The Silicon Valley approach

Through his nonprofit, Marc Zuckerberg has just invested $100 million in AltSchool, writes Issie Lapowsky for Wired. AltSchool is a private Bay Area experiment with a student-centered approach, deploying the latest technology and staffed with forward-thinking teachers who custom-teach each student. The result, founders say, is superior education. AltSchools serve students from pre-K to 8th grade, and have no administrators, no gymnasiums, no cafeterias, no hallways, no report cards, and no bells. Instead, they are single-room schoolhouses in storefronts on city streets, currently four, next year eight, including an outpost in Brooklyn (where else). Students get personal iPads or Chromebooks depending on age, with their own weekly queues of individual and group activities tailored to their strengths and weaknesses. AltSchool's proprietary technology tracks student progress, placing AltSchool in the position of not just building apps or schools, but both. AltSchools function as mini-research and development labs, where teachers and engineers are developing a formula for 21st-century education they hope to apply universally. "Schools aren't good at making changes or measuring the effects of those changes," says AltSchool founder Max Ventilla, formerly of Google. "They're not good at correcting when those changes aren't positive, and they're not good at propagating changes that are good so you get the maximum benefit." Silicon Valley startups, on the other hand, excel at this. More

Source:  Public Education News Blast

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Los Angeles Education Partnership (LAEP) is an education support organization that works as a collaborative partner in high-poverty communities.