In 2011 Lawrence Public Schools, a chronically underperforming school district, was placed under receivership by the Massachusetts State Legislature.  This process meant that the state appointed a receiver to take over responsibilities from the superintendent and the local school board and make decisions about how best to reform the city's schools.  As one component of reforming the city's schools, the receiver gave administrative control of some of the worst-performing schools to educational management organizations (EMOs, which are essentially charter networks) so that they could replicate models of effectiveness and turn around these schools.  I work at one of these schools, and for more on this you can read a brief New York Times editorial from last June.

But as interesting as this may be, what, you may ask, does this have to do with education in England?  Well, it turns out that when schools in England fail for too long (actually a much shorter time than they would be allowed to flounder in the US), control is taken away from local authorities and given to academy trusts (kind of like charter networks).  These academy trusts turn the schools into academies that replicate models that have proven successful at other schools in the trust.  Sounds kind of familiar, huh?  For a good summary, see The Economist.

Last week, I got to spend two days at Daleview Academy (name changed), which had been failing for some time (although, as mentioned previously, not as long as it would have been allowed to fail in America) and was turned into an academy about three years ago.  In many ways, it's quite similar to my school in Lawrence: high number of English language learners, low levels of family academic achievement, located in a neighborhood that has seen waves of immigration from different countries, a transient student population, administrative discussions driven by student data, and a dedicated school staff that sees the big picture in the work they accomplish.  In some ways, it's not: stronger social safety net for families in the UK's welfare state, huge linguistic diversity (upwards of 20 languages in a single classroom and no majority language, as opposed to Lawrence where you mainly just find Spanish), and kids learn to speak English with a Yorkshire accent.  Overall, a really good experience to see a school that's thousands of miles across the ocean from Lawrence but that could really be down the block.

Oh yeah, and really interesting kids who, like inner-city kids in America, have this edgy, pushy, almost frantic desire to learn that comes from a place of shear pride for all they have to share and sincere wonder at all they do not yet know.  How could you not want to teach students like that?  Here are some snippets of conversations I got to have with them:

• Students: Are you from Spain?  France!  Your voice is from Scotland!  No, Wales!

• Student: Do you know John Cena?  He's from America.

• Student: I know you're American because you sound like Willy Wonka. (not sure if this was a reference to Gene Wilder or Johnny Depp)

• Student: Do you have friends?
• Teacher: Yeah, I have lots of friends, but most of them don't live in Leeds.
• Student: No, do you watch Friends?
• Teacher: Yeah, I like to watch that show.  It's really funny.
• Student: You look and sound like Ross.