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More About This Title On the Rocketship: How Top Charter Schools Are Pushing the Envelope
English
On the Rocketship: How Top Charter Schools are Pushing the Envelope examines the rise and expansion of leading charter school network Rocketship, revealing the "secret sauce" that makes a successful program. A strong narrative with a timely message, the book explores how Rocketship started and the difficulties encountered as it expands. Designing schools for children who have been failed by traditional schools is extremely challenging work. Setbacks are inevitable. Later in the book the narrative shifts to the national picture, exploring how high performing charter schools are changing the education landscape in cities such as Denver, Memphis, and Houston. The book emerges just as charter schools are running into stiff political opposition in New York City and elsewhere. Even in San Jose, Rocketship's home base, the pushback against charter schools is gaining speed. On the Rocketship becomes a valuable resource for explaining what's at stake in this battle. Lose these schools, in New York, San Jose and other cities, and low-income and minority students lose their best shot at a quality education.
Written by a veteran journalist who followed Rocketship through a school year, the book explores some of the factors that make Rocketship and other charters successful, including the blended learning that was pioneered at charter schools, especially Rocketship.
Many schools around the country are looking to Rocketship as a model for implementing blended learning. The interplay between charter schools and blended learning is setting a change in motion, and the American education system is ready to evolve. On the Rocketship details this phenomenon, providing insights for educators across the nation.
English
RICHARD WHITMIRE, a veteran newspaper reporter and former editorial writer at USA Today, is author of The Bee Eater: Michelle Rhee Takes on the Nation’s Worst School District. He is also author of Why Boys Fail: Saving Our Sons from an Education System That’s Leaving Them Behind.
English
Introduction 1
Part 1: The Players
Rocketship Finally Launches outside California 7
John Danner 9
Preston Smith 15
Danner’s Big Pivot 19
Part II: The Startup Years
A Charter Fund Designed to Nurture Top CMOs 25
Did the Butterfly Effect Give Wings to Rocketship? 27
Hurricane Katrina 29
Startup Meets Smokestack 31
Sci-Fi-Inspired Software 41
Joel Klein Does the Unexpected 43
Recruiting the Key (Outside) Players 45
The Hard Sell: Pitching the First Rocketship 53
Opening Mateo Sheedy: Tough Times 61
New Schools Launches Charter Accelerator Fund II 65
How to Build a Fibonacci School 67
Part III: The Growth Years
The Ideal Personnel Department? Not within Rocketship 73
Alum Rock Rejects Rocketship Is That a Bad Thing? 79
Rocketship Finds a Friend 81
Charter School Growth Fund Puts Rocketship on the Map 85
Slivka’s Sci-Fi Software Gets Shipped: DreamBox 87
Rocketship Wins Five More Charters 91
Finding Karen Martinez It’s an Art 93
Achievement Gaps in Fabulous Silicon Valley? 99
District-Charters Compact Launched 101
Danner (and Reed Hastings) Discover DreamBox 103
Yet Another Boring Education Book? Not Exactly? 105
States Repeal Charter Restrictions (Okay, a Bribe Was Involved) 107
Fresh Charter Strategy from the Department of Education 109
Growing the High-Performing (and Blended) Charters 111
Double Setbacks Rocketship Changes Course 113
A Corporate Jet Packed with Movers and Shakers Touches Down 117
Leaders of Top Charters Tapped as State Commissioners 123
Top Charters to Get Stiff Test 125
Blended Learning Rocketship Style: This Stuff Works! 127
KIPP Opens Its One-Hundredth School 129
A Discovery That Would Lead to Big Changes (and Bigger Drama) 131
Rocketship Bids Big: Give Us Twenty More Charters in Santa Clara County 133
Setting Up Rocketship to Fail? 137
Rocketship Doubles Down on a Reinvention 141
One Million Rocketship Students by 2030? Not Happening 147
Rocketship and Unions: It’s Complicated; A Rocketship Teacher Sits down with a Union Leader—Her Mother 149
Early Fallout from Model Change 157
The Pushback Gets Real: The Fight over Tamien 159
Part IV: The Push to Expand outside San Jose
Welcome to South Milwaukee 171
A Power Play Backfires 173
School Starts in Seven Months—but Only Three Sign-ups! 177
Danner Steps Down; Smith Steps Up 181
Milwaukee Gets a Shakeup 183
Stretching to Lure Top Charters: The San Antonio Story 187
Smith’s Worst Monday Ever 193
Exactly What Kind of a Difference Can a Fibonacci School Make? 199
Milwaukee Looking Up (a Bit) 201
Two Charters Make the Top Five List 205
If Rocketship Is the Digital Future Why Do Its Schools Look So Ordinary? 207
Fibonacci Developments in Massachusetts 211
More Progress in Milwaukee 213
A Day in the Life: Rocketship’s Flagship School, Mateo Sheedy 215
Fresh Turbulence in Milwaukee 225
Surprise Shift on TFA 233
Milwaukee Parents Name Their School: Southside Prep 237
Rumor Just In: Rocketship Falls through the Ice 241
A Fibonacci Charter Group Is Honored 243
Build, Measure, Learn, Rinse, Repeat 245
One Month before Southside Prep Opens 251
How Many Sharon Kims Are out There? 253
Eva Makes Life Hard for Her Many Critics 263
Opening Week at Southside Prep 265
California Test Scores Released 267
Part V: The Future for Rocketship and Other High Performers
Answering the Fibonacci Question: Will Rocketship Make It Big? 271
Fibonacci Charters Summoned to Memphis 279
Houston’s Spring Branch Schools: The Future? 287
Where’s the Tipping Point? 293
The Tennessee Launch 299
Conclusion 301
Acknowledgments 311
About the Author 313
Epilogue 315
Index 319
