Breakthrough Models for College Readiness

Common Elements of Breakthrough Schools:

•Represent a new breakthrough design (that didn’t previously exist)

•Personalized schools with blended, competency-based, student-centered, and student-owned learning approaches

•High expectations, deeper learning, aligned to Common Core Standards

•Financially sustainable on public funding and scalable

Learn More: nextgenlearning.org/breakthrough-model-designs

AT A GLANCESCHOOLS: 42•New: 34•Turnaround: 4•Redesigned: 4•District: 13 (5 with a Partner)•Charter: 29 (2 with a Partner)

GRADES SERVED:•K-8: 7•Middle School: 6•6-12: 13•High School: 16

STUDENTS AT START: 9,764•Fall 2012 Cohort: 1,869•Fall 2013 Cohort: 5,415•Fall 2014 Cohort: 2,160+•Fall 2015 Cohort: 320

STUDENTS AT CAPACITY: 26,881•Fall 2012 Cohort: 5,240•Fall 2013 Cohort: 11,545•Fall 2014 Cohort: 8,816+•Fall 2015 Cohort: 1,280

© 2015 EDUCAUSE.

Fall 2012 Launch9 Schools

• 7 New Schools, 2 Turnarounds• 2 Districts (1 with Partner)

7 Charters (1 w/ Partner)

Alpha Public SchoolsBlanca Alvarado Middle School

Strong interpersonal relationships and character development are at the core of this San Jose, CA blended school’s model. Students learn a significant portion of core academic content online at their own level of mastery and pace and receive teacher-led instruction informed by real-time data from their online content. Unlike most middle schools, one teacher stays with a class of 34 students throughout the day and throughout the year.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/alpha-public-schools/

Cornerstone Charter SchoolsCornerstone Health + Technology High School

The school’s health-focused curriculum grounds students’ learning in real-world issues. The school model sheds traditional classrooms, grade levels, and schedules in favor of personalized online content, small-group work, a continuum of mastery from beginner to professional, and comprehensive student support.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/cornerstone-charter-schools

Education Achievement AuthorityNolan Elementary-Middle School

Charged by the governor of Michigan to transform the lowest five percent of the persistently lowest achieving schools in the state while simultaneously developing a new approach to educating students, the Education Achievement Authority is recreating Nolan Elementary-Middle School in Detroit. Modular furniture and flexible grouping arrangements accommodate a blended learning, student-centered, mastery-progression approach. The dynamic learning platform emphasizes not just cognitive skills but also collaboration and communication.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/education-achievement-authority-michigan-nolan-k-8

Generation Schools NetworkWest Generation Academy

This Denver public 6-12 school operated by Generation Schools Network, which opened in Fall 2012, redesigned the academic model to a rotational blended model for greater personalization, more time for learning, and stronger support for academic and 21st century skills development. It also redeployed the school’s existing resources to change the model without adding to school costs and operating within key parameters of teacher contracts. The goal is to ensure that innovative practice and change occurs not just outside the system, but within it as well.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/generation-schools-network

KIPP ChicagoKIPP Create College Prep Middle School

This Chicago middle school serving grades 5-8 builds on the KIPP academic model by blending instructional technology with high-quality teaching methods. The technology is not a tool for cutting costs but for allowing a single instructor and a single classroom to serve the individual needs of a diverse student body. During “Power Hour,” students use digital content on their own and in teams based on an individual learning plan.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/kipp-chicago

Leadership Public SchoolsLPS Oakland R&D Campus

With this 9-12 school in Oakland, CA, Leadership Public Schools is expanding its role as “collaborative innovator,” working with teachers and students to design blended learning environments and tools that help lay the foundation for key skills, personalize learning, and promote 21st century thinking. While the learning structure is fixed, the actual content (not just digital) and tools may evolve from year to year as teachers test and evaluate open educational content or refine their needs.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/leadership-public-schools

Matchbook Learning (Touchstone Education*)Merit Prep Newark

At this 6-12 school in Newark, New Jersey, teachers use data to create dynamic student groupings for targeted instruction. Content area teaching teams focus on making connections between on-line and off-line instruction. Students work through individualized playlists created by teachers that include self-paced interactive digital content, teacher-led instruction, and daily and weekly assessments.

*In July 2014, Touchstone Education merged with Matchbook Learning

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/touchstone-education

Schools for the FutureSFF Detroit

Designed specifically for students who are off-track academically, this 8-12th grade blended high school in Detroit uses a mastery approach to help students recuperate lost credits while accelerating their path toward college ready standards. Groups of 12-14 students form “PACT Teams” with daily meetings facilitated by a school psychologist. The curriculum is organized into 30-day modules and students advance based on demonstrated proficiency.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/schools-future

USC Hybrid High School

USC Hybrid High’s model includes a focus on positive multigenerational change in the local community, developing self-motivated learners, and building a network designed to innovate. Blended learning enables students to own their learning and rigorous annual project themes such as “know yourself” and “know your community” support the school’s mission to give students a deep sense of purpose.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/usc-hybrid-high-school

Fall 2013 Launch16 Schools

• 12 New Schools, 1 Turnaround, 3 Complete Redesigns

• 6 Districts (1 w/ Partner), 10 Charters (1 w/ Partner)

Aspire Public SchoolsCODE Aspire

This is Aspire Public School’s first K-8 blended learning school in the Achievement School District in Memphis, TN. By combining its California-based College for Certain model with a focus on computer coding, Aspire is offering Memphis students a rich STEM-focused education, individualized learning on technology, and explicit instruction in computer coding skills, so that students will be able to better understand the digital world around them, think logically, be creative, learn to find and fix their own problems, and feel empowered.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/aspire-public-schools

Danville Independent SchoolsBate Middle School & Danville High School

This small district south of Lexington, KY is completely redesigning its only middle school and high school by adopting a competency-based blended learning model. Personalized learning pathways directly link middle school, high school, and college curriculum. Projects play a central role in the new learning environment which aims to equip students with 21st century skills so they can seize their place in the Information Age as inventive learners.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/danville-independent-schools

Da Vinci SchoolsDa Vinci Communications

Da Vinci Communications serves racially and socio-economically diverse students in Los Angeles through a highly personalized, student-centered approach that integrates online learning with dynamic project-based classroom learning, college courses, internships, and authentic real-world experience. Collaborative teams help develop real world projects that bring professional practice into the classroom.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/da-vinci-schools

e3 Civic High

Embracing its downtown setting and unique location in the state-of-the-art San Diego Public Library, e3 Civic High prepares students for college, career, and civic life. Career exploration and early college opportunities combined with shared use of library facilities and resources demonstrate the extensive community partnerships that define this charter high school.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/e3-civic-high

Fayette County Public SchoolsThe STEAM Academy

Urban Fayette County Public Schools is designing and implementing this blended high school in partnership with the University of Kentucky so that students will graduate college and career ready and college and career experienced. District innovation waivers and UK’s P20 Innovation Lab create a supportive environment for student-paced, mastery-based, and problem-based experiential learning.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/fayette-county-public-schools

The Great Oaks FoundationGreat Oaks Charter School of New York City

This school model combines the extensive personalized instruction of the tutor corps model of Match Education with the blended learning model of the Swedish-based Kunskapsskolen schools. The Kunskapsskolen Learning Portal is used in tutoring sessions, during direct instruction, and when students chart their own learning journey at home. The GO-NYC model is designed specifically to better serve English language learners.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/great-oaks-foundation

Horry County SchoolsWhittemore Park Middle School

One observer of the model for this Horry County, SC district school commented, “They are really creating a new middle school model rather than shuffling the chairs in a turnaround.” The new student-centered, competency-based model, “iCAN,” has four central elements: individualized, college and career readiness, aspirations of students, and network of support.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/horry-county-schools

Incubator School

Inc. is a 21st century learning, entrepreneurship-themed Los Angeles Unified School District pilot school whose 8th graders launch a startup within school and whose 12 graders launch or work at one in the “real world.” Because the world and learning are changing so rapidly, Inc. thinks of itself as a startup whose product is an education students want and need. The curriculum emphasizes building a business project from ideation to execution and embraces both cooperation and competition.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/incubator-school

AT A GLANCE:Start Date: Fall 2013

Grades Served: 6-12

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Operator: Los Angeles Unified School

District

Operator Type: District

Setting: Urban

Students at Start: 51

Students at Capacity: 735

KEY FEATURES: New School

Lab Rotation and Flex Blended

Models

Entrepreneurship

Project-Based and Experiential

Learning

Community Partnerships

Ingenuity Prep

Starting with Pre-School and Kindergarten, this school in the nation’s capital plans to grow to serve students through 8th grade. The model is grounded on four pillars:•More time on task•Looping teams of content-specialized teachers•A blended model driven by mission-aligned outcomes•Time explicitly devoted to 21st century civic leadership competencies

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/ingenuity-prep

Intrinsic Schools

Students spend time in open, flexible “pods” rather than classrooms at this 6-12 charter school in Chicago. In each half-day Humanities block and STEM block, 90 students move fluidly within a pod between individualized adaptive digital content, multimedia content, small-group instruction, seminars, and group and independent project work. Master teachers design units around essential questions and curate online curriculum.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/intrinsic-schools

KIPP Bay Area SchoolsKIPP San Francisco College Prep

KIPP SF College Prep is the first KIPP high school in the nation to adopt blended learning. Aiming to serve as a model for financially sustainable, personalized learning for students of color and students from low-income families, the school prioritizes student-centered, self-paced learning. The teacher role shifts to a coach that guides students through a variety of learning experiences.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/kipp-san-francisco-college-preparatory

Lebanon Public SchoolsLebanon High School

This district is adopting a station-rotation blended learning approach school-wide in its only high school. The goal of the redesign is to deliver a more student-centered education, help current teachers be more effective at meeting the individual needs of students, and create a more cost-effective school. Located in a small city in central Pennsylvania, the district intends to demonstrate that blended learning can be transformational in a mainstream school without additional costs or waivers.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/lebanon-school-district

Summit Public SchoolsSummit Denali

The model of Summit Denali, a 6-12 charter school in the Bay Area of California, is breaking the barriers of the traditional school schedule, classroom, and grade-level divisions to improve the learning environment. The model places students at the center allowing them to self-direct and drive their own learning. The school day includes personalized learning time, project time, mentor time, reading time, and community time. Students, teachers, and parents navigate through the learning using the Personalized Learning Plan dashboard.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/summit-public-schools

Venture Academy

This 6-12 charter school in Minneapolis is helping ignite the passion of the next generation of innovative entrepreneurial leaders: self-propelled students who know how to imagine new opportunities, take initiative and risks, and solve problems. Each learning community has 55 trailblazers (students) and 3 learning coaches. Experiential learning includes art, digital media, tech entrepreneurship, and Makerspace.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/venture-academy

Virtual Learning Academy Charter SchoolVLACS Aspire

This virtual school serving students across New Hampshire in grades 5-12, is developing a 100% self-paced, competency-based learning model framed not around courses but around a map of required competencies that students may master. In the VLACS Aspire experiential blended learning model, learning experiences in real-world, community-based settings serve as the face-to-face component in addition to traditional classroom-based learning that are integrated with online learning opportunities.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/virtual-learning-academy-charter-school

The Workshop School

The Workshop School is a high school run in partnership between a nonprofit and the School District of Philadelphia. Projects rather than subjects drive the curriculum and the schedule, in which all students are expected to take at least two projects through four stages by the time they graduate. Three core principles of the school model are to put the work first, trust students to make decisions, and make the most out of failure.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/workshop-school

Fall 2014 Launch15 Schools

• 13 New Schools, 1 Turnaround, 1 Complete Redesign

• 3 District (2 w/ Partner) 12 Charters

Alliance College-Ready Public SchoolsAlice M. Baxter College-Ready High School

The PACE blended learning model, launched at the new Baxter High School in San Pedro, California, three challenges to college completion for Alliance’s alumni: insufficient academic rigor in high school, lack of self-direction and time management skills, and financial pressures. PACE integrates blended learning, early college high school, and competency-based progression. The high school students start taking college courses as soon as they demonstrate readiness by passing the college placement test.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/alliance-college-ready-public-schools

Blackstone Valley Prep Mayoral AcademyBVP High School

Serving an intentionally diverse population, the charter organization launched BVP High as a proof-point that deep personalization through blended learning can meet any scholar’s needs, regardless of race, class, or current ability. The resource allocations purposely mirror those of traditional-model schools while creating daily opportunities for teachers to provide small group instruction at ratios as low as 1:5, 1:3, or even 1:1 through a three-station rotation.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/blackstone-valley-prep-mayoral-academy

Building 21B21 PhiladelphiaBuilding 21 launched B21 Philadelphia in partnership with the School District of Philadelphia. The mastery-based academic model of B21 provides learning through project-based, passion-based, and onlineinstructional approaches. Students engage directly with real-world learning opportunities both in and out of school. School is designed as a network: an individual learner is at the center of the network and is connected to learning through integrated courses, technology, deep personal relationships, and powerful lived experiences.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/building-21

Caliber SchoolsCaliber: Beta

The academic model features personalized learning plans, blended learning for English and math, project-based learning for science and social studies, an integrated social and emotional curriculum, daily writing blocks, and daily computer coding/engineering/ robotics courses. A co-teaching model benefits both teachers and students. The school leader and two assistant principals focus primarily on instructional development and community-building while an operations coordinator manages administrative needs.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/caliber-schools

Design Tech High Schoold.tech

Innovation-ready students who graduate from college in four years: that’s the goal of d.tech. It’s accomplished by combining content knowledge with the design thinking process while fostering a sense of autonomy and purpose. Teachers create new schedules for students each week. Students gain increasing autonomy over what, how, and when to study. In a four-year design advisory, students learn design thinking, engineering, and entrepreneurial skills to tackle problems they feel are important.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/design-tech-high-school

Education for ChangeEpic Charter School

The student-centered model of this middle school in Oakland, California, framed around a hero's journey, empowers students with a sense of unity and purpose in life, where they can feel part of a culture with a shared experience and with more opportunities to experiences growth and accomplishment. Design and engineering is front and center and game mechanics drive the school model.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/education-change

Foundations College Prep

At this new 6-12 school in Chicago, differentiation is key not just for the students–who access adaptive digital content and participate in diversified classroom rotations–but also for the teachers. Resident teachers with limited experience work alongside expert teachers in large foundational courses; proficient teachers and other staff round out the staffing model so that students receive the support they need to graduate and pursue postsecondary education.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/foundations-college-prep

InnovateEDU, Inc.Brooklyn Laboratory Charter Schools (LAB)

Entrepreneurial learning is the backbone of this Brooklyn charter school network which opened in Fall 2014 to serve grades 6-12, including English language learners and students with disabilities. LAB’s academic model combines empirically effective learning practices with innovative implementation strategies, including a blended learning model that integrates high-dosage tutoring with game-based adaptive courseware and teacher-led lessons.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/innovateedu-inc

Match EducationMatch Next

A tutor guides a small group of students while a master teacher circulates the room to provide feedback, support, and to pull out students for additional instruction in this high-touch, deeply personalized Boston middle school. The charter organization envisions the school as a research platform that can generate knowledge about the technology and tools that work best with low-income, inner-city students in order to serve a growing community of blended learning schools.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/match-education

Matchbook Learning

Over the past few years, Matchbook Learning has been refining a student-centered, blended, turnaround school model. Students are leveled by what they know and can do, not by age or grade level. Each student progresses through a learning continuum of Learn, Practice, Apply, and Assess. Matchbook's goal is to lead schools out of the bottom five percent into the top 20 percent to set students on the path to reaching their life and career goals.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/matchbook-learning

Montessori For AllMagnolia Montessori

The founders of Magnolia Montessori—a Pre-K-8 public charter school in Austin, Texas—created a new school model that blends the best of authentic Montessori schooling (hands-on and self-directed learning) with best practices from high-performing charter schools (basic skills mastery to excel on standardized tests and state assessments) in a blended learning environment. Montessori For All provides students with standards-aligned experiential learning in a racially, culturally, and socio-economically diverse environment.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/montessori-all

Piedmont City School DistrictPiedmont Middle School

This rural district is changing the future for students by providing relevant, engaging learning opportunities, a school culture filled with hope, and a redesigned teaching and learning environment that utilizes blended learning, project-based learning, and competency-based learning to personalize education. The academic model is anchored by a focus on advanced mastery, relevance, and student ownership.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/piedmont-city-school-district

Thrive Public Schools

This K-8 charter school in San Diego expands the concept of school beyond core academics to also encompass social-emotional intelligence and "real world" understanding. The blended learning model at Thrive integrates technology throughout a curriculum built upon project-based learning, targeted instruction, and tinkering. Students progress at their own pace, are grouped in mixed-age clusters, and loop with the same teacher-teams for two years.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/thrive-public-schools

Valor Collegiate Academies

Personalized learning at Valor requires a flexible school model to support students who thrive in both structured and unstructured environments. The academic model at this Nashville charter school is grounded in research on adolescent development with a gradual release of control and responsibility to students from 5th to 12th grade with competency-based grading, data-driven instruction in social-emotional learning. Valor provides teachers with 57 days of personalized professional development each year.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/valor-collegiate-academies

Vertus Charter School

This charter high school was designed from the ground up for boys in Rochester, New York who otherwise would face high odds of dropping out, violence, unemployment, and prison. The academic model has four pillars: 1.Strong relationships2.Personalized year-round academics3.Character education4.Career preparationEvery graduate is expected to leave Vertus prepared for success in college and with a credential in hand that will pave their way into a skilled job and the ability to support themselves financially.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/vertus-charter-school

Fall 2015 Launch2 Schools

• 3 New Schools• 2 District (1 w/ Partner)

Battelle EducationMetro Institute of Technology

This new district partnership school offers Columbus, Ohio students a competency-based, blended learning, early college high school model that is focused on both college and career success. Metro is designed to solve two problems: 1.Capable students may struggle in schools that assume everyone acquires the same knowledge, at the same rate, towards the same goals2.The high cost of a college education prohibits many students from completing a degree.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/battelle-ed

Florida Virtual SchoolFLVS Campus

Opening in Fall 2015, FLVS Campus is a public K-12 school designed to serve homeschool students in an enriched virtual option, built on the foundation of the award-winning online courses of Florida Virtual School. It adds a physical place that students attend, when they choose, to learn from instructors, work with peers face to face, explore with projects, and interact with experts. Reinventing the school-student relationship, the school emphasizes the student as owner of and participant in his or her learning.

More: nextgenlearning.org/grantee/florida-virtual-school

Breakthrough Models for College Readiness

Learn More: nextgenlearning.org/breakthrough-model-designs

© 2015 EDUCAUSE.