KM in Education

Youth Voices

An interesting conversation today with Jonathan London at Youth in Focus raised the idea of youth knowledge becoming an input to more school processes, as well as at the policy level. Youth in Focus helps schools and community-based agencies to enable young people to engage in action research and problem-solving to improve broader communities and/or institutions. The resulting youth-produced knowledge can be used as input to school improvement, curriculum development, or even state policy decisions.

Sharing what schools learn

In my exploration, I have only come across a handful of organizations commited to actively promoting the dissemination of best practices in education. They have different objectives, so it is important for educators to know which organizations will have the most applicable knowledge that will be useful to them.

The Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) - CES has established a strong network of small schools that adhere to its Common Principles. One of their organizational goals is to disseminate and exchange knowledge and practices to enhance both schools and their supporting CES regional centers.

The School Redesign Network at Stanford University - its focus is on the effective design of small schools and helping other schools access the lessons learned from past efforts

The Bay Area School Reform Collaborative (BASRC) - works with education leaders at all levels of Bay Area public schools. It promotes knowledge development through community networks, coaching, and a Best Practices Institute.

I expect I will find other organizations with similar goals. I will continue to post them as I identify them.

Seeds of knowledge at TFA

Teach for America (TFA). the Peace Corps-style program that recruits graduates from the best colleges to teach in educationally underserved schools, continues to provoke controversy as educators analyze the results of a national Mathematica study released last month. A recent Washington Post article concludes that although TFA teachers are shown to be no worse, and perhaps slightly better than other new teachers, TFA alumni are responsible for spawning the creation of innovative school models such as KIPP that are demonstrating dramatic improvement in student achievement.

TFA does not necessarily offer a silver bullet for improving student performance with its TFA teacher corps. It does, however, clearly address the issue of teacher shortage at needy schools. Perhaps even more importantly, it has exposed bright college graduates to the realities of educational inequity. In doing so, the TFA experience has effectively planted strong seeds among TFA graduates, ensuring that their knowledge of educationally underserved schools will serve as a base from which they will launch their careers. And TFA alumni have not disappointed. They are a driving force for many of the successful initiatives targeting educational inequity.

Some of TFA's greatest merits should not be overlooked. It selects talented TFA teachers who absorb the hard lessons of facing underresourced classrooms. Their experiences have helped expand the pool of future leaders and advocates for educational reform who can tap into their firsthand knowledge to generate educational innovation with greater success.

Education Niches

Many education organizations today have defined themselves by targeting specific communities. This approach enables them to get to know a customer market and customize their services to the market needs.

Many of these initiatives also want to eventually broaden their impact to students nationwide. This objective invites the question of how these initiatives will disperse their targeted services to the communities that most need them. School models such as KIPP that help educationally underserved, primarily minority communities may not work as well in more diverse, well-educated communities. On the other hand, curriculum developers such as K12 that serves mainly homeschoolers could potentially contribute insights to traditional classroom curriculum development.

How does a principal wade through all the recent innovations to identify those that are most applicable to his/her school? GreatSchools.net offers parents an online guide to schools providing detailed profiles, enabling them to evaluate and identify schools that match their criteria. Perhaps there is an opportunity to create a similar service for superintendents, principals, and teachers. A service that will help school staff identify the most applicable niche models or borrow practices from other niches that match their criteria. Only by empowering school decision-makers across the country to access the innovation and knowledge that is currently being generated, will we be able to truly help education reach the tipping point of change.

KM Potential at KIPP

This morning I visited KIPP Bayview Academy in San Francisco to see firsthand how the KIPP model works. Bayview Academy, started in July 2003 by its principal, Molly Wood, along with founding teachers, staff and community members. is currently in its summer session, with one class of sixth-graders and a new set of fifth-graders. I quickly learn what KIPP culture means with a visit to the fifth-grade classrooms. In one class, students learn to rap about writing, while in another they are singing their multiplication tables. Each class is referred to by a college name, reinforcing the expectation of going to college. Underlying every lesson, whether inside or outside the classroom, are the school values of integrity, responsibility, initiative, excellence, tenacity, and positivity.

KIPP's strength lies in its ability to disseminate its success via its Five Pillars principles to its network of 31 schools across the country. However, despite its leadership position among established school alliances, KIPP also struggles with how to most effectively share its resources. As an informal network linked by their shared culture and experiences, KIPP school principals and teachers do their best to share their knowledge with each other. However, KIPP still lacks the formal processes and supporting technologies that enable its school leaders and staff to easily tap into the KIPP network of resources.

With its culture of sharing, KIPP already has the most important piece in place to build a useful knowledge management infrastructure for its school network. If it succeeds, KIPP not only will lay a solid foundation for successful future growth of its own network, but also will serve as an example for effective knowledge sharing among other networks of schools, from public school districts to charter school alliances.

Cross-Pollination

While I spoke today with Julie Schoknecht, formerly of New Sector Alliance, we were struck by our reverse career paths. As I, an ex-consultant, venture into the non-profit world, she is leaving it to go into corporate consulting.

It is due in part to the lack of people who make these transitions that organizations such as New Sector Alliance emerged to create innovative partnerships to bridge the gap among the business, academic, and non-profit worlds. Its founder and president, Carly Janson, recognized the high-impact potential for sharing resources across these traditionally divided sectors. By bringing the skills and knowledge of business professionals and students to non-profit enterprises, New Sector helps maximize social impact, as well as develop leadership experience in the social sector.

New Sector highlights the potential for sharing knowledge and experience across sectors. They have worked with some education organizations, including KIPP, Citizen Schools, and Breakthrough Collaborative. But that is only the tip of the iceberg in the education world.

K-12 education has the potential to benefit immensely from this form of cross-pollination. I am continually in search of partners and ideas to help accelerate this trend. Please e-mail me if you think you can contribute to my search.