News Releases
Ohio Smart Schools initiative seeks ways to improve education efficiency
A statewide effort looking at ways Ohio’s public schools can boost performance and cut costs is offering the public a chance to weigh in.
Ohio Smart Schools, a nonpartisan initiative of KnowledgeWorks subsidiary Ohio Education Matters, today launched a website that invites Ohioans to make suggestions for how the state’s education system and local school districts can accomplish the dual goals of increasing student performance and reducing costs.
KnowledgeWorks subsidiary Ohio Education Matters commends state for Race to the Top win
Ohio’s winning $400 million during the second phase of the Race to the Top education reform grant will usher in a new era of improvement for the state education system and bolster reforms already in place, according to education think-tank Ohio Education Matters.
Andrew Benson, executive director of OEM, commended the state for its win and said he looked forward to seeing Ohio use the funds to continue reforms.
“Ohio has a strong education reform agenda in place, and it has demonstrated that collaboration, innovation and strong standards and assessments are all important pieces in the process as we move forward,” Benson said. “Of course, this is just the first leg of the race, and there is plenty of work left to be done.”
New Tech Network’s Monica Martinez: Future of education more mobile, student-centered
Education is moving to a place where learning is mobile, where students are involved in multiple projects at different times and where textbooks are not the sole resource available for students.
Those were among observations made by New Tech Network President Monica Martinez during a recent radio interview in New Zealand with Kathryn Ryan, host of the popular Nine to Noon program on Radio New Zealand National. To hear a podcast of the program, which aired August 18, click here.
KnowledgeWorks’ EdWorks subsidiary asked to transform Baltimore’s historic Frederick Douglass High School
EdWorks, a subsidiary of Cincinnati-based KnowledgeWorks that specializes in high school transformation, has been asked by the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners to help turn around historic Frederick Douglass Senior High School.
Douglass, whose graduates include Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and entertainer Cab Calloway, was founded in 1883 as the Colored High and Training School and is the second-oldest historically integrated public high school in the United States.
Today, 60 percent of the families of students at Douglass qualify for free or reduced meals under the National School Lunch Program. Its 2009 graduation rate was 55 percent.
Conversation on education, classroom redesign at Cincinnati’s Starfire Council Tuesday
KnowledgeWorks is partnering with A Small Group: Restoring & Reconciling Cincinnati to sponsor a community conversation that will explore questions of how to redesign the classroom experience to engender self-awareness, greater creativity and a capacity for citizenship from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., Tuesday at Cincinnati’s Starfire Council.
Leading the discussion will be Ward Mailliard, a teacher and program leader at Mount Madonna School in California, and with the Dalai Lama Foundation’s Project Happiness.