School For Independent Learners

The Free Digital Textbooks initiative was launched by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to offer free science and mathematics textbooks.

You can download these textbooks at the California Learning Resources Network.

Enjoy.

From government to non-profit organizations, teachers to textbook publishers, we all have a role to play in leveraging 21st century technology to expand learning and better serve California’s students, parents, teachers and schools. This initiative will ensure our schools know which digital textbooks stand up to California’s academic content standards – so these cost-effective resources can be used in our schools to help ensure each and every student has access to a world-class education. Governor Schwarzenegger

Hurricane Katrina swept away the under-performing New Orleans school system and, in her destructive wake, seeded a new model of school-district structure. The Portfolio Model, as Recovery School District (RSD) Superintendent Paul Vallas calls it, stands in stark opposition to the traditional top-down school-district hierarchy.

Vallas believes that the traditional top-down district model is not tenable in New Orleans, as the RSD caters to disparate populations, each with unique socio-economic challenges. To improve education in any demographically diverse district, Vallas asserts, change must start in each classroom, and district-level administrators ought not interfere with effective grass-roots solutions.

The RSD comprises a “portfolio” of charter schools funded by the district, yet operated by non-profits and private companies. Each school is funded per-student, and decides–for itse

lf–how to best allocate funds. Each school writes its own rules, and curriculum development begins in the classroom.

The district rewards thriving schools with increased freedoms, and closes failing schools. Before closure is considered, district-level specialists coach the lagging school’s faculty, a last-chance practice that often succeeds.

As a proponent of the RSD, I look to increased teacher retention rates, test scores, and graduation rates. I note that students–regardless of their geography or GPA–may enroll in any district school. This open-enrollment policy (begins to) negate performance gaps among schools.

Critics of the RSD allege that this new model is not replicable, that it would not be a success without the leadership of celebrity reformers–such as Vallas–or without the thousands of Teach for

America volunteers who descended post-Katrina. As the Co-Director of a private high school with a diverse student body, I disagree: we have successfully applied this bottom-up model to our microcosm. Our teachers and students collaborate to develop curriculum, we successfully support the professional development of our faculty, and our admissions criterion is simple: if you want to learn, we’ll teach you.

Want to learn more about the RSD and Paul Vallas? The New York Times Magazine featured the district in 2008.

The editor of education hub SmartBean recently visited our school to do a piece on our establishment and the work we do – many thanks to SmartBean for a well-written and well-researched article!

Check it out here!