U.S. independent schools, by virtue of their smaller networks, are in a great position to tap into the resources of similar schools around the country. I spoke today with Ed Hu at Harvard Westlake in Los Angeles, and was struck, for example, by how easily he could contact a school of like size and culture in New England to request advice for starting a capital campaign. Independent schools know each other well, and the staff from such schools quickly develop informal networks across the country from attending conferences and years of working in the sector.
How can we help traditional public schools and their staff reach the same point? Where they can easily draw upon the expertise and experience of schools like them? Some education support organizations facilitate such connections, but otherwise, schools operate largely in their own spheres. Sometimes they do reach out as one teacher from Seattle shared with me. Her school had identified a similar urban school in California with demonstrated success in student achievement, then funded a trip for selective faculty to learn from the school's practices, only to find that the school embraced a different culture and their practices were therefore not appropriate for the Seattle school.
My suggestion is to look more closely at how independent schools form their networks and, if possible, model similar processes for traditional public schools.
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