The Greenfield School Revolution & School Choice

Greg Forster & James Woodworth

The recent explosion of educational innovation has focused primarily on creating wholly new models of what a school can be. From KIPP to carpe Diem, education is entering a revolutionary period driven by the reinvention of the entire school rather than by gradual programmatic reforms. Although some of these new models have been more successful than others, and the level of success for any given new model can be debated, there is a growing consensus that these new school models collectively represent a dramatic challenge to the status quo in education.

These "greenfield school models" do not just challenge our assumptions about schooling. They also challenge the assumption that one school model can provide the right education for every child. The public mind has been opened to the potential of educational options as never before.

The nation faces two crucial challenges as we enter this new period. Only a tiny fraction of the promise and potential of greenfield school models has been tapped so far. how can we create far more of these models, with greater variation and more institutional support for innovation? And how is it possible for greenfield school models to create improvement in the vast majority of schools, the "un-reinvented" regular public schools, given that even gradual attempts at programmatic reform within those schools have been ineffective over the past 50 years?

Universal school choice has great potential to meet both of these challenges. Although the private school sector provides structures that should be inviting to entrepreneurs, currently they do not find the private school sector attractive. The "tuition barrier" locks out institutional change; private schools can't reach out to a large enough base of families seeking different learning environments, because they must charge tuition. By lowering the tuition barrier and allowing private schools to serve new populations, universal choice would provide educational entrepreneurs with dramatically more freedom and support than they currently enjoy even in charter schools. entrepreneurs would be more free to innovate beyond the confines of the "default" public school model, giving them the ability to truly reinvent the school.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at June 9, 2012 2:44 AM
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