New Award to Recognize the Best of the Best

To recognize the innovation, accountability, and achievement of charter schools, The Center for Education Reform (CER) has created the National Charter School of the Year Award. The winning school will be honored at a gala event during the 2007 National Charter Schools Week, receiving $10,000, a trophy, and special recognition in CER's National Charter School of the Year program.

How Are Schools Nominated?

All of the nation's charter schools will receive a National Charter School of the Year Award survey before the end of this summer. Schools will have until December 1 to complete their survey and present the appropriate data online or through the mail to be considered for the award. Using several criteria, including test results, graduation rates, and other successes, every participating charter school will be reviewed and ranked by a blue-ribbon panel of education providers, experts, and researchers.

"There are more than 3,600 charter schools across the country providing innovative opportunities for children who have been overlooked by the conventional public school system," said CER founder and president Jeanne Allen. "It's about time these schools were given the national recognition they deserve."
Today, more than 3,600 charter schools serve more than a million children in forty states and the District of Columbia.

The Center for Education Reform (CER) creates opportunities for and challenges obstacles to better education for America's communities. Founded in 1993, CER combines education policy with grassroots advocacy to foster positive and bold education reforms. For more information, contact CER at (202) 822-9000 or visit www.edreform.com.

Work + Play = Summertime Learning

It’s not too late to start making those summer vacation plans. Combine work and play on behalf of your school by registering for a Teacher-to-Teacher Summer Workshop, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. Workshops will be held in a variety of locations across the country, including Denver, Colorado; Atlanta, Georgia; Santa Clara, California; and Billings, Montana. Registration for each two-day workshop is free, but participants will be responsible for their own transportation and accommodation costs.

The workshops, geared specifically to K-12 teachers and principals and anyone who works directly with students, will focus on such subject areas as literacy/reading, mathematics, science, history, foreign languages, and the arts. Additional sessions will be held on early childhood education, technology in the classroom, the No Child Left Behind Act, using data effectively, and teaching strategies that can enable all levels of students — high-performing, average and low-performing — to improve academically.

National Park Service workshops will cover history, science, and math. In addition to these sessions there will be guest speakers from the National Park Service with an expertise in the park's significance. Tours of all of the parks will also be offered to teachers free of charge during the workshop.

TechNet sponsored workshops will cover science and math. In addition, there will be guest speakers from technology companies at these workshops to present innovative strategies and provide resources for teachers to engage students.

Two foreign language workshops will be offered this summer. These workshops will be open to all foreign language teachers. Special sessions will also feature Mandarin Chinese. All teachers are encouraged to attend and learn research based teaching methods in the area of foreign language.

For more information and to register for any of the workshops, go to www.t2tweb.us/Workshops/About.asp.