![]() Stephen McMahon, president of the San Jose teachers union, worries that a dual system is developing: One filled with charters that attract motivated families and another of traditional public schools populated with reluctant learners. To some, Rocketship’s rise represents another step toward a gradual abandonment of traditional public schools, placing more children - and public dollars - into the hands of private operators. Will a model that succeeds in San Jose also flourish in Nashville? Can a strategy that works for a handful of schools be expanded across the country? And can the achievement gap be eliminated?Īnswers may be found next year, when Rocketship ventures outside of northern California to open the first of eight schools in Milwaukee. The Obama administration has invested $2 million to speed its growth.īut some wonder if five-year-old Rocketship is producing miracles or mirages. Cities across the country, including in the District and New York, are clamoring for Rocketship to set up shop. Rocketship’s scores, combined with an unusual educational and financial model, have made it the darling of the school reform movement. In some cases, the “Rocketeers” have performed as well as students in nearby Palo Alto public schools, where Stanford University professors send their children.ĭanner wants to take his model and expand it into the nation’s largest chain of charter schools, reaching 50 cities by 2020. On standardized tests, Rocketship students - overwhelmingly poor, Latino and Spanish-speaking - have outscored the county and state average. They want a big idea, on a grand scale.ĭanner, a boyish 45-year-old Silicon Valley entrepreneur and onetime public school teacher, believes he has the answer. And they don’t want just a handful of successes. Policymakers, foundations and business leaders are ravenous for schools that can educate all children, regardless of income. ![]() Poor children are likely to enter school already behind, never catch up and then drop out, joining an underclass that threatens the country’s economic future. ![]() The gap - which has persisted for decades despite heavy investments of time, energy and money - can cement the path a young life takes. This is Rocketship Discovery Prep, one of five charter elementary schools founded by Danner that are bridging the achievement gap - the staggering difference in academic performance between poor and privileged children. Inside a prefabricated beige building hard by the freight tracks, John Danner thinks he has solved one of the nation’s most vexing problems. ![]()
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