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Disrupting the Opportunity Gap

by Lydia Dobyns President and CEO, New
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Why “Better Together” is Just the Beginning

  Parents and educators generally agree on
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New Tech Schools Are Better Together: Collaboration = Community Building

Imagine our surprise when one day the
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Success in Rural, High-Poverty Public High Schools: Path to Equity?

HuffPost There is no getting around the
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Facing Dilemmas with an Organizational Soul

Choosing not to run from complexity  
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MAKING PBL PERSONAL

Personalized Project Based Learning Targets Individual Student
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Leap of Faith, Now What? Marrying PBL and Personalized Learning.

President and CEO, New Tech Network View
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District-Wide Innovation: Deeper Learning for all Students

For districts wishing to make the transition to deeper learning for their students, Evergreen Elementary School District Superintendent Kathy Gomez offers some tips.

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Schools Learning From Schools Knows No Borders

Ultimately the real value of school networks is to increase access to powerful deeper learning for more students.

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There is no Finish Line in Education

To leverage the opportunities that ESSA and other policy shifts offer, we think connecting and networking teachers and leaders is key.

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College-Readiness Assessments: Be Careful What You Wish For

The lessons that NTN schools have learned offer some insights into what it takes for complex assessment to work.

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Can Great Public Education be the New Normal?

The practice of continuous improvement in transparent, open ways can become the new normal for public education, and that would be great reason to celebrate.

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California Schools Latest to Get New Student Test Results; So, Now What?

Schools and communities can be put in difficult positions when the only source of data that is being shared around student achievement are annual standardized test scores.

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Adult Learning Matters

We are days away from the New Tech Network Annual Conference ─ six days of learning, professional development and collaboration among educators from more than half of the US states and Australia and China.

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Our National Obsession With ‘Going to College’ — We Might Have a Bigger Problem to Solve

There is an even bigger challenge we just don’t acknowledge: In the U.S. we graduate far too many students who are not ‘ready-for-college.’

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Facilitating Systems Change

The New Tech philosophy is to facilitate school transformation within the public education system, and we find that effective school directors possess a growth mindset and demonstrate highly adaptive leadership styles.

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How to Succeed in Life…

We frequently hear what teachers and administrators think are the best paths for students to follow. How often do we put the students’ perspectives about their future at the center of the public education debate?

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Move Over Memorization

Why would we measure student knowledge by an ability to regurgitate facts through multiple choice tests?

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Internet Access Is The “Toll Road To Equity”

While access to technology and the internet are not silver bullets per se, the absence of these critical tools and resources present significant impediments to achieving “college and career readiness” for students.

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Can President Obama Make Equal Access Headway?

What makes us believe there is a reason to “hope” that in his last years as President he will be able to see some of his most innovative programs pass through Congress, especially education initiatives?

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Learning Gets Funky!

Learning today can look and feel quite differently than what most of us experienced in school.

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Free Community College: A Hail Mary Pass?

The President has proposed free community college (75 percent paid for by federal government and 25 percent by states) for students who maintain C+ grades AND make consistent progress towards graduation.

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Understanding the Economics of School Reform

A budget confrontation is brewing with Federal funding due to expire on December 11. Congress has yet to reach a deal, and the public does not want a repeat of last year’s 16-day government shutdown.

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Learning Civic Responsibility

Veteran unemployment has fallen from around 10 percent in 2012 to near the national average (6.7 percent) in 2013.

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Classroom Politics: Encouraging Politically Savvy Students

What lessons or projects provide paths for students to understand the critical role voting plays in building and nurturing a healthy democracy?

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With Liberty and Justice and High Speed Internet Access for All

I have seen schools throughout the country where the excitement of learning is palpable and students utilize technology and internet access as an integral component in their daily learning.

RESEARCH

Future Success Can Be Taught

Much has been written on what goes beyond student test scores and grades

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Getting More Girls Into STEM Careers: Lessons From a Principal

Mansoureh Tehrani is principal of METSA (Math, Engineering, Technology and Science Academy) in Carrollton, Texas and knows “from the inside” what it takes to succeed in a STEM career.

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College and Career Readiness — Part Three

This last blog of the three-part series on College and Career Readiness focuses on “Building and Sustaining Learning Organizations.”

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Engineered to Succeed: Lessons From a Student Pursuing a STEM Career

Encouraging young women to aspire to careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) requires positive role models, and an educational system that provides unbiased opportunity for all.

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College and Career Readiness — Part Two

I recently wrote about turning the “College and Career Ready Mantra” into reality for all students.

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How to Turn the ‘College and Career Ready’ Mantra into Reality

College and career readiness means that every graduate of a New Tech school leaves aware, eligible and prepared to pursue post-secondary education or vocational training.

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Alumni Thank Teachers for “Enduring Understandings”

With the start of a new academic school year, we thought teachers and directors would like to hear from New Tech alumni as they continue post-secondary journeys.

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Paying It Forward: Teachers Model a Passion for Learning

Dave was a disengaged 14-year-old. Everything about his world suggested he would fail.

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‘Agency’ — A Noun That Translates Into Success

When we think of the skills students need to be successful in school and in life, the word “agency” doesn’t usually pop into mind.

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Learning How to Learn

Deciding to make fundamental changes to the way students learn, and, therefore, the way teachers teach, has huge implications for a district.

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Soft Skills Are ‘Hard As a Rock’

To accompany the ‘core competencies’ needed to fulfill a specific job, there are certain “other” skills companies look for in a potential hire.

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The Envelope(s) Please

We couldn’t be more proud of the many accolades falling on New Tech schools, teachers and students.

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Can President Obama’s Visit to New Tech School Pave the Way for Education Innovation?

Today was a personal once-in-a-lifetime movie moment: I welcomed President Obama to Manor New Technology High School.

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A Lifelong Yearning Answered

I shrieked and was glad that I
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Making the Grade After Graduation

Earning a high school diploma is not synonymous with college readiness.

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TED Prize Winner Offers Audacious Vision for Re-inventing Education

This week, Sugata Mitra won the 2013 Ted Prize. Mitra dreams of schools in the cloud and Self Organizing Learning Environments as ways to nurture learning for every child on the planet.

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Countdown: Top 10 Education Issues I’m Following in 2013

I thought I’d share my top ten list of issues I’m following this year.

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Preparing Students for College and Career: Let’s Make a High School Diploma Mean Something

After watching the State of the Union Address, I applaud President Obama’s call for relevant STEM-focused education.

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Let’s Make 2013 a ‘Build Something’ Year

Isaac Newton said, “We build too many walls and not enough bridges.” That sentiment is especially true today.

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Collateral Damage: What’s Behind the Rise in High School Graduation Rates

High school graduation rates are rising in the U.S., but so is the need for college remediation.

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A ’21st Century’ Education Is SO Last Century

It’s not rational, but I’ll admit that whenever I hear “21st century classroom” or “21st century skills” — I tense up.

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‘Tis The Season For Making A Difference Students Spread Holiday Cheer Year-Round

Here at New Tech Network (NTN), we celebrate ways students “make a difference”.

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After We Avert That Cliff, Let’s Create a Nation of Innovators: A Plea for Secretary Duncan

Have we created the right climate for success at the local, state and federal level?

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Making It a Team Effort: Students Learn to Collaborate

Watching high school freshmen navigate a collaborative project for the first time is a delight, or should I say watching them cross the “finish line” is a source of pride for all involved.

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Student Voices Heard In Election Process

President Obama is re-elected, the nation is returning to some sort of “normalcy,” and everyone is trying to figure out what the vote results really mean.

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Students ‘Flip’ for Digital Learning

Students today live in a wired world. Educators strive to assure high school and post-secondary success for each student.

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An Uncommon Path to Common Core Implementation

School’s back in session and with it comes a plethora of articles, commentaries and blogs about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

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When Worlds Collide: Odessa, Texas and the Other 6 Nights

Odessa youth — in a town with a per capita income of about $16,000, and some 16.0% of families and 18.6% of the population below the poverty line — have a “hope” challenge.

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Come on Baby Light My Fire — Teachers Combine ‘Voices’ to Ignite Change

We wonder why interest in politics or issues of our times don’t seem to register with young people. For high school students, just stop and put yourself in their shoes and now consider how to make sense of the prime-time speeches.

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Back to the Classroom — Part Two: Teachers ‘Wear’ Their Student Hats

Learning how to build school culture and how to implement a successful PBL project in the classroom is critical.

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Making It Work: Today’s Jobs Require Tomorrow’s Skills

To secure a good job, students must be able to think creatively, communicate well, and know how to collaborate.

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HELLO HELLO-I don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hello

More than 1,200 teachers, principals, superintendents, alumni and students from the 120 New Tech Network schools attended this year’s NTAC.

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Curiosity — Don’t Leave School Without It!

The dictionary says that “curiosity” is the “desire to know or learn.” I think that pretty well sums up what we, as individuals involved in educational innovation, are trying to infuse in our students.

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Taking a Classroom Leap of Faith: Teacher Embraces New Roles

For a group of highly energized teachers who are themselves “learners” at heart, summer is anything but time off.

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Graduates Don’t Just Take a Path… They Blaze a Trail

It’s that time of year again. I want to congratulate every tassel-capped senior on a “job well done.”

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One Size After High School Does Not Fit All

When did we decide that a four-year college education was a “must do” that had to start immediately after high school graduation?

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Stop the Education “Blame Game”: Let’s Get Real About Accountability

Saying that student success is top priority and taking action to assure student success, yield entirely different results.

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Measuring an Education ROI: No Dollar Left Behind

It’s time to start measuring educational success by aligning financial resources with performance expectations.

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Educational Innovation Rises Down Under

Overcoming obstacles to providing an innovative and relevant curriculum that promotes trust, respect and responsibility is not limited to the U.S.

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Hungry to Learn

Students want what they study to feel relevant. They don’t want passive ‘sit and listen’ learning.

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The Students Are All Right — It’s the Adults Who Need to Learn to Communicate

To our tech savvy students, all the hype around technology or digital learning evokes a ‘what took you so long?’ attitude.

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Parents Attend High School, Too

I decided to go “to the source” — and ask parents about their current experience with high school.

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It’s All About the Culture: Overlooked Key to High School Reform

What if this type of positive behavior was expected of EVERY student, EVERY day, in EVERY school?

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High School Seniors Talk Turkey about Deeper Learning

Deeper Learning delivers the skills and knowledge students will need to succeed in a world that is changing at an unprecedented pace.

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To Tech or Not to Tech? That is NOT the Question

How do we provide learning that is relevant and rigorous? And how do we give teachers resources and training to engage students?

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Schools for Tomorrow Are Here Today…. so Why Aren’t We Doing More of What Works?

The choices we face in changing education are not black and white. The menu of change does not consist of either ‘keep bad public schools’ or ‘open more charter schools.’

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How Long to Wait for Change?

We can’t afford to fail to meet the needs of the next two generations of students before achieving dramatically better results.

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Technology Is Not a Silver Bullet

There is no silver bullet that meets the educational needs for all students.

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Dear New Tech Network:

This year’s NTAC conference gave us the opportunity to share our common ideas as to how we are going to help America realize its promise.

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Rumination on Graduation: Why we are so inspired

How does matriculation from a New Tech high school prepare these students for the challenges that lie ahead?

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When Partnerships Are Worth It

New Tech Network partners with communities to create relevant and engaging high schools that prepare students for college and career.

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A New World Order?

Are we ready to embrace ‘swimmers’ and ‘treaders’ as the new world order?

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Why join the student testing bandwagon?

At the Fall Leadership Summit, held for all directors leading schools in the New Tech Network, we were asked “Why is NTN joining the student testing bandwagon?”

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Why Wait for Superman?

In the real world, we know waiting for a superhero makes little sense to fix our education system. Instead, we must continue to apply strategies that work and have the patience to see it through.

Working together to transform schools

As a leading design partner for comprehensive school change,
New Tech Network, a national non-profit, works closely with nearly 200 districts and schools.

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