TEAM Charter Schools

Message from Ali Nagle, fifth grade TEAM teacher and founder of the TEAM in Africa project. She is writing from Rwanda with 3 TEAM students:

“Today was the best day of my life! At Kabwende Primary School in Rwanda, we handed out 1000 books, one to every child, and have one waiting for the 950 students coming this afternoon! Bethanie, author of one of the stories, says today she feels ‘great and very accomplished.’”

Together with Indiana University, students at Newark Collegiate Academy, TEAM’s high school, wrote and published children’s books for the students at Kabwende.

Ryan Hill, Founder and Executive Director of TEAM Charter Schools speaks in favor of more time in school, as practiced at TEAM in Newark and the rest of the KIPP schools across the country.

On this national issue, President Obama says, “We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed for when America was a nation of farmers… That calendar may have once made sense, but today it puts us at a competitive disadvantage… That’s why I’m calling for us to not only expand effective after school programs, but to rethink the school day to incorporate more time.”

On Wednesday, June 3rd, TEAM Charter Schools held its third annual Be the Change Celebration at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. More than 450 supporters, parents, board members, teachers, students, family and friends filled the Victoria Theatre and enjoyed an evening which alternated between poignant student performances and the recognition of the event’s three honorees: Doris and Donald Fisher, Josh Weston and Councilman Ron Rice. Each of the honorees has both played a critical role in TEAM’s success and helped create a strong foundation for our continued growth. We are thrilled to have had the chance to recognize these individuals’ great impact and efforts.

The Economist’s education correspondent recently visited TEAM Charter Schools to learn about and report on examples of innovation in US education. Read the reflections from her week here. While she was anxious about her Thursday visit with TEAM — “I’m actually a bit nervous. KIPP has a fearsome and to my mind not entirely attractive reputation in England for a zero-tolerance approach to discipline…” — her fears were easily and readily dispelled. She says about TEAM, “…I cannot remember when my expectations and reality last clashed so much: the day turns out to be the most fun I’ve ever had visiting schools.”

Watch Bill Gates‘ much-discussed TED Talk about the two questions that keep him up at night. With US public education as a point of discussion, Gates describes KIPP as a source of hope.

The section on KIPP begins at about minute seven.

There are a few places, very few, where great teachers are being made. A good example of one is a set of charter schools called KIPP.

Malcolm Gladwell, who regularly contributes writings to The New Yorker and published several books, including the best-seller The Tipping Point recently released Outliers, The Story of Success. In his new book he says:

The KIPP program represents one of the most promising new educational philosophies in the United States.

To learn more about his book visit his website or order it Amazon.

An outlier is a scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience… I’m interested in people who are outliers—in men and women who, for one reason or another, are so accomplished and so extraordinary and so outside of ordinary experience that they are as puzzling to the rest of us as a cold day in August.

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