At the most basic level, it matters that schools effectively teach children to read and do math. Policymakers and parents should to communicate this information transparently, even though at the federal level accountability is being weakened and testing deemphasized.  

But, as parents know from experience, there鈥檚 a lot more that makes a school a good place to learn and grow. What information about quality can complement test scores 鈥� or replace them, if testing recedes?

We asked 186 forward-thinking school leaders in the , a collaborative effort to  share information about K-12 innovation, about the information they use to determine whether their schools are doing a good job. participating schools were nominated for using new methods to achieve more equitable student outcomes by a diverse group of experts at education-related organizations. In this cohort, 44% are district schools, 35% are public charters and 21% are independent schools (you can view the project鈥檚 , showing 276 schools from the last two years of Canopy surveys). These examples provide glimpses into how school can be different 鈥� and, as our most recent survey shows, their educators judge their own success in ways that go beyond test scores. 

Canopy schools value demonstrations of learning, not just test scores

Nearly all (92%) of the school leaders surveyed said they value data from performance assessments 鈥渁 lot.鈥� Unlike traditional tests, this approach has students demonstrate what they know through presentations, portfolios and real-world problem solving. They help capture not  just academic knowledge, but skills like collaboration, communication and creative thinking that are difficult to measure through standardized tests.  

It鈥檚 no surprise that so many innovative schools use performance assessments, which let students show what they鈥檝e learned by giving a presentation or assembling a portfolio of their work instead of taking a test. Performance assessments also align with the instructional practices common in Canopy schools, like project-based learning and competency-based education (where students move forward by  mastering specific skills). These approaches emphasize hands-on learning and prioritize skills like communication and critical thinking, which performance assessments are better at capturing than traditional written exams. 

How do schools bring these assessments to life? At , a microschool in  Bismarck, North Dakota, students of showing what they鈥檝e learned and present their work to others in the school. At in Issaquah, Washington, students give about their accomplishments, including insights from internships, three times a year to peers, teachers and families. Students at Gibson Ek apply to colleges using a to show what skills they鈥檝e developed, instead of relying on traditional grades. 

Canopy schools care about school culture and invest in it 

When judging their own quality, most Canopy schools reported relying on information about school climate (80% said they depend on this 鈥渁 lot鈥�) and students鈥� social and emotional  development (69% said they rely on this 鈥渁 lot,鈥� and 22% 鈥渁 little.鈥�)  

Such attention to school culture and student well-being aligns with what leaders prioritize in their school design. The majority of Canopy schools (76%) reported that they integrate social and emotional learning throughout the school, including in core academics.  

Canopy schools pay attention when families 鈥� and students 鈥� vote with their feet

Leaders at all types of Canopy schools said knowing that students and families want to be there is important. Around three-quarters of leaders said they value attendance and enrollment data 鈥渁 lot鈥� when gauging whether their school is doing a good job, and another quarter  value it 鈥渁 little.鈥� More public school leaders than private school leaders said enrollment is an important indicator 鈥� but more private school leaders said they value family feedback surveys than public district and charter leaders. 

Canopy schools make sure students and parents have a say in what happens. For instance, about half of schools (53%)  said they involve students, families or both in decision-making.  

High schools especially prioritize students鈥� future opportunities 

Especially in high schools, Canopy school leaders consider information about students鈥� future  opportunities important when judging whether their schools are doing a good job. In Canopy, 83% of high schools value college and career readiness 鈥渁 lot.鈥� Information about students鈥� long-term outcomes, like earnings and life satisfaction, is also important. However, some schools lack access to essential information: 14% of high schools said they can’t get data about long-term outcomes even if they could value it highly.

Some elementary and middle school leaders are also keeping an eye on information about students鈥� future opportunities. About a quarter of them said they value information about postsecondary readiness and long-term outcomes 鈥渁 lot鈥� when gauging their own performance. A third valued information about graduation rates, even if the school doesn鈥檛 issue diplomas. But most elementary and middle schools reported they don鈥檛 have access to this kind of information. 

What kinds of information do Canopy schools value less? Those that tend to loom largest at dinner tables and on school rating sites: grades and test scores. Many leaders responding to our survey said they value these types of information 鈥渁 little,鈥� but less than half value them 鈥渁 lot.鈥� 

In an era when school choice is expanding, it’s more important than ever to understand what truly makes a school effective. The Canopy project offers a window into how forward-thinking schools are redefining success. Instead of looking mainly at test scores, these schools prioritize a wide range of measures, from performance assessments and school culture to student voice and career readiness, to help them determine whether their schools are delivering a quality education.

But sharing this information has to be a hurdle for Canopy schools. Policymakers should incentivize schools to share richer data 鈥� especially when schools are already collecting it. Performance assessment information, for example, could be a hidden treasure that families would find meaningful, just as nearly all Canopy school leaders do.  As policymakers and parents navigate an evolving educational landscape, they would do well to ensure that every family has access not just to options, but to meaningful information about what makes a school good.

Those of us who work in the field are fortunate to hear these stories daily: about students developing meaningful, real-world skills, about educators preparing engaged, motivated citizens, about school districts equipping young people for life beyond the classroom. We see up close the acts of compassion and care, the innovations supporting students and families and 鈥� even in tumultuous times 鈥� the countless reasons to hope.

But hope doesn鈥檛 make headlines. Cognitive scientists have long known that people are drawn far more to the negative than to the positive. For most of our history as a species, this negativity bias led humans to avoid enemies and predators. In 2025, it leads people to click on catastrophic news stories and absorb the doom-and-gloom narratives with which we鈥檙e so frequently bombarded.

That鈥檚 not to say bad news is unjustified. There are plenty of problems, particularly in education, that demand urgent attention, from declining reading scores to the crisis of chronic absenteeism. But bad news alone has colored too much of the perception of public education. Despite the positive momentum found in so many school districts, more than half of adults say education is heading in the wrong direction, and satisfaction with K-12 schools has hit an all-time low.

Now more than ever, the nation鈥檚 school systems need 鈥� people and places whose work should be studied, replicated and celebrated amid the challenges facing the field. And those beacons can be fostered only when leaders who are willing to think and do things differently are at the helm. 

Fortunately, they are all around. You鈥檒l find them, for example, from coast to coast in more than 150 districts that comprise the . A national network organized by , the league has member districts that work to co-create solutions to public education鈥檚 challenges. Together, they鈥檙e around the safe and ethical use of artificial intelligence in classrooms, to better prepare students for tomorrow鈥檚 workforce and to address chronic absenteeism. 

In western Pennsylvania, home to more than a dozen league districts, schools are . For those unfamiliar with the area, Pittsburgh鈥檚 legacy as a steel town might overshadow its evolution as a hub of educational innovation. But the region boasts the league鈥檚 largest local cluster of innovative school districts in the country. To tour western Pennsylvania schools is to find K-12 students violins to make an orchestra, in repurposed shipping containers, with help from baby lambs using computational thinking 鈥� a problem-solving approach that involves analyzing, organizing and modeling data 鈥� to make and test predictions in a fast-changing world.

This is the future of public education 鈥� and the kind of story that needs to be told. That鈥檚 why, this week, we brought more than 350 of America鈥檚 most forward-thinking superintendents, administrators, researchers and others to western Pennsylvania for . Featuring two full days of classroom visits to all 13 host districts, the convening shone a national spotlight on a region that鈥檚 proving what public education can do: where students learn math by , and work with robotics and biotech startups .

It wasn’t the first time the Steel City offered a beacon of hope. In 1968, another tumultuous time, a young Pittsburgher named Fred Rogers debuted his television program, Mister Rogers鈥� Neighborhood. For more than 30 years, the show demonstrated what a neighborhood, at its best, could be. It wasn鈥檛 perfect: There was conflict and grief alongside wonder and joy. Actress Mary Rawson, who appeared often on the show, wrote in the book that in Fred Rogers鈥� television world, 鈥渧iolence and war, hatred and intolerance [were] not painted out of the picture, but neither [were] they allowed to destroy the canvas.

He gave America hope that despite so much bad news, the canvas was worth defending.

The same can be said for public education. That鈥檚 why, taking a page from Mister Rogers鈥� playbook, the Pittsburgh-based and the League of Innovative Schools are launching 鈥淟earning Neighbor Grants鈥� designed to expand and enhance the field鈥檚 beacons of hope. Our organizations have granted each league member district in western Pennsylvania $10,143 (echoing Rogers鈥檚 use of the numbers 1-4-3 to say 鈥淚 love you鈥�) to develop innovations that prepare students for college, career and real life.

Working with other league members from around the country, as well as museums, libraries and other partner organizations, they will create a broadcasting program for young children; develop new workforce pathways (and combat the national shortage of bus drivers) by training high schoolers to earn a commercial driver鈥檚 license; and establish a competitive robotics team for neurodiverse students; and more. Each team will share its innovation at next year鈥檚 convening.

The goal is to seed beacons of hope in every community 鈥� and to keep telling the positive stories that deserve to be told.

鈥淕ood, more communicated, more abundant grows,鈥� wrote the poet John Milton. Those of us who work in public education know goodness is abundant already. So, it’s time to change the narrative and seek out, amplify and invest in the schools and educators that are proving what鈥檚 possible. The future of education isn鈥檛 just something to debate 鈥� it鈥檚 something to build. And the work begins with the stories about what public education can do.

New data confirm that these issues are top of mind for school leaders, and that education innovators are working to find solutions. The , an ongoing national study of schools that focus on designing student-centered and equitable learning environments 鈥� and challenge assumptions about what school must be 鈥� just updated its with survey results from 189 innovative schools. 

In the survey, most participants agreed that teacher workforce issues, AI and the mental health crisis will shape the future of education. They are also working on solutions 鈥� but are concerned about having adequate resources to sustain those efforts.

School leaders selected teacher workforce issues as the top factor that they think will transform the education sector. While some respondents said they have struggled to recruit teachers in general, they particularly have trouble finding those with skills geared to working with non-traditional instructional models. A leader from Bostonia Global, a charter school that鈥檚 part of Cajon Valley Unified School District in California, wrote that credentialing programs need to 鈥渟hift to meet the needs of our current and future workforce.鈥� The school鈥檚 competency-based instructional model requires teachers to implement an individualized approach, not just teach the same content at the same pace to a classroom of 30 kids.

Canopy’s survey data show that many schools are innovating to solve these workforce-related issues: 65% reported they implement some form of flexible or alternative staffing model. For example, the Center for Advanced Research and Technology, a high school that enrolls students from two partner districts in California, brings in industry professionals to work alongside teachers. Several Canopy schools foster collaboration, using staffing models such as , which provides mentorship, opportunities for small-group teaching and professional development. 

Artificial intelligence was the second most-selected driver of change. School leaders鈥� responses showed they want to harness its potential while staying attentive to issues of access, privacy and equity. Only 7% of Canopy school leaders said they have a policy in place governing students鈥� use of generative AI, but 38% said they鈥檙e developing one. Despite the shortage of formal policy, experimentation appeared abundant.

Howard Middle School for Math and Science, based at Howard University, said the school鈥檚 policy is to use AI 鈥渢o enhance educational outcomes, personalize learning experiences and streamline administrative tasks, while ensuring the safety, privacy and well-being of all students and staff. Anastasis Academy, an independent microschool in Colorado, wrote, 鈥淲e have trained a GPT on our model, our writings and our curriculum to help personalize learning.鈥� 

The claimed the third spot on the list of factors that school leaders believe will transform K-12 education. Four in five leaders reported that their schools are already integrating social and emotional learning into all subject areas and student activities, making it one of the practices most commonly implemented across Canopy schools this year. Additionally, two-thirds of schools surveyed provide mental health services to students, either directly or through a partner like a community-based health organization, and just under half said they support adult wellness, too.

Some responses pointed to an even bigger problem beyond students鈥� acute mental health needs: about what the future may hold. One leader wrote, 鈥淪tudents are developing an increasing sense of hopelessness about the world beyond school.鈥� Many lower- and middle-income young people, he said, feel that social mobility is 鈥渘ot possible for them.鈥�

Many schools are working toward solutions that combat that sense of hopelessness. As in previous years of Canopy surveys, most schools reported designing solutions to meet marginalized students鈥� needs. At BuildUp Community School in Alabama, the school鈥檚 mostly Black and economically disadvantaged students split their time between classrooms and work-based learning in construction and real estate, revitalizing their communities and paving a path to homeownership. And 5280 High School, in Colorado, helps students recovering from addiction to reengage in their education and explore their passions in a setting that prioritizes mental health.

A majority of leaders worried about their ability to sustain resources in the coming years. Of those, the top concerns were the availability of local public, private and philanthropic funding. Over a third of those with concerns also said they worried about staffing shortages, inflation and the expiration of federal stimulus funding.

A few leaders pointed out that inadequate funding will not just make it harder to keep the lights on 鈥� it will stunt the development of innovative ideas to solve the enormous challenges ahead. Indeed, shows reduced philanthropic investment in broader systemic change in the sector.Funding shortfalls in many districts and states will also mean even basic education services may lack adequate resources, making it harder for leaders to defend funding for higher-risk innovation efforts.

Too often, the scale of K-12 sector problems lead education leaders, policymakers and funders to bemoan a lack of bold solutions or flock to attractive but still-theoretical ideas that fail in the implementation stage. School-level innovation efforts are worth watching because they show unconventional ideas in the process of becoming reality 鈥� and some may hint at what success can look like. Canopy schools are prime examples of this, whether it鈥檚 a New York City charter school student learning and well-being through summer programming or a North Carolina district school high growth rates with an innovative staffing approach. 

The Canopy project will release a full research report later this year. For now, the headlines from this year鈥檚 survey should prompt education leaders, policymakers and funders to take note of schools, like those in Canopy鈥檚 , that are working toward bold and unconventional solutions. 

Indeed, one answer to what will drive K-12 transformation in the coming years is that it will arise from innovation not just in ed tech companies and think tanks, but in the nation鈥檚 schools.

With paradigms shifting all around us, we must reimagine and build a modern, equitable public education system that unleashes the creativity, confidence and compassion of young people to adapt and contribute to a fast-changing, interconnected world. 

Real and meaningful change is possible, but it requires a public education system that makes learning relevant and enlivening, supports students鈥� discovery and pursuit of their purpose, and integrates learning throughout the community. 

A by Transcend shows that they aren鈥檛 engaged or enthusiastic about school. Only 31 percent reported that what they learn in school is connected to life outside the classroom, and just 35 percent said they are learning about things that interest them. Only 18% of adults considered themselves very career-ready after high school in a by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

The time to reimagine American education is now.

Our team at Education Reimagined is working with educators, communities, and researchers to reconceive a modern public education system that shifts the brick-and-mortar model of schooling to one built on that offer deeply personalized opportunities to all students. 

Community-based, learner-centered education is an approach that promises to forge more equitable, meaningful and successful futures for our young people鈥攁nd, consequently, our society. 

To help this vision become reality, we recently launched a research and development acceleration initiative. This effort is designed to catalyze the work of innovative sites, and crystallize the requirements for developing a forward-thinking public education system. This proactive step promises to expedite the evolution of public education, ensuring it meets the needs of the future. Education Reimagined aims to raise more than $20 million by the end of 2024, with the goal of creating five demonstrations of community-based public education systems over the next five years. 

At the core of these learning environments is a safe and nurturing home base, where learners develop relationships with advisors and peers who help guide them through their learning process. Learners also access learning hubs that offer vibrant, rich experiences centered on academic learning and skill-building within the context of interests and actual experiences. At field sites, they engage in real-world projects through internships and apprenticeships, allowing them to pursue their interests in a real-world setting.

In this system, children will learn everywhere 鈥� in parks, museums, libraries, businesses, homes, schools and civic centers. Learning is tangible, rooted in context, and intrinsically tied to each young person鈥檚 interests, aspirations and identity. 

This is not a fantasy. Community-based learning ecosystems are already creating new and exciting opportunities for hundreds of students in communities across the nation. A diverse group of learning communities are now leveraging this approach to transform the learning environment. Students in these sites are finding and pursuing passions that have the potential to last a lifetime.

At the brand new City View Community High School ecosystem in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, students鈥� home base is at the local Chamber of Commerce. They create personalized learning activities, connected to standards, through learning hubs that allow them to dive deeply into subjects that matter to them. Educators and advisors guide these community-based projects and allow students to explore topics at partnering local businesses, which are the field sites. This collaborative approach prepares them for their future, with direct access to careers in robotics, business ownership, fashion and video game programming. 

As core to the Columbus Learning Ecosystem Initiative, educators, business executives and community leaders have created interconnected learning opportunities for students to solve real-world problems in ways that prepare them for Ohio鈥檚 burgeoning economy. The state鈥檚 adoption of 5G has attracted a host of global giants like AWS, Google, Intel and others opening operations there 鈥� including manufacturing, data centers and more. Through home bases, learning hubs, and field sites, learners are granted the autonomy to identify problems and work alongside industry professionals to devise solutions.

These schools engage students directly in their interests and provide opportunities to solve real-world problems and create artistic projects they may be doing when they join the workforce. The possibilities are as endless as our imaginations. The enthusiasm and results of this approach are promising, but we need to learn more, which is what our R&D initiative is designed to do.

We have a bold vision. Many may argue it is too ambitious. Still, hundreds of educators and learners are listening and engaging in visionary conversations about the future of U.S. public education. Most exciting, however, is the growing number of educators, policymakers, parents, community leaders and others already making community-based learning ecosystems a reality for more students. 

We are at a pivotal moment in public education. If we want the best futures for our students and the world, community-based learning ecosystems must be the path forward. It is in our nature as humans to learn and grow. By supporting our young people in their educational journey, we enable them to transcend our wildest imaginations. This progressive step forward bodes well for all of us.

We know from decades of reform efforts that our education system needs a reboot with a fundamental redesign. It鈥檚 time to move forward in partnership beyond school reform to an education revolution. How exciting is that?

At San Tan Heights K-8, my team and I are looking at every aspect of how we educate students. Among the most important changes we’ve made is departmentalizing our teaching teams by subjects in grades K-8. Our grade-level teachers are now specialists, and our students rotate between classrooms 鈥� starting in kindergarten.

Departmentalization isn’t a big deal in middle or high schools, but it’s rare in elementary settings and virtually nonexistent in the early grades. Making the shift meant altering schedules, getting the children used to transitioning from class to class, building new professional development programming and more. Working with , a developer of high-quality curriculum, we started two years ago with third grade and up. At first, the teachers were nervous. But soon they were feeling less scattered, more focused and better at their jobs. Now, the whole school operates this way. 

The morning starts with an advisory, or homeroom, lasting about 20 minutes and focusing on social and emotional learning. This sets a positive tone for the day. The homerooms are led by our math, reading and English language arts/social studies teachers, so when advisory ends, students stay in that room for their first academic class.

Each grade level has three class rotations, and each class lasts 86 minutes. In kindergarten through third grade, one dedicated reading teacher works across grades on foundational skills. There is one English language arts teacher per grade, who also provides social studies instruction, and one math instructor, who also teaches science. 

Every grade is divided into three cohorts, and these groups of children move from class to class together. We keep the transition time short, just about two minutes, to limit distractions and misbehavior in the hallways. 

So far, the preliminary evidence indicates the change is producing positive benefits. For the first time in our school’s history, we experienced the highest growth in our district in both English and math, and I believe departmentalization has played a key role. 

We鈥檝e also seen improvements in our school culture and climate.

Students enjoy rotating classrooms during the day. It gives them a chance to move. And because they’re traveling together in assigned groups, they get to know one another well.

We had initially worried that teachers might have trouble building relationships with their students if they didn’t have the same kids all day. But we’ve found teachers can build great relationships with students if they have them for about an hour and a half a day and connect with them in meaningful and engaging ways on the subject at hand.

Departmentalization has also allowed educators to go deep into the subjects they teach and become the experts students need 鈥� especially given pandemic-related learning gaps. For example, our literacy teachers have been able to devote time to studying research related to the science of reading without feeling like they’re shortchanging other subject areas. Similarly, our math teachers have stepped back and studied , received intensive coaching and learned new problem-solving and mathematical modeling approaches.

Our school, like many others, has replaced outdated curricula with higher-quality options, and more rigorous materials ask more of teachers. For example, they tend to require more time planning and preparing lessons. Departmentalization has given them that flexibility, and it allows our school leaders to tailor professional development offerings to their specific needs, based on the content they teach. They also get more opportunities to build their knowledge and collaborate with peers who teach the same subject in the grades above and below theirs. This allows teachers to explore how content builds upon itself from grade to grade.

As a result, teacher satisfaction is on the rise, leading to increased retention. Our school’s usual attrition rate has usually been around 30%, but in 2022-23, it dropped to 13% percent. Also this past year, half of the open positions at the school were filled by teachers within the district who requested to transfer in. That has never happened before.

Our teachers are happy because we’ve made them partners in the restructuring. Their input was critical when determining which educators to assign to each subject, a decision that also involved data showing which were the most effective. Once we moved to departmentalized instruction, I encouraged teachers to share feedback on how things were going as we progressed. Their insights have informed our practices 鈥� which are being evaluated by researchers from Johns Hopkins University over the course of a five-year study.
For elementary school leaders interested in departmentalizing, my advice is: Try it. You can always switch back if it doesn’t work, but I doubt that will happen. We at San Tan Heights welcome the chance to share what we’ve learned and help more schools close pandemic-era learning gaps by adopting this revolutionary approach. It’s well past time to rethink what schools are doing and take steps that can make a big difference in young lives.

Across America most mornings, it鈥檚 a safe bet that the typical high school student is sitting in a classroom, listening to a teacher talk.

But on a recent Tuesday, Cara Mitchell was on her feet, running a class herself. Actually, she was managing a project, taking a small group of classmates through the paces of making a 3-D printed desk name plate. 

Not exactly a glamorous assignment, she鈥檒l admit. But the key was to give students practice with digital tools they鈥檒l need to build much larger projects down the line, including an airplane-like drone that takes off and lands vertically.

A senior studying aerospace engineering at the Blue Valley Center for Advanced Professional Studies, Mitchell attends the half-day high school program while also taking classes at her neighborhood high school. BV CAPS, or CAPS for short, offers a different kind of experience from what she and her classmates typically get by integrating real-world projects, internships and mentorships. That gives them a head start in high-demand careers in this prosperous suburb of Kansas City.

In the process, CAPS is overturning conventional wisdom about secondary education. It offers high school juniors and seniors a guided, hands-on, practical experience in of work, including not just aerospace engineering but healthcare, food science and education. All of this while offering them a kind of freedom and agency most have never felt in school.

鈥淵ou get to do something that you’re passionate about,鈥� said Mitchell, who plans to study aviation and minor in business. 鈥淚t’s like stepping into the real world, but you kind of have bubble wrap there in case.鈥�

An idea spreading worldwide

CAPS occupies what looks less like a high school and more like a modern, open-concept office building, complete with a soaring, three-story atrium. The office-building feel and design are intentional, said CAPS Director Corey Mohn: 鈥淭he idea was that it should not feel like school.鈥�

Jennifer Bauer, the center鈥檚 business development specialist, calls it 鈥渢he test kitchen of the district,鈥� where new ideas often emerge because teachers and students are largely free from limits of the district鈥檚 comprehensive high schools.

The food-focused strand, for instance, is not a traditional culinary class or even a trendy food-truck incubator, as you might find in a typical career-technical program. Called Future of Food, it exists because regional industry partners were searching for more qualified candidates for jobs in product development and production.

The course challenges students to develop new, sustainable food products with guidance from industry pros who expound on the challenges of developing a scoop tortilla chip or how to evenly coat a mass-produced ice cream bar with nuts.

This spring, CAPS serves about 1,400 students who spend about three hours here each morning or afternoon.

In Overland Park, where it originated, operating funds come mostly from taxpayers. But since CAPS is technically not a school 鈥� actually, the district treats the entire enterprise as a class 鈥� it can accept corporate donations through its own .

It鈥檚 also different in that it鈥檚 not a private, industry-owned enterprise, or even a charter school cut loose from its district. Its roots lie in the Blue Valley School District itself, which since 2015 has offered the model to other districts. The CAPS model has since spread to nearly 300 schools in 23 states, as well as Canada, Kuwait and India. While a few private schools have adopted it as well, more than 90% of schools in the network are public.

Chad Ralston, the local CAPS director 鈥� if it were a school, he鈥檇 be its principal 鈥� said the student body is more academically, economically and racially diverse than you鈥檇 expect.

鈥淓ven though, on the whole, we can be seen as privileged, we certainly have every walk of life in our schools,鈥� he said, from college-bound students with 4.0 GPAs to kids who aren鈥檛 quite sure what鈥檚 next. 鈥淧eople feel that this is accessible to them, no matter what.鈥�

In a biology lab one floor up from Mitchell鈥檚 aerospace class, Nithya Mamalayan worked through a reading on her laptop as one of the class pets, a slender, multi-colored milk snake named Boot, muscled its way through her outstretched fingers.

The program, Mamalayan said, is 鈥渧ery specialized,鈥� in that students have three hours each day to pursue one thing that interests them. 鈥淪o you can go a lot deeper.鈥�

When she鈥檚 not here or at her neighborhood high school, Mamalayan works in a University of Kansas research lab studying how the buildup of certain proteins predicts ailments like Alzheimer鈥檚 disease.

A few seats down, classmate Alyssa Haynes said she鈥檚 also working with a KU researcher 鈥� on an anti-cancer drug. She said most of what students do in traditional high schools is 鈥渒ind of just like kind of going through the motions鈥� of education. When you come here, 鈥測ou actually get to do things that you’re interested in.鈥�

Like most CAPS students, Haynes treasures both the agency and the mobility the program offers. 鈥淭hey don’t baby us as much, so we have a lot more freedom to kind of just move within the hallways and do individual work,鈥� she said.

Along with that sense of freedom, she also has a realistic view of life in a research lab 鈥� especially the work she鈥檚 allowed to do at 18: 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of pipetting,鈥� she said with a laugh, pointing to a nearby tray of glass laboratory vials she routinely fills with medicine. 鈥淚t’s a real lab workroom. Yes, I’m doing the intern kind of work, but everyone has to start somewhere.鈥�

Experiences like these are valuable, Mohn said, but often for the opposite reason: They show students what they don鈥檛 want to do with their lives. He recalled another student engaged in cancer research who soon realized that she鈥檇 be working for 30 years before she made any breakthroughs. She wanted to see success sooner, so she went to pharmacy school instead.

鈥業t鈥檚 going on her LinkedIn鈥�

That CAPS even exists is testament to a kind of big thinking that, oddly, grew out of the No Child Left Behind era of the early 2000s, when two trends converged: Basic skills ruled and educators mostly focused on the key outcomes of K-8 education, less on high school.

Blue Valley schools had little trouble with the federal law鈥檚 reading-and-math-skills goals, easily meeting annual progress markers. 

But students were often having trouble persisting through college. Even high-performing students, Mohn said, struggled with ambiguity. If they couldn鈥檛 complete an assignment in a day or two, they were lost. So the district began asking employers what Blue Valley graduates needed.

Much like the difficulties students showed with longer assignments in school, he said, employers saw that graduates, given an ambiguous assignment or troubleshooting task without a clear answer, looked like 鈥渄eer in the headlights.鈥�

The school board concluded that waiting to impart career skills until they鈥檙e in their first jobs was too late. Why not let them have those experiences now, in high school?

Fifteen years later, assignments at CAPS typically take several weeks, with as many as three projects overlapping. 鈥淣ow suddenly you’re in the world of having to figure out how to manage your time,鈥� Mohn said. 

And where in traditional high schools most assignments are forgotten once the test paper is graded and in the trash, at CAPS, Mohn said, the result is typically an end product that a student can point to with pride, as with Haynes鈥� work in the cancer lab.

鈥淚t’s going on her resume. It’s going on her LinkedIn,鈥� he said. 鈥淪he’s actually going to that university. She’s going to try and get a job doing the same thing.鈥�

The results so far are encouraging: Between 2013 and 2017, the program raised the percentage of students who, two years after graduating, attended college or held a credential, certificate or diploma: from 83.2% to 89%. During that time, the rate for non-CAPS graduates in the district went essentially unchanged. 

Clinton Robinson, an associate vice president at Black & Veatch Corp., an engineering and construction firm founded here in 1915, has worked with CAPS from the beginning. The firm now partners nationwide with CAPS students, including about 50 locally who show up at its Kansas City, KS, offices twice a week to work on 鈥渢he 10th thing on our to-do list鈥� 鈥� a job that needs doing but isn’t getting done. Students have designed houses and consulted on apps, he said They鈥檝e also helped planners rethink what services the region鈥檚 needs.

While most of the jobs are low-stakes, in a few instances the firm has had to execute non-disclosure agreements with students on sensitive work 鈥渨e don’t want the market to know about,鈥� Robinson said. He recalled showing up at a career fair and asking one CAPS student about his work. 鈥淗e said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Robinson. I can’t. I’m under an an NDA.’鈥� 

Going 鈥榯oe-to-toe with our CEO鈥�

The program鈥檚 effect on graduates is tangible, said Sophia Porter, a recent Johns Hopkins University graduate who serves as a project manager and test operator for at the Texas aerospace company . 

鈥淏lue Valley CAPS treated me like a working adult,鈥� said Porter, who holds dual degrees in physics and applied mathematics and statistics. 

At CAPS, she led a team of seven students that developed a mobile app for Children’s Mercy Hospital and interned with an astrophotographer, among others. Once at Hopkins, she took on internships at NASA, the Space Telescope Science Institute, SpaceX and Blue Origin, where she has worked for four years.

Aside from accommodating and encouraging the kind of driven, overachieving student represented by graduates like Porter, perhaps one of the most valuable aspects of CAPS is that it offers its teenaged students that most valuable of assets: permission to ask tough questions. 

Robinson, the engineering official said that since CAPS students typically come to the program uncommitted to working at a given firm, they鈥檙e not afraid to take risks when they meet adults in industries that interest them. 

鈥淭hey go toe-to-toe with our CEO and our other executives,鈥� Robinson said, and offer 鈥渧ery honest feedback鈥� about what goes on there. They鈥檙e polite, he said, but direct: 鈥淭here is no ‘the king has no clothes’ conversation: ‘You look good today, Mr. CEO.’ It’s ‘Why do you guys still build coal fired power plants?’鈥�

]]> /article/sel-mentoring-career-prep-schools-that-deliver-what-parents-say-they-want/ Wed, 12 Apr 2023 16:30:00 +0000 /?post_type=article&p=707318 In the aftermath of the pandemic, lawmakers, researchers and advocates have expended enormous efforts to determine what the American public, particularly kids and families, want from their schools. Several recent surveys suggest that what they want may be 鈥� or at the very least, what they want looks different from what traditional public schools are designed to provide. 

Young people have they want safe environments that support their well-being, and most adults schools should teach a range of practical skills, not just academics and college prep. Students also want more choice over what they learn, and they say they鈥檙e most engaged by relevant and customized schoolwork, according to a by the education nonprofit . 

Changing the DNA of how schools educate students 鈥� much less what purpose they serve 鈥� is hard, long-term work. But a diverse set of schools are already demonstrating what that work looks like. A fresh scan of hundreds of these schools shows that they commonly prioritize student relationships and well-being, focus on cultivating diverse skills beyond traditional academics and offer learning experiences with more student choice and relevance.

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The Canopy project, a collaborative effort to share information about K-12 innovation, recently from a survey of leaders in 251 schools. These were nominated by a diverse group of experts for their promising efforts to design equitable, student-centered experiences for young people. Canopy data aren鈥檛 a representative sample of learning environments in the United States, and the project doesn鈥檛 require participants to report on student outcomes. Instead, this is a snapshot of schools with reputations for pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.

Innovative schools focus on student relationships and wellness

Nearly three-quarters of the schools in Canopy indicate they鈥檙e prioritizing connection and community as a key element of students鈥� experiences. 

For some (61%), that means designing advisories where groups of students meet regularly with adult advisers to set learning goals, reflect on progress and build relationships. For instance, at , a public charter school in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the for multiple years, providing an opportunity to form deeper relationships than are often possible in conventional schools.

Many other Canopy schools integrate social and emotional learning throughout the academic curriculum. They offer mental health supports, train adults to recognize and respond to students who are impacted by traumatic stress, and pair students with an adult in school for regular individualized mentoring.

Innovative schools emphasize practical skills beyond pure academics

Almost 7 in 10 schools report nurturing not only learning, but human development, character, health and well-being. Four in five schools in Canopy report using project-based learning, an approach that builds skills like collaboration and critical thinking alongside core content. Most schools also report assessing those soft skills (often called deeper learning assessments). A majority (57%) say they engage students in career-oriented learning opportunities, like interview practice or apprenticeships, and about half report that students learn through community service. Smaller proportions of schools assess career-readiness skills (38%) and self-directed learning skills (21%).

For instance, (R2i2) in Columbia, South Carolina, involves students in project-based experiences with community partners and businesses to develop collaboration, communication and leadership skills. In Houston, the nonprofit offers individualized and work-based education programs for vulnerable and disconnected students, helping them earn their high school equivalency diplomas, develop job readiness skills and access health, legal and other supports.

Innovative schools offer students choice and relevance

Almost two-thirds of schools reported prioritizing student self-direction, meaning that students set and pursue learning goals largely independently from adult oversight. About the same number reported prioritizing relevance, meaning that students are learning topics and skills that directly relate to their lives and the world around them. For instance, at , a charter high school in Milwaukee, all students design an 鈥渁ction research鈥� project to address problems in their communities related to environmental justice.

Like Escuela Verde, the majority of schools in Canopy say their students set and pursue their own learning goals, such as by designing their own projects and choosing what they want to learn, breaking from the conventional idea that every student must learn the same things at the same time. A small but notable minority of schools are working to assess the skills that students develop to direct their own learning.

Of course, American families aren鈥檛 monolithic and don鈥檛 agree on a single vision for how schools need to change. Similarly, innovative learning environments don鈥檛 all look the same: In our from last year, we saw independent schools most often prioritizing highly individualized curriculum and student-directed learning, compared with public district and charter schools. And compared with rural and suburban schools, those in urban areas focused more often on designing curriculum and school culture to represent diverse identities and cultures. This year, we鈥檒l be analyzing patterns to reveal why and how schools use certain approaches with different groups of students.

Because the Canopy Project strives to widely share the innovative practices, specifics about each school 鈥� including details gleaned from this latest round of self-reported survey results 鈥� are posted online. Schools are searchable by state, by the innovative practices employed (such as project-based learning, individual learning paths and culturally responsive practices) or by the demographics of students enrolled. A new explains how to explore the data and offers examples of how anyone, from policymakers to educators to journalists, can filter for results that could inform their work. 

A redesigned school is far easier to imagine than implement. But too often, pessimism about the potential for change persists because educators, leaders, and families can鈥檛 picture what viable alternatives would look like. Amplifying the efforts of hundreds of schools designed to be equitable and student-centered is an exercise in optimism. Canopy offers hope that all kinds of schools can deliver on what students and families value most.

]]> /article/big-ideas-about-americas-schools-our-18-most-discussed-essays-of-2022/ Tue, 27 Dec 2022 12:15:00 +0000 /?post_type=article&p=701666 Learning loss. Teacher shortages. The role of parents in their children’s education. Tutoring. Student mental health. The science of reading. Following the ESSER money.

There is widespread agreement about the nature of the challenges facing America’s schools, teachers and students as the country tries, gingerly and in fits and starts, to get back to normal after COVID-19. But as for what to do about those challenges, opinions are mixed 鈥� and more than a little contentious.

That tension has rocketed across our opinion pages this past year, fueling debate and perhaps (we hope) guiding discussion of the best ways to help kids, schools and educators recover as the pandemic finally recedes. Here are the top 18 essays we published this year:

Schneider: Inside the New Data That Suggest American Education Still 鈥楻uns on 鈥楲ies鈥�

Grade Inflation: In March, the results from the most recent High School Transcript Study were released 鈥� and unfortunately, wrote Mark Schneider, director of the Institute of Education Sciences, they support the charge that schools routinely mislead their students. Many data points, if they were true reflections of reality, “should lead us all to celebrate the success of our students” 鈥� but the evidence “shows a disconnect,” he writes. “We see ‘inflation’ in course grades and course titles but stagnation in student performance.”

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Educator’s View 鈥� I Understand My Students Because I’ve Been There: 

Child Poverty: When contributor Kristina Eisenhower was in fifth grade, her teacher told the class to bring in $1.25 for a pizza party. She couldn’t scrounge the money and was afraid to ask her father, who worked a 7-to-5 job and barely made ends meet. When she told her teacher she had only had 62 cents, she was sent to the cafeteria to eat lunch instead of celebrating with the class. Sixteen years later, that memory is still clear. But as an elementary school teacher in a Title I school, Eisenhower understands her students and their struggles. And no child who ever came through her classroom has ever had to miss a party, whether they brought money or not. 

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Teens Have Changed Their Higher Ed Plans 鈥� & Survey Shows They May Never Go Back

Postsecondary Education: A recent survey asked a representative pool of 1,000 teenagers to compare their post-high school graduation plans before the COVID-19 pandemic with what their intentions are now, two years later. Their answers should worry institutions of higher education 鈥� because the next generation appears less interested in the traditional college pipeline. Interest in enrolling in a four-year college dropped 14%. And those students may never come back. Contributors John Kristof and Colyn Ritter have the breakdown.

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When Grades and Test Scores Don鈥檛 Add Up, Who Can Parents Trust?

Grade Inflation: Contributor Alina Adams’s daughter is a straight-A student at her New York City public high school. But on one of the two state Regents exams she took this year, she didn’t even score well enough to qualify for “mastery” of the subject. Adams’s daughter isn鈥檛 alone in this disconnect; it happens all over the country. Grade inflation has been a problem for decades, and with COVID canceling standardized tests, it’s gotten even worse. But those scores are a second opinion of sorts. They either confirm the teacher鈥檚 view of your child, or they should at least inspire parents to look closer. 

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How 232 Schools Across America Are Challenging 5 Big Assumptions About Education

Innovative Schools: Plenty of the challenges being confronted by schools, writes contributor Chelsea Waite, are actually enduring structural flaws that long pre-date COVID-19. 鈥淔ortunately, a diverse array of communities are working to reinvent schooling in pursuit of their visions for thriving young people and families,鈥� Waite writes. 鈥淭he learning environments they鈥檙e designing and redesigning don鈥檛 all look the same 鈥� in fact, far from it. But what they have in common is challenging key assumptions about schooling to create more equitable, joyful and responsive learning environments that reflect community values and priorities.鈥� These learning environments are now the focus of a growing national effort called The Canopy Project 鈥� a dataset documenting the practices of 232 schools with lengthy track records of innovation. 

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New Edunomics Calculator Estimates COVID Learning Losses by District, and Costs of Catching Kids Up

Learning Loss: Our friends at Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab launched an eye-opening new tool that will allow parents and policymakers in 8,000 school districts to estimate how much help area students will need in recovering from COVID learning losses, how much that learning acceleration might cost in the form of tutoring, and how these costs compare with the federal relief funds recently distributed to the district. Read more about how these estimates are calculated, and give the calculator a spin for yourself 鈥� all you need is a state and district name.

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New Studies Show Charter Schools Drive Gains for All Public School Kids

Charter Schools: Thirty years ago, when the charter school movement was just getting off the ground, devotees of big-city school systems worried that these new options would drain critical funding, hurt the kids who were left behind and make a system in which race played a central but often unacknowledged role even more unjust. Yet, in recent years, it has become increasingly clear that concerns about charter-inflicted damage are misplaced 鈥� as demonstrated by a pair of new studies that find broad and statistically significant gains for all publicly enrolled students as charter schools expand. Contributors Michael J. Petrilli and David Griffith take stock of the new research.

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Parents: The focus on tutoring, summer school and extended days to make up for lost learning reveals perhaps the biggest blind spot in education, says contributor Alejandro Gibes de Gac, because engaging families is the only wide-reaching, cost-effective and culturally responsive way to increase instructional time and accelerate learning recovery. Parent involvement is the most powerful predictor of kids’ academic success, yet policymakers and administrators focus almost exclusively on improving schools 鈥� where students spend just 13% of their waking hours. Ignoring the role parents play in their kids鈥� learning leaves the door wide open for inequity to run rampant.

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There Is No ‘Big Quit’ In K-12 Education 鈥� But Schools Have Specific Labor Challenges

Teacher Shortages: Economists have dubbed it the Great Resignation: millions of employees quitting their jobs to seek higher pay and better working conditions. Is this Big Quit happening in education? Says contributor Chad Aldeman, the data suggest the answer is no. While turnover rates are setting new highs in the private sector, they look pretty normal in public education. That doesn鈥檛 mean there are no labor challenges in K-12, but those issues are smaller in magnitude than what the private sector faces, and they are much more about specific schools and particular roles within schools. Districts, Aldeman writes, should respond accordingly with solutions 鈥� including those involving targeted pay hikes 鈥� tailored to the actual challenges schools face. 

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Science of Reading: The new NAEP reading scores showed that the need for immediate, effective action has never been more urgent. While districts invest their federal COVID relief dollars in expanded learning time and intensive tutoring, say contributors John B. King and Jacquelyn Davis, they must not neglect their collective responsibility to strengthen core instruction for all children. The best lever to accelerate learning in America is to use the science of how children learn to read. The human brain is wired to speak and absorb language 鈥� but not to read. Most kids need instruction in phonics, vocabulary and background knowledge to grasp the written word.

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Grants to Expand Tutoring & Other Innovations for Students

Tutoring: Effective tutoring is one of the few educational interventions with a strong research base. The best approach: student groups of four or fewer meet multiple times a week with a trained and consistent tutor, using high-quality curriculum. But high-impact tutoring is hard to scale. How do you find enough skilled adults to work with millions of students in small-group settings? And how can schools know whether the high-tech tutoring products they buy are effective? In this essay, contributors Kevin Huffman and Janice Jackson describe a grant program that aims to promote effective innovative strategies for bolstering student learning.

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Rethinking Teaching: Amid the debate about looming teacher shortages, a fundamental point is missed, says contributor Brian Greenberg: Even if schools could go back to the old approach of a single teacher in front of a class, they should not. A better approach than the status quo is possible, and innovative educators are working on creative solutions that focus more attention on each student, expand the impact of the best educators and reshape the teacher’s role. Here, the CEO of the Silicon Schools Fund notes some advances worth paying attention to. 

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What Will $50 Billion in COVID School Relief Funding Buy?

Federal Relief Funding: Nearly a year after Congress approved $122 billion in COVID relief aid for elementary and secondary education through the American Rescue Plan, school districts and charter organizations have targeted their spending on three priorities: academic recovery, staffing, and school facilities and operations. A new analysis by FutureEd, an independent, nonpartisan think tank at Georgetown University鈥檚 McCourt School of Public Policy, is the first to detail how $50 billion in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds (ESSER III) is flowing through 3,056 school districts and charter organizations educating 60 percent of the nation鈥檚 public school students. Contributors Bella DiMarco and Phyllis W. Jordan examine spending in seven major categories and 78 subcategories.

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Learning Loss: The new NAEP scores quantify how much of a catastrophe pandemic-era school policy and practice was. But too many leaders are not mustering the political courage to level with parents about the scope of the problem. Schools have obfuscated about what learning loss even means. Some states have dragged their feet on releasing test score data; in others, school officials minimize the exams’ importance. This new round of NAEP data, says contributor Andrew Rotherham, should end any hesitancy about telling parents where things stand and what must be done. It removes the last excuse for not providing an honest accounting 鈥� now. 

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Time to Change the 鈥榃hen鈥� & ‘Who’ of College

Higher Education: While the pandemic accelerated the nationwide decline in college enrollment, the crisis has been building for decades. Even as a college degree has increasingly become a prerequisite for stable, living-wage jobs, the cost in both money and time has become more and more prohibitive. Addressing these fundamental failures, say contributors Dumaine Williams and Stephen Tremaine, means questioning some of the very fundamentals. For example: Why should a college education start at age 18, and only after a student graduates from high school? In this essay, the dean and executive director of Bard Early Colleges describe programs around the country that start low-income students on the path to college while still in high school and give them tools to help them persist through graduation.

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Most Students Who Left College During COVID Want to Return 鈥� But Many Can’t

College Pipeline: A National Student Clearinghouse report shows total post-high school enrollment fell by about 685,000 students in spring 2022. In the wake of COVID-19 losses and disruptions, U.S. colleges and universities have lost 1.3 million students over the past two years. Why? A recent Gallup-Lumina Foundation study shows that while there is great demand for and interest in higher education, many students can neither access nor afford it. In this essay, contributor Courtney Brown of Lumina sheds some light on these barriers 鈥� and what can be done about them.

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Mental Health: The mental health crisis among America’s youth was a slow-burning fire that is now raging in the wake of COVID-19. New research from the Walton Family Foundation and Murmuration shows that more Americans born between 1997 and 2012 are grappling with depression, hopelessness, addiction and suicide than older generations. The symptoms often go unnoticed, revealing themselves in awkward dinner table silences and closed bedroom doors. But the pandemic has exacted a toll too heavy to ignore. Contributor Caryl M. Stern, Walton’s executive director, breaks down the numbers and points to some organizations with innovative ways to help.

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Bilingual Education: U.S. schools enroll more than twice as many Latino students as they did in 1995, federal data suggest, and by 2030, Latinos will make up roughly 30% of public school enrollment. These students bring a rich diversity and an array of strengths to the classroom, 74 contributor Conor Williams writes, but also a long history of being segregated and not well served. Williams suggests three ways educators can meet the needs of this rapidly growing student demographic: diversify the teaching force, ensure widespread access to bilingual education and prioritize their enrollment in early education programs.

]]> /article/exclusive-new-analysis-trends-in-education-innovation-from-161-school-leaders/ Thu, 08 Sep 2022 11:15:00 +0000 /?post_type=article&p=696157 Pockets of innovation scattered across K-12 classrooms won鈥檛 be sufficient to address the challenges the nation’s schools face. Meeting the moment will require moving beyond patchwork solutions toward durable, coherent innovations that become deeply embedded in schools. Fortunately, educators around the country are showing what it looks like to embrace the strengths, passions and needs of each student, particularly those who have been historically underserved.

A new analysis out this morning by the 鈥� a collaborative effort among 161 school leaders to surface and share information about K-12 innovation, coordinated by the Center on Reinventing Public Education and Transcend 鈥� provides an overview of some of the most exciting trends in K-12, as described directly by the school leaders who are shaping them. For example, innovative schools show a clear trend toward redesigning the what and the how of school to meet the varying identities of students, particularly those who are traditionally marginalized. For instance, schools serving higher-than-average proportions of kids with disabilities were more likely than others to offer accommodations for all students, rather than only for those with Individualized Education Plans 鈥� empowering all kids to determine their own pace in learning. 

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For Principal Jessica Tunney of Tomorrow鈥檚 Leadership Collaborative, a public charter school in Orange, California, have strengthened relationships between students with and without disabilities. Her school incorporates play into instruction and finds creative ways to increase access; for example, introducing sign language as a communication strategy for English learners and nonverbal students alike. Tomorrow鈥檚 Leadership Academy鈥檚 model is built around co-teaching, so every classroom has a general education specialist and a special education specialist 鈥� affording all students the benefit of the expertise of both. Scheduled collaboration time for teachers is held sacred, and educators are expected to co-plan and co-lead lessons that are inclusive of every student鈥檚 academic and social needs. 

Tomorrow鈥檚 Leadership Collaborative is but one example of schools that reflect Canopy’s innovation imperative: Among the 161 learning environments surveyed, 88% reported a focus on students with disabilities, 86% on economically disadvantaged kids and 74% on children of color.

Schools with high proportions of economically disadvantaged students were more likely to report using a trauma-informed approach to learning. They were also more likely to have expanded hours and additional services to support students鈥� physical well-being and mental health, compared with other schools. Trauma-informed teaching and learning is also on the upswing overall; over the past two years, it鈥檚 become the most frequently added practice reported by Canopy school leaders. In this approach, adults are trained to recognize and respond to students who have been impacted by traumatic stress, and students are provided with clear expectations and communication strategies to guide them through stressful situations.

Canopy schools that enroll mostly students of color were more likely to report taking culturally responsive approaches, focusing on social justice, implementing antiracist practices and hiring for equity and inclusion 鈥� for instance, by including student and community members on the interview committee. Leaders in these schools were also more likely to report using lessons that feature real-world problem solving. For example, Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School, a public school in the Bronx, focuses on political involvement and student activism. Students recently petitioned local legislators to rename their street to honor Hamer’s legacy and to educate the community about her contributions to social justice. 

Schools that enroll a higher-than-average number of emergent bilingual students were about twice as likely as other Canopy schools to report offering dual-language programming. Interestingly, schools serving more students with disabilities were also twice as likely to offer dual-language programming. Among only 16 schools citing this practice, many seemed to focus on meeting the needs of both emergent bilinguals and students with disabilities. For instance, Vimenti School, in Puerto Rico, offers bilingual education for a student population where 38% have disabilities, and Albuquerque Sign Language Academy offers dual-language programming in English and American Sign Language in a school where 55% of students have disabilities.

Canopy schools show clearly that innovative education isn鈥檛 something fleeting or for privileged students only 鈥� for many, it鈥檚 an antidote to inequities that are endemic to public education. Canopy schools represent many geographies, governance structures, racial identities and income brackets. But shows that all are reimagining learning environments to be more dynamic and responsive to students鈥� needs, no matter where they鈥檙e located or which children they serve. 

Disclosure: The Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Overdeck Family Foundation provide financial support to the Canopy Project and 社区黑料.

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