COMMERCE, Texas - The U.S. Congress has made $500,000 available to the Re-Inventing Schools Coalition, and a portion of the funds will be used to bring the concept from Alaska to the lower 48 states.
This is according to Dr. Michael Copeland, an assistant professor in educational administration at Texas A&M University-Commerce and recently appointed president of the Re-Inventing Schools Coalition, which is also supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Educational Foundation. Copeland is also past president of the National Rural Education Association, which traces its origins back to 1907.
A&M-Commerce plans to play a role in helping the coalition to reinvent schools.
Copeland says the objective is to create "lighthouse schools" to serve as models for educational systems in Texas and elsewhere.
This reform process originated in Alaska's Chugach School District and contributed to it being named one of the first winners of the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award For Performance Excellence in education. To date, no Texas school has won this award.
A lighthouse school may move away from a graded educational program to one where competency is based in attaining specific standards.
"For example," says Copeland, "a child must prove they are able to tell the time by being able to correctly verbally tell the time, to correctly write the time, and to depict the time."
In this system one moves from one level of education to the next only when competency is demonstrated.
Also, students struggling with reading have the opportunity to concentrate on this area until it is mastered, and are able to move ahead more quickly on work where they already excel.
"If the expectation really is that no child be left behind, then this is one of the very few models that offers an opportunity for success as it develops an individual learning plan for each student.
"Learning is the constant, time is the variable. Learning is a continuous cycle, and is revisited to ensure that the learning is retained," Copeland says.
Dr. Frank Ashley, A&M-Commerce dean of education and human services, says, "What we are looking at is reinventing schools - not reforming schools, not changing schools, but almost starting over and rethinking schools.
"With this concept there is buy in by so many different people: administrators, teachers, students, parents, school board members and the general community.
"It's the first time that all these stakeholders are brought into the conversation," Ashley says.
This has created a system in which everyone is involved so that even if the leadership changes, the program is sustained. The curriculum also allows a state to retain their culture and heritage.
Ashley and Copeland hope the process will begin in a small, rural school. "It's where the concept was conceived," says Copeland. "It understands the needs of rural schools. As about 80 percent of Texas schools are small and rural, it should fit there very well.
"We hope to create a model that can be moved across the country with success," Copeland says.
"I was able to visit Alaskan schools this summer," says Ashley. "Some were very remote and some were places of extreme poverty.
"However, the students in this system are excelling. This is notable as poverty is often linked to performance."
Australian educators are already discussing the concept, and schools in Europe have been doing similar things for years with success, according to Copeland.
The Re-Inventing Schools Coalition hopes to partner with Robert Marzano, one of the most respected education researchers in the country. He is widely recognized as an expert in both critical thinking and curriculum design and is associated with the Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory in Colo., which delivers research and practical guidance to educators.
"He is interested in this concept and interested in working with us," says Copeland. "We also have local schools that are interested in becoming lighthouse schools. Right now, it's a question of finding more funding to make this a reality in Texas."