaders more autonomy.
Continue reading at The 74.
For the past six months, education experts have speculated at length about the role of teachers unions after the Supreme Court decision in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
Continue reading at Forbes.
Shuttershock
Over the past 15 years, cities across the country have experienced rapid growth in the number of public charter schools serving their students. Charter schools are public schools operated by independent organizations, usually nonprofits. They are freed from many of the rules that constrain district-operated schools. In exchange for increased autonomy, they are normally held accountable for their performance by their authorizers, who close or replace them if they fail to educate children. Most are schools of choice, and unlike magnet schools in traditional districts, they are not allowed to select their students. If too many students apply, they hold lotteries to see who gets in.
Continue reading at Forbes.
Can Urban Districts Get Charter-Like Performance With Charter-Lite Schools? The Answer Lies in Autonomy
with David Osborne. August 2018.
Over the past 15 years, cities across the country have experienced rapid growth in the number of public charter schools serving their students. In states with strong charter laws and equally strong authorizers, charter schools have produced impressive students gains, especially in schools with high-minority, high-poverty populations.
Continue reading at The 74.
Julie Cook was ready to leave teaching. She’d worked in both urban and suburban districts and in three different states. No matter where she taught, she ended up frustrated with the lack of autonomy given to, and professionalism expected from, teachers.
Continue reading at Forbes.
The big moments of historical importance don’t go unremarked, but quieter milestones often pass with little notice unless we stop to commemorate them and note their significance. On July 1, one of those modest but meaningful events will occur when New Orleans marks a change that might sound like a dry bureaucratic reshuffling, but is in fact a remarkable event in the history of American education.
Continue reading at The Washington Post.
Big things are quietly happening in San Antonio Independent School District (SAISD).
Ever since Pedro Martinez became superintendent in 2015, creating innovative schools and putting kids first have been at the heart of the district’s values.
Under Martinez’s leadership, the district has begun to create real change and build a system of great schools that provides educational opportunities for all families.
Continue reading at Forbes.
For the past six months, scandal after scandal has come to light in the nation’s capital as the media’s interrogation lamps have shone on D.C. Public Schools.
In November, WAMU exposed a graduation scandal at Ballou High School, leading the Office of the State Superintendent to launch an investigation into DCPS. The investigation revealed district-wide complicity in a systemic culture that pressured teachers to pass students regardless of their attendance or academic performance. The report concluded that one in three 2017 DCPS graduates were awarded diplomas in violation of district policies.
Continue reading at The Washington Post.
In many cities across the nation, home values and rents have risen so high they are pricing teachers out of the market. Young teachers either spend the majority of their paychecks on rent, deal with long daily commutes, or leave the profession. In a survey of public school teachers who left the profession in 2012, two thirds of those who said they would consider returning rated increased salaries as an important factor in that decision.
Continue reading at Forbes.
When asked about my education in a traditional public high school, I always talk about Mr. Gebler’s pre-calculus class. I remember it well for two reasons. One, I struggled to earn a C. Two, his standards — like his eccentric behavior and dedication to students — were so exceptional that I actually retained the content after the school year ended.
A draft research report by workplace survey company Pairin confirms what I’d always known: Mr. Gebler was a top-tier teacher.
Continue reading at The 74.
Texas Has Ambitious Plans to Transform Urban Schools
with David Osborne. April 2018.
In public education, the nation's fastest-improving cities have embraced both charter schools and charter-like "innovation" or "renaissance" schools: public schools with real autonomy (some run by nonprofit organizations), real accountability for performance (including closure if their students are falling too far behind), and a variety of learning models from which families can choose. Those rapidly improving cities include New Orleans, Washington, Denver, and Chicago.
Continue reading at U.S. News and World Report.
The Hidden Piece of Good News in Congress's Budget Deal
with Juliet Amann. March 2018.
The bipartisan budget deal that Congress agreed to last month failed to solve the plight of the Dreamers and extends tax cuts that will add billions to the deficit. Still, quietly buried in the text of the law is much-needed good news for low-income mothers and their children: a provision reauthorizing federal support for home visiting programs that help prepare young children for school.
Continue reading at The Washington Monthly.
Three students stabbed in one week. That’s how 2018 began for New Rochelle High School in Westchester, New York. These school stabbings came just months after the highly publicized, fatal stabbing of a student at Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation in the Bronx.
Continue reading at RealClear Education.
Whenever we had lockdown drills, I’d get angry with my students. The lights were off, the door was locked, and students were seated silently under their desks. For about three minutes.
Then, the whispers began. Muted laughter followed; Phone screens flashed as students texted their friends, taking advantage of this “break” from learning.
Continue reading at The Hill.
In November, NPR uncovered a graduation scandal at Ballou High Schoolin Washington, D.C., where half the graduates missed more than 90 days of school. Administrators pressured teachers to pass failing students, including those whom teachers had barely seen.
Policy wonks have had a field day with the report, adding graduation scandals to their lists of top 2018 education stories to watch and questioning the value of a high school diploma.
Continue reading at The 74.
The Truth About "Segregated" Charter Schools
December 2017.
The Associated Press recently published an analysis that claims charter schools increase segregation in America's public schools.
Charter schools are public schools operated by independent organizations, usually nonprofits. Freed from many of the rules that constrain district-operated schools, they can craft programs that meet the needs of their students. In exchange for increased autonomy, they are normally held accountable for their performance by their authorizers, who close or replace them if their students are falling too far behind.
Continue reading at U.S. News and World Report.
A Bright Spot in School Diversity
with David Osborne. November 2017.
The Albert Shanker Institute recently released a report that analyzed the negative effects of private schools on integrated public education in Washington, D.C.
While only 15 percent of students in the nation's capital attend private schools, 57 percent of white students do. Private schools essentially create the segregation equivalent of white flight to the suburbs, without the physical "flight."
Continue reading at U.S. News and World Report.
When I was a teacher, I didn’t have a “cute” classroom. My colleague upstairs designed a reading space for students, complete with comfortable seats, a special carpet, and twinkle lights.
I was lucky if my posters stayed on the wall (which often they didn’t because of the school’s erratic temperature changes).
Continue reading at The 74.
with David Osborne. November 2017.
Could charter schools and school choice be the best hope for integrating our public schools by race and income?
Charter schools are public schools operated by independent organizations, usually nonprofits. They are freed from many of the rules that constrain district-operated schools. In exchange for increased autonomy, they are normally held accountable for their performance by their authorizers, who close or replace them if they fail to educate children
Continue reading at U.S. News and World Report.
“The building used to be a tomato factory. This space was where the trucks would pull up to unload the produce,” Ralph Bland said as he gestured around the large, airy room that is now the cafetorium — the combined cafeteria-auditorium — of Detroit Edison Public Academy School, a PK-12 public charter school in Detroit, Mich.
Continue reading at Reinventing America's Schools Blog.
Diana Smith, principal of Washington Latin Public Charter School in Washington, D.C., received a lot of press this summer when her No-Tech Tuesday Challengecaught the interest of the media, educators, and parents.
At the end of the last school year, Smith challenged the 160 eighth and ninth grade students at WLPCS to stay off of their screens, including televisions, all day every Tuesday during the summer — from June 13 to August 22, 2017. She promised to give each successful student $100 out of her own pocket.
Continue reading at Reinventing America's Schools Blog.
Let Schools Judge Teachers
with David Osborne. August 2017.
Since President Barack Obama's Race to the Top competition made teacher evaluation systems based in part on academic growth a central requirement of winning, most states have mandated them.
Making teachers accountable for student success is a laudable goal, but district-wide approaches don't usually work. Most teachers regard evaluations as part of a bureaucratic checklist that creates unnecessary paperwork and presents an incomplete picture of the work they do. And recent research shows that in the majority of states, the number of teachers rated "unsatisfactory" remains less than 1 percent, even in struggling school districts.
Continue reading at U.S. News and World Report.
In a recent article, Derrell Bradford mentioned New Jersey and the state’s practice of having off-duty police officers follow students home to make sure the students are attending school in their assigned district.
“When we’ve criminalized the pursuit of a good school, we must ask whether the mission and intent we ascribe to public education are really being served,” Bradford writes.
It is a thought-provoking sentence. I assume that Bradford would have liked for me to think about how children’s ZIP codes are the largest predictor of the type of education they’ll receive (the subject of his excellent article); instead, I thought about Emilio.
Continue reading at The 74.
The Danger of Centralized School Discipline
with David Osborne. July, 2017.
In 2013, employees at Bruce Randolph High School sent an open letter to the superintendent of Denver Public Schools, complaining about the district's mandatory discipline policies. "The disproportionate amount of time and resources that in the past would have been spent on improving instruction is instead spent by our entire staff, including administrators, instructional team, support staff, and teachers, on habitually disruptive students that continually return to our classrooms," they wrote.
Continue reading at U.S. News and World Report.