With Learning Lab and RTI delivering 80% of basic skills, teachers can spend their class time to teach values and higher order thinking skills. With the extra money we save ($1M), we can double teacher pay to well over $100,000 per year. With 10 teachers on each campus, we have much less need for talent. First, we will have 10 teachers at each campus instead of 20. This 50/50 online/classroom hybrid model has a lot of properties that helps us scale. We believe that we will see an equal split in time between basic skills online and thinking skills in a classroom. ![]() Our vision is that online learning should be responsible for the majority of basic skills learning at Rocketship (80%), freeing our teachers to use classroom time to teach students how to think. The other nice property is that the higher margins allow us to open new schools including building our own school buildings without raising additional philanthropy.Īt Rocketship, we currently have 16 teachers instead of 21. We have two schools now, open a third in the Fall, and feel pretty comfortable that the model replicates well. Our first school is currently #3 in California out of more than 2000 low-income elementary schools. That’s allowed us to create schools that outperform surrounding high-income districts. We use it to give our Principals a year of training, have an Academic Dean at each campus, pay our teachers 20% above districts, and run a 2 hour Response to Intervention (RTI) program for our bottom 20% of students. This is just like getting a check each year for $500K to reinvest in the quality of your school. Since Learning Lab does not require certificated teachers, we save 25% of our salary costs, which amount to $500K per year. ![]() To get to this kind of scale, you have to do something differently than the typical 0% margin school.Īt Rocketship, we reinvented the elementary school and created what we call a hybrid school, with 25% of the school day online in our Learning Lab and 75% in a traditional classroom. We think there will be half a dozen charter networks capable of creating 1000 schools or more. It’s pretty hard to do good R&D and fund expansion of a 0% margin business. What will it take to build a nationally scalable model for charter schools? Teaching and leadership talent capable of delivering on the mission of success. What are the ingredients of a successful charter school organization that creates great results for children?Ī strong school culture that makes success a non-negotiable and parent involvement that creates the motivation to make it happen.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |