Kauffman Foundation dreams big
Miriam PepperThere’s an enviable bigness to all of Carl Schramm’s dreams for the Kauffman Foundation.
With the launch of the Kauffman Charter School for fifth graders, he hopes for a future in Kansas City of all charter schools. And with a new mayor, he finally has a leader who wants Kansas City to identify itself as a city of entrepreneurship.
The late Ewing Kauffman left clear directives for the foundation leader: improve education, especially for low-income children, and encourage more entrepreneurs.
The foundation’s education agenda includes two big plays: The Project Choice initiative that offers students who choose to stay out of trouble a shot at college aid, and the deeply researched launch of a new charter school, catering to Kansas City students from zip codes with the lowest-performing public schools.
The school year is young and the first 100 students are just beginning the new curriculum and schedule. The goal is emphasized daily: These kids should be prepared to succeed in college and graduate.
After two years of national research on the best teaching ideas and incorporating some new tactics of the foundation’s creation, Schramm is hoping the model charter school can eventually lead the way to the “charterization of the entire city.” And once that happens, Kansas City can become known as the signal city that really made a difference in education, Schramm suggests.
Every city needs committed boosters, and boosters with incredibly deep pockets present grand opportunities.
While he dreams big, he knows the challenges are big, too. His passion for the need for educational improvement is based in the idea that education is the civil rights issue of our time. “It’s a disgrace we are leaving so many kids behind,” he told a Central Exchange audience Tuesday, as a segment in a year-long series on “Kansas City, America’s Creative Crossroads.”
Kauffman’s education focus at the college level is directed at improving business education, especially entrepreneurship, a subject that Schramm believes gets short-shrift at many colleges.
He and Robert Litan, an economist at Kauffman Foundation, plan to release a book next year that shows the link between new firms and healthy economies. Already, 40 percent of GDP in America comes from companies that didn’t exist before 1980.
To further that figure, and help improve America’s economy, Kauffman Foundation is pushing much more federal attention on start-ups. Among the challenges ahead: the scandalous expense of college education and the rising debt of exiting graduates. Too many potential entrepreneurs cannot pursue their dreams because of their debt, Schramm says. And that requires another fix.
Schramm is eloquent on many topics. On Tuesday, the only question that stumped him was the outcome of the ultra-high-speed Google fiber network coming to Kansas City, Kan. and Kansas City, Mo. While he’s pretty sure it’s great, he can’t yet imagine what it will look like. As a start though, an e-business migration magnet looks pretty good to him.
Mary Fox
1 year, 7 months agoAmazing, the most important thing the man says, KC should have all charter schools and it’s just a passing thought.
When is someone going to firmly lay the blame at the teachers and teachers union?
Let’s get honest…if the teachers don’t do their job the kids can’t do theirs, true?
Mark Hastert
1 year, 7 months ago“Let’s get honest…if the teachers don’t do their job the kids can’t do theirs, true?”
Read more: http://voices.kansascity.com/entries/kauffman-foundation-dreams-big/#ixzz1btFK08TL
….and the parents? And just what do you know about teachers and unions that you haven’t learned on FOX or AM radio?
I have known many teachers and it’s unfair to demonize them the way that conservatives do these days. Like any profession there are good and bad but on the whole they work long hours and put up with a lot of guff from parents, students and the ignorant public that want to blame then for the failings of others.
chazzykc
olathe
1 year, 7 months agoFact: since the creation of the department of education 31 years ago our expenditures in the public schools sector have increased 580% per student and our outcomes have plummeted from 2nd in the world to 27th. The model is profoundly broken. It does not work.
The same is true of our traditional business models. Job growth …..the real creation of new jobs…..will come from NEW businesses. That has been true for over twenty years. 95% of all the new jobs created since 1990 have come in businesses that did not exist in 1989.
The fact is that teachers unions are the single biggest obstacle to an educational paradigm shift that is required to effect change.
There will always be vested interests that MUST be served. Parents, the students themselves and the taxpaying public. Pretending that teachers are better suited and more conscientious in pursuit of improved education outcomes than those vested interests groups is myopically shortsighted thinking.
Entrepreneurship is the most important thing to teach moving forward. Nurturing business development and new job creation SHOULD BE the objective of both our education system and our government’s focus.
Teachers unions invest way too much time, energy, and dollars in the “status quo” …..which hardly serves those vested interests.
Mark Hastert
1 year, 7 months ago“Fact: since the creation of the department of education 31 years ago our expenditures in the public schools sector have increased 580%”
Read more: http://voices.kansascity.com/entries/kauffman-foundation-dreams-big/#ixzz1buIFfcQQ
Now here’s an example of a meaningless statistic. My income has gone up 500% in 30 years. so has the value of my house, the price of a new car and hundreds of other things.
And exactly how do you teach enteprenurial skills? What entprenure school did Steve Jobs or Bill Gates go to? Ewing Kauffman?
Well maybe to teach problem solving, maybe you learn to manange a business by being part of a team playing sports or by competing with the debate club, or studying philosophy.
There may well be more than one explanation for the decline of American education. Maybe our societal priorities have shifted. Maybe the fact that it now takes two incomes to earn a decent income has weakened parental oversight and involvement. One thing I’m certai of is that it’s more complicated than any simple one thing,