Giving Compass' Take:

• Robin Lake describes the Center on Reinventing Public Education's vision for a new era of public education in the United States. 

• Does this align with your vision for the future of public education? How can funders advance education reform? 

• Here's an article about if charter and public schools are held to the same standard. 

For 25 years the Center on Reinventing Public Education has studied, informed, and refined new ideas for how public education can achieve its promise. We have posited and tested ways to allow families to choose educational settings that fit their needs and give educators the autonomy to create them, without losing sight of the public interest in schooling. We have focused on meeting the diverse needs of a community and continuously urged public officials across the country to do a better job meeting those needs. We envision an agile education system — one designed to innovate constantly, to improve continuously, to bend and stretch to meet the needs of every student.

Schools teaching younger students would have outcome requirements focused only on a limited set of core gateway learning and developmental skills that were shown to be directly linked to readiness for secondary education. Older students could select or build personalized learning pathways toward careers by earning competency-based credits toward high school graduation, college coursework, and industry credentials.

Teachers would need to be of two kinds — those who build deep relationships with students and curate customized learning packages, and specialists who are experts at teaching specific bodies of knowledge. The former would be located in schools and the latter would often work in — or as — independent providers.

Read the full article about a vision for public education by Robin Lake at The 74.