A public benefit of private school innovation
Not all schools are created equal, and in fact some public systems have more in common with private schools than one another.
I went to public school in West Hartford, Connecticut. A privileged public system. Perhaps a touch less than the elite private institutions we were surrounded by like Loomis Chaffee and Kingswood-Oxford. More so than the Hartford public schools, where we played our varsity basketball games during daylight hours because nighttime at Weaver High School was “too dangerous.”
My daughters, two months and two years old, will be attending public school just like I did. They’re slated to attend Peralta Elementary, Claremont Middle, and Oakland Tech High — which have mixed ratings. Because of this, I’m listening intently to Dominic A.A.Randolph and Max Ventilla even though they are heads of private institutions. I hope Antawn Wilson and OUSD are as well: between Riverdale’s teacher experiments and AltSchool’s radical personalization, there’s much we can all learn together.
It’s tempting to label Riverdale and AltSchool as education for the 1%. Irrelevant because they are elite. Unscalable due to costs. Unrelatable as it’s a “different brand” of education.
That’s an oversimplification.
Riverdale is using its own teachers to prototype tools and toolkits for public school teachers around the country. It funds innovative teacher professional development not only for its own, but opens it up to thousands of public school teachers. (I helped facilitate one of those sessions in 2013 at the Riverdale campus with hundreds of public and private school teachers, together.)
They are the backers and early adopters of initiatives like Design Thinking for Educators and teacher challenge platforms like The Teachers Guild. They fund research centers like The Character Lab at Stanford’s d.school. They are tapping into talent like IDEO’s Sandy Speicher and Molly McMahon, and Stanford’s Susie Wise. For the benefit of their teachers, yes.
But they are taking risks, taking action, and most importantly making the benefits readily available for all teachers and administrations in the public sector. 990 forms don’t tell this story.
We asked Dominic and Max to participate in Build on This because they are visionary with their thinking and generous with their time. Private institutions can move at a pace that our public institutions cannot. And they are clearly open to sharing what they’re learning, while inviting other perspectives.
Shawn, I see the point you’re trying to make. But you’re equivocating private education with privilege. I’d venture to say it’s more a matter of responsibility that comes with being an elite private institution, and what they choose to do with it.
My advice to you: seek out these amazing resources. Learn from their perspectives. Challenge them and propose your own. Continue participating in this community of practice. And perhaps you can ask the old school private institutions in your area — Phillips Andover, Exeter, Northfield Mount Hermon — to be a thought partner, and funding participant, as well. You might find you’ve got something to teach them.
