Thompson: What The CMO Report Means For The Rest Of Us

It is to the credit of the Center on Reinventing Public Education that they and Mathematica published another study that provides evidence that the standard data-driven "reforms" are not working and that many of the solutions proposed by teachers and our unions are producing success. "Charter-School Management  Organizations: Diverse Strategies and Diverse Student Impacts" concludes that, "Among CMOs, school-wide behavior policies and intensive coaching of new teachers are positively associated with student impacts in both math and reading.” And the study also found, “At the CMO level, we do not find impacts to be associated with use of a uniform curriculum, extended instructional hours, frequent formative student assessment, or performance-based compensation.” To me, this report suggests that, instead of continuing to use charters as laboratories we should scale up their best practices and -- most important -- reconsider some of the less effective charter-inspired policies that are being exported to neighborhood schools. JT (@drjohnthompson)Image via.