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Link to: December 2000 Issue pdf. file format (best for printing)

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7 same way. We spent a decade pulling
together what is a good school. We
don’t want a collection of great schools,
we want a system of great schools.”    Connie Jones, Ph.D. President, The Core Knowledge Foundation       From
structural
changes to
internal
changes,
Connie
brings a
slightly dif-
ferent per-
spective and
different
starting point for school reform.       “We’ve taken the approach of actual-
ly starting with the plan, and when you
start thinking about for an elementary
and middle school, where should the
starting point be? And we believe very
firmly that that starting point ought to
be what boys and girls are going to be
able to do by the time they leave the
school. Everything else in that school
should revolve around and support that
school and should support those efforts
to improve teaching and learning.”       Thus Core Knowledge was born,
and Connie was originally the first Core
Knowledge school principal. From the
publication in 1987 of Cultural Literacy
by E.D. Hirsch, people were fascinated
with the list of what people should
know. Some were critical of it’s content,
but it was the message that you learn
new information based on what you
already know,” what they call the scaf-
folding effect. “There’s no such thing as
one shot learning,” Connie says. “And
unfortunately, if you look at the cur-
riculums across this country, teachers are expected to teach in isolation and
with very little collaboration and very
little discussion and what’s important
for them to learn, to build that scaffold-
ing in later years.       “Core Knowledge is a set of content
guidelines, with skills in reading and
math, as well. With this plan of what
you need for school, it has to be
detailed. Teachers not only know what
they’re going to teach
that year, but what was
taught the year before
and what’s going to be
taught the following year,
so their teaching can fit
into the big picture of
trying to produce a total
education for the child.”       After ten years, Core
Knowledge has three
research studies to take to
the bank that show the
success of Core
Knowledge schools. Dramatic achieve-
ment results are apparent, and in
Oklahoma City, children in Core
Knowledge versus non-Core Knowledge
schools achieved at significantly higher
rates. Kim Smith Founding President, New Schools Venture Fund, Inc. Question: What happens when you “smush together a venture capital fund
and a foundation?” Answer: You get the
New Schools Venture Fund. New
Schools’ mission is to improve public
schools by supporting education
entrepreneurs.       “Entrepreneurs are extremely vision-
ary and passionate,” says Kim. “They
don’t wait for opportunities but they act
with a sense of urgency. Real entrepre-
neurs lead with a sense of integrity. They lead people by inspiring them.”         Kim helped found New Schools with
leading venture capitalist John Doerr,
with a vision to create a fund to draw
what they learned from their business
and contribute those lessons to the pub-
lic education system. Their success is
based on the access they had to quality
education and “it doesn’t make sense to
them that we’re not giving that quality education to everyone in
this country. They can
see the economic impact,
and they bring a personal
motivation to the table
that it’s just unfair that
we’re not doing a better
job.”       So New Schools takes
a two pronged attack:
Invest in programs and
learn by doing, but also
to create a network of
new economy folks and educators who believe that entrepre-
neurs could
be a very
important
tool in
improving
public educa-
tion, and
Don Shalvey
is part of that
network and
one of the
entrepreneurs
in the New
Schools portfolio.       New Schools is helping to build a
better system and is already helping
redefine the old business model and
bringing the credibility of the new
economy to the drive for real education
reform.  Annual Leader’s Forum Connie Jones Kim Smith      “Entrepreneurs are
extremely visionary and    passionate. They don’t
   wait for opportunities
but they act with a sense of urgency. Real entrepre-
neurs lead with a sense of integrity. They lead peo- ple by inspiring them.” — Kim Smith