1 00:00:00,276 --> 00:00:04,359 (inspirational orchestral music) 2 00:00:08,275 --> 00:00:11,250 (contemplative synth music) 3 00:00:11,250 --> 00:00:14,810 In the modern world, we ride the crest of a wave. 4 00:00:14,810 --> 00:00:17,330 Every day, innovators discover new 5 00:00:17,330 --> 00:00:19,990 and better ways of meeting our needs. 6 00:00:19,990 --> 00:00:22,960 The greatest innovations are routinely replicated, 7 00:00:22,960 --> 00:00:27,720 worldwide, except in education, which has remained 8 00:00:27,720 --> 00:00:30,200 stubbornly at anchor while the rest 9 00:00:30,200 --> 00:00:33,020 of the world has sailed past it. 10 00:00:35,290 --> 00:00:37,640 The pace of that modern life seems to provide 11 00:00:37,640 --> 00:00:39,790 an almost endless number of choices, 12 00:00:39,790 --> 00:00:42,150 some of which can have a far-reaching impact. 13 00:00:43,300 --> 00:00:46,880 This seems to be especially true in American public school, 14 00:00:46,880 --> 00:00:49,424 but what about independent private schools? 15 00:00:49,424 --> 00:00:52,100 In private schools, you have 16 00:00:52,100 --> 00:00:55,010 more autonomy and flexibility. 17 00:00:55,010 --> 00:00:57,360 Creativity is valued. 18 00:00:57,360 --> 00:00:58,960 At one U.S. high school, 19 00:00:58,960 --> 00:01:01,570 the melding of modern trends and traditional methods 20 00:01:01,570 --> 00:01:05,140 has clearly resulted in educational excellence. 21 00:01:05,140 --> 00:01:07,330 Michigan's Cranbrook School offers students 22 00:01:07,330 --> 00:01:09,440 a unique educational experience. 23 00:01:09,440 --> 00:01:12,120 The first minute I walked into the classroom, 24 00:01:12,120 --> 00:01:16,690 I was just astonished by the freedom that students were 25 00:01:16,690 --> 00:01:20,400 given not only in the classroom, but outside the classroom. 26 00:01:20,400 --> 00:01:24,300 This school has fostered more than a love of education, 27 00:01:24,300 --> 00:01:27,240 but a love of learning, learning not only 28 00:01:27,240 --> 00:01:29,510 through books, but through people. 29 00:01:29,510 --> 00:01:31,180 In Texas, another school 30 00:01:31,180 --> 00:01:33,260 is part of an expanding network, 31 00:01:33,260 --> 00:01:35,930 offering excellence on a grand scale. 32 00:01:35,930 --> 00:01:39,120 What makes KIPP unique is our high expectations 33 00:01:39,120 --> 00:01:41,470 and a singular focus on college. 34 00:01:41,470 --> 00:01:42,340 Could the success 35 00:01:42,340 --> 00:01:45,020 of this unusual school network hold the secret 36 00:01:45,020 --> 00:01:47,770 that could transform educational innovation? 37 00:01:47,770 --> 00:01:50,510 And what might a natural disaster and the making 38 00:01:50,510 --> 00:01:53,910 of fine wine have to do with schooling? 39 00:01:53,910 --> 00:01:56,230 Join us as Andrew Coulson explores the challenge 40 00:01:56,230 --> 00:01:59,726 of replicating educational excellence in School Inc. 41 00:01:59,726 --> 00:02:04,059 (upbeat percussion and synth music) 42 00:02:15,010 --> 00:02:17,020 Major funding for this program 43 00:02:17,020 --> 00:02:21,600 has been provided by Rose-Marie 44 00:02:21,600 --> 00:02:24,330 and Jack R. Anderson Foundation, 45 00:02:26,328 --> 00:02:28,161 Prometheus Foundation. 46 00:02:30,448 --> 00:02:32,720 Additional funding was provided by: 47 00:02:34,610 --> 00:02:36,850 Gleason Family Foundation, 48 00:02:38,200 --> 00:02:40,800 The Steve and Lana Hardy Foundation. 49 00:02:43,502 --> 00:02:47,585 (contemplative orchestral music) 50 00:02:51,730 --> 00:02:54,380 In our quest to learn how educational excellence 51 00:02:54,380 --> 00:02:57,020 can be replicated on a mass scale, 52 00:02:57,020 --> 00:03:00,650 Korea's private tutoring sector offers some enticing clues. 53 00:03:00,650 --> 00:03:02,890 Its top teachers reach tens or even 54 00:03:02,890 --> 00:03:05,240 hundreds-of-thousands of students. 55 00:03:05,240 --> 00:03:07,610 We just have to figure out how they do it. 56 00:03:10,640 --> 00:03:12,360 And as long as we're playing detective, 57 00:03:12,360 --> 00:03:15,240 it makes sense to look for the means, motive, 58 00:03:15,240 --> 00:03:17,880 and opportunity driving that growth. 59 00:03:17,880 --> 00:03:20,470 Could it be as simple as choice for families, 60 00:03:20,470 --> 00:03:24,240 competition for schools, and freedom for educators? 61 00:03:24,240 --> 00:03:26,640 If so, we'd expect to see the same kind 62 00:03:26,640 --> 00:03:29,040 of growth among U.S. private schools. 63 00:03:30,050 --> 00:03:31,870 College prep schools, in particular, 64 00:03:31,870 --> 00:03:33,880 seem like a prime suspect. 65 00:03:33,880 --> 00:03:36,620 They're chosen by parents, and since many 66 00:03:36,620 --> 00:03:38,090 accept boarding students, they're 67 00:03:38,090 --> 00:03:41,350 in competition with each other nationwide. 68 00:03:41,350 --> 00:03:43,970 And in one respect many prep schools have reached 69 00:03:43,970 --> 00:03:46,900 enormous proportions, their physical size. 70 00:03:46,900 --> 00:03:50,790 This, for instance, is the 315-acre campus 71 00:03:50,790 --> 00:03:53,960 of the Cranbrook Schools here in Bloomfield, Michigan. 72 00:03:53,960 --> 00:03:56,470 But, despite their often spacious grounds, 73 00:03:56,470 --> 00:04:00,130 most prep schools serve only a few hundred students. 74 00:04:00,130 --> 00:04:02,060 Cranbrook is among the largest, 75 00:04:02,060 --> 00:04:05,730 enrolling roughly 1,700 pupils when its lower, middle, 76 00:04:05,730 --> 00:04:08,330 and upper schools are taken together. 77 00:04:08,330 --> 00:04:11,000 Clearly, there is some missing ingredient, 78 00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:14,070 something that Korea's tutoring sector enjoys 79 00:04:14,070 --> 00:04:17,000 that America's prep schools lack, but what? 80 00:04:18,580 --> 00:04:21,320 The people that are in the competitive market with us, 81 00:04:21,320 --> 00:04:22,470 each are gonna offer something 82 00:04:22,470 --> 00:04:25,630 unique that fits each individual. 83 00:04:25,630 --> 00:04:30,140 I can't imagine that one school could fit every need. 84 00:04:31,270 --> 00:04:33,400 We happen to have a place that I think 85 00:04:33,400 --> 00:04:35,520 works well for a lot of people. 86 00:04:35,520 --> 00:04:37,490 I come from a family of educators, 87 00:04:37,490 --> 00:04:42,490 and most of my family works in public schools, but I felt 88 00:04:43,020 --> 00:04:48,020 in private schools, you have more autonomy and flexibility. 89 00:04:48,710 --> 00:04:53,710 Creativity is valued, and so the practice of teaching 90 00:04:54,410 --> 00:04:58,640 is, at least for me, easier in an independent school. 91 00:04:58,640 --> 00:05:01,960 That's the essence of what I think is 92 00:05:01,960 --> 00:05:06,320 a very important differentiator in terms of education, 93 00:05:06,320 --> 00:05:10,090 the freedom to hire faculty who you feel 94 00:05:10,090 --> 00:05:12,230 will be a good match to the mission 95 00:05:12,230 --> 00:05:14,750 of the school and its philosophy. 96 00:05:14,750 --> 00:05:18,720 I always think about how this place started as farmland, 97 00:05:18,720 --> 00:05:22,790 and an analogy for me is, you know, how land is 98 00:05:22,790 --> 00:05:27,640 cultivated to produce and to yield its bounty. 99 00:05:27,640 --> 00:05:31,080 And working in the classroom with the students here, 100 00:05:31,080 --> 00:05:34,290 you're very much able to do that. 101 00:05:34,290 --> 00:05:36,780 You are cultivating learners. 102 00:05:36,780 --> 00:05:38,220 You are cultivating artists. 103 00:05:38,220 --> 00:05:40,210 You are cultivating scientists. 104 00:05:40,210 --> 00:05:43,730 You are working with these young people. 105 00:05:44,938 --> 00:05:47,290 Well, we've got an institute of science right here, 106 00:05:47,290 --> 00:05:49,940 and that staff will make themselves available 107 00:05:49,940 --> 00:05:53,850 for getting into the planetarium to give an astronomy class 108 00:05:53,850 --> 00:05:57,263 a unique view of retrograde motion of Mars, for example. 109 00:05:57,263 --> 00:05:59,930 (inspirational orchestral music) 110 00:05:59,930 --> 00:06:01,470 Prep schools generally do well 111 00:06:01,470 --> 00:06:04,310 on traditional measures of educational outcomes: 112 00:06:04,310 --> 00:06:06,450 test scores, graduation rates, 113 00:06:06,450 --> 00:06:08,480 matriculation to selective colleges. 114 00:06:10,090 --> 00:06:12,660 But we have to put those outcomes in context. 115 00:06:12,660 --> 00:06:14,740 These schools are academically selective, 116 00:06:14,740 --> 00:06:17,470 so how can we tell how much of their success is 117 00:06:17,470 --> 00:06:20,530 due to effective teaching and how much to the bright, 118 00:06:20,530 --> 00:06:23,400 highly-advantaged students they happen to enroll? 119 00:06:24,470 --> 00:06:27,210 One way is to see how students' performance changes 120 00:06:27,210 --> 00:06:30,000 from the time they are admitted to their graduating year. 121 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:31,700 The bigger the gain, the greater 122 00:06:31,700 --> 00:06:34,330 the school's contribution is likely to be. 123 00:06:34,330 --> 00:06:35,960 That contribution varies from one school 124 00:06:35,960 --> 00:06:37,780 to the next, but in some cases, 125 00:06:37,780 --> 00:06:40,585 like Cranbrook's, it seems to be substantial. 126 00:06:40,585 --> 00:06:44,260 (inspirational orchestral music) 127 00:06:44,260 --> 00:06:45,830 Another way to gauge school quality 128 00:06:45,830 --> 00:06:47,840 is just ask students themselves. 129 00:06:49,390 --> 00:06:52,080 The first minute I walked into the classroom, 130 00:06:52,080 --> 00:06:55,970 I was just astonished by the freedom 131 00:06:55,970 --> 00:06:58,490 that students were given not only in the classroom, 132 00:06:58,490 --> 00:07:01,420 but outside the classrooms, and just the level 133 00:07:01,420 --> 00:07:04,280 of trust between the students and the teachers, 134 00:07:04,280 --> 00:07:07,440 and how there's so much respect given to the teachers 135 00:07:07,440 --> 00:07:09,720 and also so much respect returned. 136 00:07:09,720 --> 00:07:13,690 For one of my classes, it deals with the art institute, 137 00:07:13,690 --> 00:07:15,900 also with the sculptures on campus. 138 00:07:15,900 --> 00:07:18,770 We have so many sculptures, so many statues. 139 00:07:18,770 --> 00:07:21,780 And so, once a week, usually, the teacher takes us 140 00:07:21,780 --> 00:07:24,160 outside on like a mini-adventure. 141 00:07:24,160 --> 00:07:25,180 It's great. 142 00:07:25,180 --> 00:07:26,810 One side of it is the faculty, 143 00:07:26,810 --> 00:07:29,010 which I personally think are fantastic. 144 00:07:29,010 --> 00:07:31,380 You know, they're obviously well-educated on their subjects, 145 00:07:31,380 --> 00:07:33,200 but I think the other side is being surrounded 146 00:07:33,200 --> 00:07:36,500 by kids who are intellectually curious. 147 00:07:36,500 --> 00:07:40,400 This school has fostered more than a love of education, 148 00:07:40,400 --> 00:07:43,320 but a love of learning, learning not only 149 00:07:43,320 --> 00:07:45,520 through books, but through people. 150 00:07:45,520 --> 00:07:48,730 No single school is right for every child, but this one 151 00:07:48,730 --> 00:07:52,130 seems well-liked by its students and academically effective. 152 00:07:52,130 --> 00:07:53,490 It's easy to see why parents might 153 00:07:53,490 --> 00:07:55,140 want to send their children here. 154 00:07:56,100 --> 00:07:58,260 Which brings us to another possible reason 155 00:07:58,260 --> 00:08:02,530 why prep schools might not scale-up, insufficient demand. 156 00:08:02,530 --> 00:08:04,620 After all, they're expensive. 157 00:08:04,620 --> 00:08:06,420 Financial assistance is available, 158 00:08:06,420 --> 00:08:08,800 but the full sticker price for day tuition 159 00:08:08,800 --> 00:08:11,820 can reach $40,000 a year. 160 00:08:11,820 --> 00:08:13,330 Cranbrook is a relative deal 161 00:08:13,330 --> 00:08:16,090 at $29,000 for its upper school. 162 00:08:16,090 --> 00:08:19,210 But, as it turns out, most prep schools have 163 00:08:19,210 --> 00:08:22,190 more applicants than they can accommodate. 164 00:08:22,190 --> 00:08:24,120 And in addition to having enough demand 165 00:08:24,120 --> 00:08:26,480 to justify expansion, prep schools have 166 00:08:26,480 --> 00:08:29,060 also had plenty of time for it. 167 00:08:29,060 --> 00:08:32,470 Most of them are venerable institutions whose histories 168 00:08:32,470 --> 00:08:36,010 and traditions are a key source of their appeal. 169 00:08:36,010 --> 00:08:40,490 This place was given away by a really wealthy family, 170 00:08:40,490 --> 00:08:43,790 and this was their land, and they built this school, 171 00:08:43,790 --> 00:08:46,150 and they wanted it to serve the community, and they wanted 172 00:08:46,150 --> 00:08:49,330 all the community, not just the well-off kids. 173 00:08:49,330 --> 00:08:53,130 And that continues today with various programs. 174 00:08:53,130 --> 00:08:55,080 The majority of prep schools can trace 175 00:08:55,080 --> 00:08:58,160 their histories back over a century or more. 176 00:08:58,160 --> 00:09:01,350 Linden Hall was founded in the 1740s, 177 00:09:01,350 --> 00:09:04,437 and Milton Academy, the 1790s. 178 00:09:04,437 --> 00:09:05,370 (upbeat percussion music) 179 00:09:05,370 --> 00:09:08,990 By contrast, Korea's tutoring firms didn't debut 180 00:09:08,990 --> 00:09:13,570 until the 1970s, and most are more recent than that. 181 00:09:13,570 --> 00:09:16,930 Despite that novelty, they've grown explosively, 182 00:09:18,360 --> 00:09:21,070 or maybe, because of that novelty. 183 00:09:22,880 --> 00:09:25,150 What if the grand histories and traditions 184 00:09:25,150 --> 00:09:27,680 of prep schools have made them hide-bound? 185 00:09:27,680 --> 00:09:29,500 What if they're too set in their ways 186 00:09:29,500 --> 00:09:32,290 to adopt the latest technologies? 187 00:09:32,290 --> 00:09:34,810 That theory is certainly plausible. 188 00:09:34,810 --> 00:09:36,350 It's also wrong. 189 00:09:36,350 --> 00:09:39,450 Prep schools have begun to use internet video 190 00:09:39,450 --> 00:09:42,260 to reach students beyond their own campuses, 191 00:09:42,260 --> 00:09:45,180 the same technology used by Korean tutors 192 00:09:45,180 --> 00:09:48,870 to reach tens or even hundreds of thousands of students, 193 00:09:48,870 --> 00:09:52,210 but prep schools use it a little differently. 194 00:09:52,210 --> 00:09:56,027 We were among the founding schools 195 00:09:56,027 --> 00:09:58,650 of the global online academy. 196 00:09:58,650 --> 00:10:02,500 It brings us the capacity to offer 197 00:10:02,500 --> 00:10:06,770 our faculty to classrooms 198 00:10:06,770 --> 00:10:08,930 far beyond the Midwest. 199 00:10:08,930 --> 00:10:12,640 We have students now who are 200 00:10:12,640 --> 00:10:17,040 in our own global online classrooms 201 00:10:17,040 --> 00:10:22,040 here at school, who are in classrooms alongside 202 00:10:22,370 --> 00:10:26,010 of students in Hawaii, 203 00:10:26,010 --> 00:10:30,070 in Jordan, in Malaysia. 204 00:10:30,070 --> 00:10:35,070 Our belief is that online learning 205 00:10:35,730 --> 00:10:38,890 will never fill the space 206 00:10:38,890 --> 00:10:43,220 that bricks-and-mortar education holds. 207 00:10:43,220 --> 00:10:48,220 We are centrally committed to the presence 208 00:10:48,740 --> 00:10:52,630 of faculty and students in one space. 209 00:10:52,630 --> 00:10:56,860 We believe that there is no substitute 210 00:10:56,860 --> 00:11:01,060 for student and a faculty being able to sit 211 00:11:01,060 --> 00:11:05,500 on two sides of a log and musing. 212 00:11:06,570 --> 00:11:10,530 So prep schools have the quality, demand, technology, 213 00:11:10,530 --> 00:11:13,950 and time to grow into national networks. 214 00:11:13,950 --> 00:11:15,690 They just don't. 215 00:11:15,690 --> 00:11:18,120 We're running out of plausible explanations here, 216 00:11:18,120 --> 00:11:20,910 so let's turn to a counterintuitive one. 217 00:11:21,780 --> 00:11:23,755 What if they just can't afford it? 218 00:11:23,755 --> 00:11:26,480 (contemplative orchestral music) 219 00:11:26,480 --> 00:11:29,050 That may seem unlikely given the substantial fees 220 00:11:29,050 --> 00:11:31,390 they charge, but tuition actually fails 221 00:11:31,390 --> 00:11:33,770 to cover their full operating costs. 222 00:11:33,770 --> 00:11:36,500 Virtually all prep schools raise additional funding 223 00:11:36,500 --> 00:11:39,450 for their operating budgets from annual donations. 224 00:11:39,450 --> 00:11:42,500 Maybe there just isn't anything left over for expansion. 225 00:11:43,520 --> 00:11:47,430 Unfortunately, that explanation doesn't hold water, either. 226 00:11:47,430 --> 00:11:49,840 In addition to their revenue from annual giving, 227 00:11:49,840 --> 00:11:52,950 most prep schools also have large endowments, 228 00:11:52,950 --> 00:11:56,360 over $200 million in the case of Cranbrook Schools, 229 00:11:56,360 --> 00:11:58,550 and a billion dollars in the case 230 00:11:58,550 --> 00:12:00,560 of Phillips Exeter in New Hampshire. 231 00:12:00,560 --> 00:12:03,560 And yet, the best-endowed prep schools 232 00:12:03,560 --> 00:12:07,660 don't invest their endowments in national expansion. 233 00:12:07,660 --> 00:12:08,500 Why not? 234 00:12:10,430 --> 00:12:13,390 One answer is that it would be difficult to preserve 235 00:12:13,390 --> 00:12:15,380 the character of these institutions 236 00:12:15,380 --> 00:12:17,410 beyond their original locations. 237 00:12:19,100 --> 00:12:21,280 Because our campus is so unique 238 00:12:21,280 --> 00:12:24,850 and because the campus is so much embedded 239 00:12:24,850 --> 00:12:29,250 as part of the curriculum, that it would be difficult 240 00:12:29,250 --> 00:12:33,218 to duplicate that experience and still call it Cranbrook. 241 00:12:33,218 --> 00:12:34,850 (contemplative orchestral music) 242 00:12:34,850 --> 00:12:37,530 But that just begs a deeper question. 243 00:12:37,530 --> 00:12:41,160 Why is the focus on sustaining a particular experience 244 00:12:41,160 --> 00:12:44,050 rather than on reaching a wider audience? 245 00:12:44,050 --> 00:12:46,700 It might have something to do with the reasons 246 00:12:46,700 --> 00:12:50,430 people donate to these schools in the first place. 247 00:12:50,430 --> 00:12:53,350 Many times, it's based on their own experience, 248 00:12:53,350 --> 00:12:56,040 meaning the donors are our alumni. 249 00:12:56,040 --> 00:12:59,840 And so based on the alumni's experience, 250 00:12:59,840 --> 00:13:04,320 they want to be able to give back to the institution 251 00:13:04,320 --> 00:13:09,010 which helped them, nurtured them, supported them. 252 00:13:09,010 --> 00:13:11,190 So, even if their donations could 253 00:13:11,190 --> 00:13:14,140 theoretically finance a major expansion, 254 00:13:14,140 --> 00:13:16,470 that's generally not what they're for. 255 00:13:17,780 --> 00:13:19,350 What we've learned, in other words, 256 00:13:19,350 --> 00:13:22,290 is that Sherlock Holmes and friends have it right. 257 00:13:22,290 --> 00:13:24,120 It's not enough to find a suspect 258 00:13:24,120 --> 00:13:26,290 with the means and the opportunity. 259 00:13:26,290 --> 00:13:29,180 They also have to have the motive. 260 00:13:29,180 --> 00:13:31,340 And America's prestigious prep schools, 261 00:13:31,340 --> 00:13:33,470 though they have many wonderful qualities, 262 00:13:33,470 --> 00:13:36,610 simply don't have a motive to scale-up. 263 00:13:36,610 --> 00:13:40,000 They're striving to perpetuate beloved traditions, 264 00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:42,330 not to start national franchises. 265 00:13:43,570 --> 00:13:45,970 Which raises an interesting question. 266 00:13:45,970 --> 00:13:49,970 What would happen if someone did deliberately set out 267 00:13:49,970 --> 00:13:52,311 to replicate educational excellence? 268 00:13:52,311 --> 00:13:53,980 (contemplative orchestral music) 269 00:13:53,980 --> 00:13:56,170 That's not a hypothetical question. 270 00:13:56,170 --> 00:13:58,450 In fact, it's fairly easy to answer 271 00:13:58,450 --> 00:14:02,030 because there already is a large and growing category 272 00:14:02,030 --> 00:14:04,230 of schools that philanthropists are 273 00:14:04,230 --> 00:14:07,380 trying to scale-up, charter schools. 274 00:14:09,220 --> 00:14:11,610 Charters are public schools that are freed 275 00:14:11,610 --> 00:14:14,090 from some of the rules and red tape that apply 276 00:14:14,090 --> 00:14:16,620 to their regular, district-run counterparts. 277 00:14:16,620 --> 00:14:19,390 They have more control over what they teach, what methods 278 00:14:19,390 --> 00:14:22,500 they use, and how they measure student achievement. 279 00:14:22,500 --> 00:14:25,130 Charter schools also tend not to be unionized, 280 00:14:25,130 --> 00:14:28,480 which means that principals can hire whomever they want. 281 00:14:28,480 --> 00:14:30,130 That's a lot different from traditional 282 00:14:30,130 --> 00:14:32,920 public school contracts that allow older teachers 283 00:14:32,920 --> 00:14:35,670 to bump younger ones out of a job, 284 00:14:35,670 --> 00:14:37,742 no matter what the principal thinks. 285 00:14:37,742 --> 00:14:39,590 (bell ringing) 286 00:14:39,590 --> 00:14:42,030 Of course, it's not all sunshine and roses. 287 00:14:42,030 --> 00:14:44,490 Charter schools receive a lot less funding per pupil 288 00:14:44,490 --> 00:14:49,060 than traditional public schools, $3,500 less every year. 289 00:14:49,060 --> 00:14:53,050 And charters also receive less funding from private sources. 290 00:14:53,050 --> 00:14:55,050 And that's where it gets interesting. 291 00:14:55,050 --> 00:14:57,440 Charter schools and traditional public schools 292 00:14:57,440 --> 00:15:00,380 use their private funding very differently. 293 00:15:00,380 --> 00:15:02,120 If your local public school principal 294 00:15:02,120 --> 00:15:05,410 does a great job and gets a huge donation, 295 00:15:05,410 --> 00:15:07,660 she cannot use that money to open 296 00:15:07,660 --> 00:15:10,210 new public schools in other districts. 297 00:15:10,210 --> 00:15:12,460 Charter school leaders can. 298 00:15:12,460 --> 00:15:14,490 They can create whole networks of schools 299 00:15:14,490 --> 00:15:16,770 that share their mission and methods, 300 00:15:16,770 --> 00:15:19,010 and philanthropists know that. 301 00:15:19,010 --> 00:15:22,100 So, when they make donations to charters, it's very often 302 00:15:22,100 --> 00:15:24,110 with that replication in mind. 303 00:15:26,340 --> 00:15:27,630 And it's working. 304 00:15:27,630 --> 00:15:30,450 There are now 130 charter school networks 305 00:15:30,450 --> 00:15:33,470 enrolling a quarter of a million students, and they've been 306 00:15:33,470 --> 00:15:36,350 growing in both size and number for over a decade. 307 00:15:37,630 --> 00:15:39,060 One of the fastest-growing is 308 00:15:39,060 --> 00:15:42,630 the Knowledge is Power Program, better known as KIPP. 309 00:15:42,630 --> 00:15:46,470 KIPP was founded in 1994 by Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg, 310 00:15:46,470 --> 00:15:49,720 who were two young teachers in Houston public schools. 311 00:15:49,720 --> 00:15:52,870 They saw what was working in the schools 312 00:15:52,870 --> 00:15:55,210 where they were teaching, and they put all the things 313 00:15:55,210 --> 00:15:58,040 that they saw into an innovative kind 314 00:15:58,040 --> 00:16:00,420 of experimental one-classroom, 315 00:16:00,420 --> 00:16:03,320 and that experience led to a lot of success. 316 00:16:03,320 --> 00:16:06,220 And they grew that to operate a middle school in Houston 317 00:16:06,220 --> 00:16:07,820 and a middle school in New York. 318 00:16:08,810 --> 00:16:11,240 Their goal was to help low-income children 319 00:16:11,240 --> 00:16:13,450 gain both the skills and the habits 320 00:16:13,450 --> 00:16:16,020 necessary to succeed in college. 321 00:16:16,020 --> 00:16:17,600 To do that, they stretched 322 00:16:17,600 --> 00:16:19,780 the school day and the school year, 323 00:16:19,780 --> 00:16:23,380 raised academic expectations, and studied the methods 324 00:16:23,380 --> 00:16:25,590 of the best teachers they could find. 325 00:16:26,840 --> 00:16:28,660 KIPP is different from other 326 00:16:28,660 --> 00:16:31,630 schools for many, many reasons. 327 00:16:31,630 --> 00:16:33,420 One of the first things that comes to mind 328 00:16:33,420 --> 00:16:36,010 is our principals and our teachers. 329 00:16:36,010 --> 00:16:39,550 KIPP really innovated in how they train 330 00:16:39,550 --> 00:16:42,500 and select school leaders, and that's created 331 00:16:42,500 --> 00:16:44,870 a network of amazing leaders who have been given 332 00:16:44,870 --> 00:16:47,680 the autonomy and been empowered to run their schools. 333 00:16:47,680 --> 00:16:50,130 Not content to just run their own schools, 334 00:16:50,130 --> 00:16:52,680 Feinberg and Levin created training programs 335 00:16:52,680 --> 00:16:54,210 for teachers and principals. 336 00:16:54,210 --> 00:16:56,120 Everything they learned about success 337 00:16:56,120 --> 00:16:59,250 in and out the classroom was distilled so that it could be 338 00:16:59,250 --> 00:17:02,410 passed on to a new generation of educators. 339 00:17:02,410 --> 00:17:05,180 As Mike and Dave ran their schools, 340 00:17:05,180 --> 00:17:07,090 they got national attention and they got 341 00:17:07,090 --> 00:17:08,930 to the place where the question was asked: 342 00:17:08,930 --> 00:17:10,800 how are we going to replicate this? 343 00:17:10,800 --> 00:17:12,400 How are we going to take this nationally? 344 00:17:12,400 --> 00:17:16,240 And so they developed a theory of change for our country 345 00:17:16,240 --> 00:17:19,190 that really focused at first on the school leader. 346 00:17:19,190 --> 00:17:23,050 And they attracted this group of young teachers 347 00:17:23,050 --> 00:17:26,650 who wanted to drive change in different cities. 348 00:17:26,650 --> 00:17:29,170 Within a few years, people all over the country 349 00:17:29,170 --> 00:17:32,990 were asking them to open schools in their neighborhoods. 350 00:17:32,990 --> 00:17:35,880 So KIPP currently operates in 20 states 351 00:17:35,880 --> 00:17:38,160 and the District of Columbia, and we have 352 00:17:38,160 --> 00:17:42,310 183 schools and serve 70,000 students. 353 00:17:43,210 --> 00:17:46,240 Of course, expansion like that costs money, 354 00:17:46,240 --> 00:17:49,610 but generous individuals and foundations came forward 355 00:17:49,610 --> 00:17:52,000 to make that expansion possible, 356 00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:56,510 contributing over $400 million to grow the network. 357 00:17:56,510 --> 00:18:00,280 KIPP Austin was founded as a 5th grade middle school 358 00:18:00,280 --> 00:18:03,240 in 2002, and we grew one grade 359 00:18:03,240 --> 00:18:05,590 each year until we had our first class 360 00:18:05,590 --> 00:18:07,550 of 8th graders go off to high school. 361 00:18:07,550 --> 00:18:10,760 At that point, we saw the demand in the community, 362 00:18:10,760 --> 00:18:12,970 we saw the success of the program for our students, 363 00:18:12,970 --> 00:18:15,050 we saw the student achievement levels, 364 00:18:15,050 --> 00:18:18,530 and we decided to grow to become K through 12. 365 00:18:18,530 --> 00:18:21,710 We've been growing almost about one school a year. 366 00:18:21,710 --> 00:18:25,270 To this point, we're at nine schools, 4,400 students, 367 00:18:25,270 --> 00:18:28,435 and next year we'll be at 10 schools and 5,000 students. 368 00:18:28,435 --> 00:18:29,295 (contemplative orchestral music) 369 00:18:29,295 --> 00:18:30,430 But what is the slope of a line 370 00:18:30,430 --> 00:18:32,350 that is vertical, that looks like this? 371 00:18:32,350 --> 00:18:34,250 First group to finish gets the plus three, 372 00:18:34,250 --> 00:18:37,116 second group to finish gets the plus one, go! 373 00:18:37,116 --> 00:18:40,180 We have B, C, and D left. 374 00:18:40,180 --> 00:18:42,430 One of the best things about KIPP is the community 375 00:18:42,430 --> 00:18:46,250 we create between parents, teachers, and students. 376 00:18:46,250 --> 00:18:48,110 When you go to a KIPP school, you will see 377 00:18:48,110 --> 00:18:50,530 a principal who will make day-to-day decisions 378 00:18:50,530 --> 00:18:52,210 based on what's best for kids. 379 00:18:52,210 --> 00:18:55,060 That, in turn, creates an environment where teachers are 380 00:18:55,060 --> 00:18:58,845 really able to thrive and do amazing things for our kids. 381 00:18:58,845 --> 00:19:00,359 (teacher clapping) 382 00:19:00,359 --> 00:19:01,770 (students clapping) 383 00:19:01,770 --> 00:19:05,211 Teachers at KIPP are different than a traditional school 384 00:19:05,211 --> 00:19:08,000 because the teachers care about you. 385 00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:08,833 They want you to go to college. 386 00:19:08,833 --> 00:19:10,110 They want you to succeed. 387 00:19:10,110 --> 00:19:13,140 The teachers are very exciting 388 00:19:13,140 --> 00:19:16,074 and very passionate about what they teach. 389 00:19:16,074 --> 00:19:17,940 They really enjoy it. 390 00:19:17,940 --> 00:19:21,120 You can tell they enjoy it by the passion in their voice 391 00:19:21,120 --> 00:19:23,640 and in their eyes and in their movement. 392 00:19:23,640 --> 00:19:26,050 It's good to see people who actually 393 00:19:26,050 --> 00:19:27,321 like what they're doing. 394 00:19:27,321 --> 00:19:29,800 My old school was different from KIPP because, 395 00:19:29,800 --> 00:19:34,800 here in KIPP, teachers care about you more. 396 00:19:35,030 --> 00:19:40,030 They want you to master the subject 397 00:19:40,070 --> 00:19:43,950 and be able to go to college. 398 00:19:43,950 --> 00:19:47,320 It's different because the teachers really challenge you 399 00:19:47,320 --> 00:19:49,970 a lot more than the teachers did before. 400 00:19:49,970 --> 00:19:53,490 Because when they teach, they didn't really go over 401 00:19:53,490 --> 00:19:56,150 the lesson as the teachers do at this school. 402 00:19:56,150 --> 00:19:58,180 When I was at a different school, 403 00:19:58,180 --> 00:20:00,680 I didn't feel very challenged because the classwork 404 00:20:00,680 --> 00:20:02,800 that they were giving us wasn't really that hard. 405 00:20:02,800 --> 00:20:06,220 It was simple stuff that I could do any day. 406 00:20:06,220 --> 00:20:07,780 But once I came to KIPP, I felt 407 00:20:07,780 --> 00:20:09,240 more challenged because the work was 408 00:20:09,240 --> 00:20:11,340 a lot harder than what I was given before. 409 00:20:12,410 --> 00:20:15,860 My old school was different because, here at KIPP, 410 00:20:15,860 --> 00:20:18,130 the classes are a lot smaller so teachers get 411 00:20:18,130 --> 00:20:20,160 to know you on a personal level. 412 00:20:20,160 --> 00:20:21,750 The one thing that KIPP offers 413 00:20:21,750 --> 00:20:23,750 that I couldn't get at another school is 414 00:20:25,840 --> 00:20:28,480 having a good relationship with your teacher 415 00:20:28,480 --> 00:20:31,950 and getting feedback on the work you do. 416 00:20:31,950 --> 00:20:35,060 I think KIPP is challenging because they give you 417 00:20:35,060 --> 00:20:36,760 hard subjects, but then you feel like, 418 00:20:36,760 --> 00:20:39,350 when the teachers teach you, you can 419 00:20:39,350 --> 00:20:41,590 understand it better and you can master it. 420 00:20:41,590 --> 00:20:42,950 Are they succeeding? 421 00:20:42,950 --> 00:20:44,880 A recent Stanford University study 422 00:20:44,880 --> 00:20:46,530 compared charter school networks, 423 00:20:46,530 --> 00:20:49,870 both to each other and to traditional public schools. 424 00:20:49,870 --> 00:20:52,430 They found that students are learning more at KIPP. 425 00:20:52,430 --> 00:20:54,430 The differences aren't large, but they appear 426 00:20:54,430 --> 00:20:56,670 in both mathematics and reading. 427 00:20:56,670 --> 00:20:59,762 And other researchers have found similar positive results. 428 00:20:59,762 --> 00:21:02,600 (contemplative chime music) 429 00:21:02,600 --> 00:21:03,940 So now that we've made sure that we have 430 00:21:03,940 --> 00:21:04,810 the terminology ready to be able to-- 431 00:21:04,810 --> 00:21:07,390 At KIPP, we believe that all children 432 00:21:07,390 --> 00:21:10,020 deserve an exemplary public education. 433 00:21:10,020 --> 00:21:13,530 Our mission is to get students to and through college. 434 00:21:13,530 --> 00:21:15,450 So, regardless of whether a student's 435 00:21:15,450 --> 00:21:18,210 an elementary student, a middle school child 436 00:21:18,210 --> 00:21:19,820 or a high school student, we're focused 437 00:21:19,820 --> 00:21:23,410 on college and you see it from their first day. 438 00:21:23,410 --> 00:21:25,650 When a kindergartner will enroll at KIPP Austin, 439 00:21:25,650 --> 00:21:27,640 one of the first numbers they'll learn 440 00:21:27,640 --> 00:21:30,230 is the year they'll go to college, and they'll soon be 441 00:21:30,230 --> 00:21:33,660 called the class of 2023 or the class of 2025. 442 00:21:33,660 --> 00:21:35,170 They'll visit colleges starting 443 00:21:35,170 --> 00:21:36,410 all the way in elementary school, 444 00:21:36,410 --> 00:21:38,370 all their way through their high school. 445 00:21:38,370 --> 00:21:40,060 One thing that KIPP offers that you can't get 446 00:21:40,060 --> 00:21:44,250 at another school is all of the information 447 00:21:44,250 --> 00:21:48,190 about college and all of the focus towards college. 448 00:21:48,190 --> 00:21:49,480 KIPP is different from the school 449 00:21:49,480 --> 00:21:51,870 I went to before because... 450 00:21:54,870 --> 00:21:57,710 KIPP has pushed us more to focus onto college. 451 00:21:57,710 --> 00:21:59,910 It has boosted my standards of college 452 00:21:59,910 --> 00:22:03,730 that I wanted to go to way higher than I had before. 453 00:22:03,730 --> 00:22:07,240 After I graduate, I would either like to attend Stanford, 454 00:22:07,240 --> 00:22:12,240 Harvard, Princeton, or Yale, and study chemistry/physics. 455 00:22:12,800 --> 00:22:17,690 Once I finish going to school at KIPP, 456 00:22:17,690 --> 00:22:21,120 I am planning on going to college. 457 00:22:21,120 --> 00:22:24,370 I'm not sure where yet, but I would like to major 458 00:22:24,370 --> 00:22:27,290 in language interpretation and translation. 459 00:22:28,420 --> 00:22:32,830 I would like to study environmental science and music. 460 00:22:32,830 --> 00:22:35,950 What makes KIPP unique is our high expectations 461 00:22:35,950 --> 00:22:38,160 and a singular focus on college. 462 00:22:38,160 --> 00:22:41,400 Our mission is to get students to and through college. 463 00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:45,120 80% of KIPP graduates have gone on to college. 464 00:22:45,120 --> 00:22:47,760 And KIPP graduates aren't just more likely to be accepted 465 00:22:47,760 --> 00:22:52,130 into college, they're also much more likely to complete it. 466 00:22:52,130 --> 00:22:55,570 KIPP currently has a college completion rate of 51% 467 00:22:55,570 --> 00:22:57,750 for students who completed 8th grade with us. 468 00:22:57,750 --> 00:23:00,730 That's approximately five times the national average 469 00:23:00,730 --> 00:23:03,240 for students from a similar background. 470 00:23:03,240 --> 00:23:06,010 Not only do we work with our children to make sure 471 00:23:06,010 --> 00:23:08,620 that they apply to the best colleges possible, 472 00:23:08,620 --> 00:23:11,270 but we will stay with them and provide support, 473 00:23:11,270 --> 00:23:13,530 provide mentorship, provide coaching 474 00:23:13,530 --> 00:23:15,270 all the way until they complete college. 475 00:23:15,270 --> 00:23:16,680 Arrows at both ends. 476 00:23:16,680 --> 00:23:19,330 Of course, KIPP has its critics, some of whom claim 477 00:23:19,330 --> 00:23:22,380 that it only succeeds by cherry-picking the best students. 478 00:23:22,380 --> 00:23:24,400 But the Stanford study actually controlled 479 00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:25,970 for students' prior test scores, 480 00:23:25,970 --> 00:23:28,600 and KIPP kids still learned more. 481 00:23:28,600 --> 00:23:30,800 KIPP proves that it's possible to run 482 00:23:30,800 --> 00:23:34,100 a successful, popular network of charter schools, 483 00:23:34,100 --> 00:23:37,330 and to grow it thanks to philanthropic investment. 484 00:23:37,330 --> 00:23:39,540 It's doing something that traditional public schools 485 00:23:39,540 --> 00:23:43,290 cannot do and that elite prep schools choose not to do. 486 00:23:44,400 --> 00:23:47,660 It's a really good opportunity to come to school here. 487 00:23:47,660 --> 00:23:49,580 I really, really enjoy it and I think 488 00:23:49,580 --> 00:23:52,350 it's important for people to come here. 489 00:23:52,350 --> 00:23:55,270 I wish that everyone could come here. (laughs) 490 00:23:55,270 --> 00:23:58,060 The demand in our community from our families 491 00:23:58,060 --> 00:24:00,640 for schools like KIPP is extremely high. 492 00:24:00,640 --> 00:24:03,280 Next year, when we'll be at 5,000 students, 493 00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:06,310 we'll still have 2,000 students on our wait-list. 494 00:24:06,310 --> 00:24:09,150 The students here really feel known for who they are. 495 00:24:09,150 --> 00:24:11,930 And the parents really come to trust their teachers 496 00:24:11,930 --> 00:24:13,070 and that they're all acting together 497 00:24:13,070 --> 00:24:15,600 in the best interest for their child. 498 00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:18,190 But is KIPP's story representative 499 00:24:18,190 --> 00:24:19,820 of charter schooling as a whole? 500 00:24:20,840 --> 00:24:23,270 To find out, I studied all the charter networks 501 00:24:23,270 --> 00:24:26,400 in California, how well they had performed academically, 502 00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:29,310 and how much funding they had received from donors. 503 00:24:29,310 --> 00:24:30,770 For the broadest possible picture, 504 00:24:30,770 --> 00:24:32,630 I looked at both the state's own tests 505 00:24:32,630 --> 00:24:34,540 and also the Advanced Placement tests 506 00:24:34,540 --> 00:24:36,123 administered by the College Board. 507 00:24:36,123 --> 00:24:37,300 (keyboard clacking) 508 00:24:37,300 --> 00:24:38,990 What I found is that the correlation 509 00:24:38,990 --> 00:24:42,520 between performance and grant funding is tiny. 510 00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:45,210 To put it in perspective, I also measured the correlation 511 00:24:45,210 --> 00:24:47,590 between how well the charter networks perform 512 00:24:47,590 --> 00:24:49,870 and the number of letters in their names. 513 00:24:49,870 --> 00:24:51,230 That one is small, too, but it's 514 00:24:51,230 --> 00:24:52,960 actually bigger than the link 515 00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:55,900 between performance and total donations received. 516 00:24:57,060 --> 00:24:59,910 What that means is that philanthropists have been scaling-up 517 00:24:59,910 --> 00:25:03,040 California's charter networks more or less at random. 518 00:25:03,040 --> 00:25:05,270 If the same thing is happening in other states, 519 00:25:05,270 --> 00:25:07,110 that might explain why the networks are 520 00:25:07,110 --> 00:25:09,557 not out-performing independent charters. 521 00:25:09,557 --> 00:25:11,910 (basketball slapping) 522 00:25:11,910 --> 00:25:14,210 But that may not be the only problem. 523 00:25:14,210 --> 00:25:15,840 In order to open a new charter school, 524 00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:18,540 you have to be approved by an official agency. 525 00:25:18,540 --> 00:25:20,240 And sometimes that agency is part 526 00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:22,620 of the same public school system that will be competing 527 00:25:22,620 --> 00:25:24,770 to attract students with the new charter. 528 00:25:24,770 --> 00:25:26,750 It's like allowing athletes to eliminate 529 00:25:26,750 --> 00:25:30,280 certain players from the opposing team. 530 00:25:31,206 --> 00:25:33,010 (contemplative orchestral music) 531 00:25:33,010 --> 00:25:35,600 That sounds like a classic conflict of interest. 532 00:25:35,600 --> 00:25:37,870 It gives authorizers an incentive 533 00:25:37,870 --> 00:25:40,270 to reject promising proposals. 534 00:25:40,270 --> 00:25:43,260 But surely that doesn't happen in practice. 535 00:25:43,260 --> 00:25:45,650 We decided to start our first charter school 536 00:25:45,650 --> 00:25:48,290 in Massachusetts because, at the time, 537 00:25:48,290 --> 00:25:50,350 the City of Springfield wanted 538 00:25:50,350 --> 00:25:52,990 to introduce some competition. 539 00:25:52,990 --> 00:25:57,040 The city was not performing well and the superintendent saw 540 00:25:57,040 --> 00:26:00,320 that as an opportunity to bring in charter schools. 541 00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:03,640 We were selected to take over the second 542 00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:06,340 lowest-performing school in the district. 543 00:26:06,340 --> 00:26:09,550 We opened as a K-7 school and grew 544 00:26:09,550 --> 00:26:13,290 over time to a full K-12 school. 545 00:26:13,290 --> 00:26:18,290 And we graduated our first senior class in 2001. 546 00:26:19,210 --> 00:26:23,070 And since then, we have been sending kids off 547 00:26:23,070 --> 00:26:26,549 with 100% college acceptance rates. 548 00:26:26,549 --> 00:26:27,470 (contemplative piano music) 549 00:26:27,470 --> 00:26:29,180 But despite its record of success 550 00:26:29,180 --> 00:26:31,760 in Massachusetts, a proposal to open 551 00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:33,800 a SABIS Charter school in Brockton 552 00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:36,090 was rejected by the state board of education. 553 00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:41,690 The motivation for rejection, no doubt, was political. 554 00:26:42,860 --> 00:26:47,860 We learned the hard way that, in the charter movement, 555 00:26:49,350 --> 00:26:53,130 politics is very much part of the process. 556 00:26:53,130 --> 00:26:57,120 Unfortunately, it is not only about identifying 557 00:26:57,120 --> 00:27:00,220 a need and proposing a solution. 558 00:27:00,220 --> 00:27:02,920 There is a lot of politics in the mix. 559 00:27:04,070 --> 00:27:05,930 Is that true? 560 00:27:05,930 --> 00:27:08,420 A good person to ask is Basan Nembirkow, 561 00:27:08,420 --> 00:27:11,060 because a few years before he acknowledged 562 00:27:11,060 --> 00:27:13,590 that SABIS has a good educational model, 563 00:27:13,590 --> 00:27:15,760 he successfully campaigned to stop 564 00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:19,100 their proposed charter school from opening in his district. 565 00:27:19,100 --> 00:27:20,840 At the same event at which Nembirkow 566 00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:25,840 praised the SABIS model, the moderator raised this question. 567 00:27:25,890 --> 00:27:29,140 Why wasn't SABIS good enough for Brockton, 568 00:27:29,140 --> 00:27:31,140 whenever that was, five years or so ago? 569 00:27:33,235 --> 00:27:35,940 Why wasn't that good enough for you 570 00:27:35,940 --> 00:27:38,010 to support them to come to Brockton? 571 00:27:38,010 --> 00:27:41,244 My title was Superintendent of Brockton Public Schools. 572 00:27:41,244 --> 00:27:43,580 (audience laughing) 573 00:27:43,580 --> 00:27:45,070 So, right off the bat, there's 574 00:27:45,070 --> 00:27:47,690 an enlightened self-interest involved in that. 575 00:27:48,660 --> 00:27:53,620 Basically, the issue was finance and politics. 576 00:27:53,620 --> 00:27:56,440 It had nothing to do, or very little to do, 577 00:27:56,440 --> 00:27:58,350 with the quality of the program. 578 00:27:58,350 --> 00:28:01,400 SABIS came, and we saw that as a threat, 579 00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:03,050 simply a financial threat to us 580 00:28:03,050 --> 00:28:04,730 if it took money away from us, 581 00:28:04,730 --> 00:28:06,490 which was about four or five million dollars. 582 00:28:06,490 --> 00:28:10,120 Based upon that, our progress would 583 00:28:10,120 --> 00:28:12,130 have been substantially affected. 584 00:28:13,430 --> 00:28:17,030 So my job, defending the Brockton public schools, 585 00:28:17,030 --> 00:28:19,750 as a superintendent, was to do whatever I could 586 00:28:19,750 --> 00:28:23,230 to stop that particular threat at that particular time, 587 00:28:23,230 --> 00:28:25,720 so we mounted a very good political campaign. 588 00:28:26,690 --> 00:28:28,020 SABIS's experience 589 00:28:28,020 --> 00:28:30,400 in Massachusetts is hardly unique. 590 00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:33,440 In fact, public school officials not only prevent 591 00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:36,000 promising new charter schools from opening. 592 00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:39,900 They sometimes shut down successful existing ones. 593 00:28:39,900 --> 00:28:42,740 In the spring of 2014, the Los Angeles 594 00:28:42,740 --> 00:28:45,860 Unified School District decided to close 595 00:28:45,860 --> 00:28:48,100 two high-performing charter schools 596 00:28:48,100 --> 00:28:51,010 serving low-income Hispanic students. 597 00:28:51,010 --> 00:28:53,210 The reason was that the charters had opted 598 00:28:53,210 --> 00:28:57,230 not to use the district's own special education services. 599 00:28:57,230 --> 00:29:00,580 Instead, they chose an independent service provider 600 00:29:00,580 --> 00:29:03,700 that was already working with 300 other schools, 601 00:29:03,700 --> 00:29:07,360 something they had every right to do under California law. 602 00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:10,270 So why did the district want to shut them down? 603 00:29:10,270 --> 00:29:13,020 According to county school board member Douglas Boyd, 604 00:29:13,020 --> 00:29:16,120 the district has been trying to blackmail charter schools 605 00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:19,220 into using its own special education services, 606 00:29:19,220 --> 00:29:21,510 shutting them down if they refuse, 607 00:29:21,510 --> 00:29:23,940 because it wants the money that the state 608 00:29:23,940 --> 00:29:27,490 attaches to each special needs child. 609 00:29:27,490 --> 00:29:29,780 Fortunately, for these two charter schools 610 00:29:29,780 --> 00:29:32,540 and the children they serve, the county school board 611 00:29:32,540 --> 00:29:35,120 overturned the district's decision, 612 00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:36,470 but no one expects the district 613 00:29:36,470 --> 00:29:39,020 to stop trying to get what it wants. 614 00:29:39,020 --> 00:29:40,100 (contemplative piano music) 615 00:29:40,100 --> 00:29:42,130 One of the most striking cases of a district 616 00:29:42,130 --> 00:29:44,960 voting to shut down high-performing charter schools 617 00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:47,340 played out in Oakland, California. 618 00:29:47,340 --> 00:29:49,210 As a whole, students here perform 619 00:29:49,210 --> 00:29:51,620 far below their peers in the rest of the state. 620 00:29:51,620 --> 00:29:54,790 And the district has its own armed police force. 621 00:29:54,790 --> 00:29:56,430 But, over the course of a decade, 622 00:29:56,430 --> 00:29:59,300 one of Oakland's worst schools was gradually turned 623 00:29:59,300 --> 00:30:03,370 into the highest-scoring school in California. 624 00:30:03,370 --> 00:30:06,440 It's called the American Indian Public Charter School. 625 00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:08,170 For the past six years, it has ranked 626 00:30:08,170 --> 00:30:10,490 among the top middle schools in California. 627 00:30:10,490 --> 00:30:12,700 And it's part of a small network that includes 628 00:30:12,700 --> 00:30:14,940 a second middle school and a high school, 629 00:30:14,940 --> 00:30:16,660 both of which are also in Oakland 630 00:30:16,660 --> 00:30:19,690 and also among the top-performers in the state. 631 00:30:19,690 --> 00:30:22,040 And that's not because of their demographics. 632 00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:25,480 Every racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic subgroup of students 633 00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:29,490 at these schools easily outperforms its statewide peers. 634 00:30:29,490 --> 00:30:31,070 And all of them beat the average 635 00:30:31,070 --> 00:30:33,360 for wealthier white students. 636 00:30:33,360 --> 00:30:35,910 The high school has topped the Washington Post's 637 00:30:35,910 --> 00:30:37,870 list of the nation's best. 638 00:30:37,870 --> 00:30:40,830 All of its students take Advanced Placement courses 639 00:30:40,830 --> 00:30:43,730 and they score remarkably well on the year-end tests 640 00:30:43,730 --> 00:30:45,670 administered by the College Board. 641 00:30:45,670 --> 00:30:47,260 How do they do it? 642 00:30:47,260 --> 00:30:50,030 The fact that the high school classes, 643 00:30:50,030 --> 00:30:52,530 and the 8th grade classes, too, can be so productive, 644 00:30:52,530 --> 00:30:56,820 that's entirely predicated on what happens in 6th grade. 645 00:30:56,820 --> 00:30:59,210 That's where it's the roughest adjustment. 646 00:30:59,210 --> 00:31:02,210 So we get kids from neighboring elementary schools. 647 00:31:02,210 --> 00:31:03,650 They come in, and I think it's a shock to them, 648 00:31:03,650 --> 00:31:07,140 their first three weeks maybe month, month-and-a-half. 649 00:31:07,140 --> 00:31:08,740 And it's about acclimation and it's 650 00:31:08,740 --> 00:31:12,250 about this is how you conduct yourself at this school. 651 00:31:12,250 --> 00:31:14,620 There's a student contract, there's a code of conduct 652 00:31:14,620 --> 00:31:18,570 for students, and the parents and students are required 653 00:31:18,570 --> 00:31:21,890 to review it and sign it prior to applying, and it helps 654 00:31:21,890 --> 00:31:25,030 because the students know exactly what's expected. 655 00:31:25,030 --> 00:31:27,370 When I came here in the 7th grade, I was failing, 656 00:31:27,370 --> 00:31:30,970 so, yeah, it was really hard for me to get used to it. 657 00:31:30,970 --> 00:31:33,120 It was just a really big transition 658 00:31:33,120 --> 00:31:34,880 because the school that I went to, 659 00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:37,540 they actually gave me a textbook and put us in the back 660 00:31:37,540 --> 00:31:40,170 of the classroom to learn and teach ourselves. 661 00:31:40,170 --> 00:31:41,930 I've actually experienced some of this. 662 00:31:41,930 --> 00:31:44,340 I'm the tutor at the downtown campus, 663 00:31:44,340 --> 00:31:46,150 and I usually do one-on-one sessions 664 00:31:46,150 --> 00:31:48,240 with some of the students that are struggling. 665 00:31:48,240 --> 00:31:51,040 And most of the students that I've tutored actually 666 00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:53,500 are just transferring from different schools. 667 00:31:53,500 --> 00:31:57,130 Some of them are at a 4th or 5th grade level, 668 00:31:57,130 --> 00:32:00,500 when they should be at a 9th or 10th grade level. 669 00:32:00,500 --> 00:32:02,510 I was nervous going into 7th grade 670 00:32:02,510 --> 00:32:05,890 because I knew I was going to be getting new students. 671 00:32:05,890 --> 00:32:08,040 There's just a lot to catch up to in terms of, like, 672 00:32:08,040 --> 00:32:10,180 the workload, just the school culture, 673 00:32:10,180 --> 00:32:12,970 and then just, yeah, behavioral adjustments. 674 00:32:12,970 --> 00:32:16,320 But, because the core group of students that I'd had 675 00:32:16,320 --> 00:32:19,030 since the beginning of 6th grade was so well-behaved, 676 00:32:19,030 --> 00:32:22,240 new students just kind of adjust. 677 00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:25,250 In some schools, children may not try adjusting 678 00:32:25,250 --> 00:32:27,260 because the teachers don't try. 679 00:32:27,260 --> 00:32:28,570 If they don't do a couple of assignments, 680 00:32:28,570 --> 00:32:29,760 the teacher won't mind because that's 681 00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:31,800 just one less for the teacher to grade. 682 00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:33,570 But I think at this school, it's more, 683 00:32:33,570 --> 00:32:34,580 they're not like attacking but they're 684 00:32:34,580 --> 00:32:36,800 more on you in what you do. 685 00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:41,000 When it comes to catching them up on academic stuff, 686 00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:43,270 I'll take on that extra work if it means that 687 00:32:43,270 --> 00:32:46,390 that student makes the progress. 688 00:32:46,390 --> 00:32:49,590 So, after-school tutoring, in-school tutoring, 689 00:32:49,590 --> 00:32:52,480 before-school tutoring, you know, 690 00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:54,340 taking them aside during class time 691 00:32:54,340 --> 00:32:55,700 and working with them one-on-one, 692 00:32:55,700 --> 00:32:56,700 because that's the other good thing 693 00:32:56,700 --> 00:32:59,320 about having really well-behaved classes, 694 00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:02,230 is that the students can work independently, 695 00:33:02,230 --> 00:33:03,990 and that really does free the teacher up 696 00:33:03,990 --> 00:33:07,000 to work one-on-one with the students who do need help. 697 00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:09,380 Usually, this school, 698 00:33:11,620 --> 00:33:14,960 people may feel that their workload may be stressful, 699 00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:18,200 but they get used to it, and the fact that our school 700 00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:20,910 creates a sense of community, that sense 701 00:33:20,910 --> 00:33:24,550 of community in itself motivates us. 702 00:33:24,550 --> 00:33:26,160 The thing that keeps this school together 703 00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:27,791 is definitely the teachers. 704 00:33:27,791 --> 00:33:29,190 Yes, definitely. 705 00:33:29,190 --> 00:33:33,030 And I feel like the students kind of accept, after they've 706 00:33:33,030 --> 00:33:36,180 seen so much that they can do, that they accept the fact 707 00:33:36,180 --> 00:33:37,947 that these teachers are doing something right. 708 00:33:37,947 --> 00:33:39,857 (contemplative orchestral music) 709 00:33:39,857 --> 00:33:41,810 But in the spring of 2013, 710 00:33:41,810 --> 00:33:43,810 the Oakland Public School District voted 711 00:33:43,810 --> 00:33:47,890 to shut down all three American Indian charter schools. 712 00:33:47,890 --> 00:33:51,180 They based their decision on alleged financial improprieties 713 00:33:51,180 --> 00:33:53,120 by the school's former administrator, 714 00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:55,690 who had retired the previous year. 715 00:33:55,690 --> 00:33:58,310 The schools responded that he was no longer affiliated 716 00:33:58,310 --> 00:33:59,840 with them, and that they would address 717 00:33:59,840 --> 00:34:02,770 any shortcomings in their accounting practices. 718 00:34:02,770 --> 00:34:05,270 They also emphasized that, while they received 719 00:34:05,270 --> 00:34:07,930 less per-pupil funding than district schools, 720 00:34:07,930 --> 00:34:10,190 they prioritized instructional spending 721 00:34:10,190 --> 00:34:12,660 and paid their teachers higher salaries. 722 00:34:13,660 --> 00:34:16,390 The district refused to reconsider its decision, 723 00:34:16,390 --> 00:34:19,280 and so the schools filed suit to overturn it. 724 00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:22,870 For over a year, they struggled under this legal cloud. 725 00:34:22,870 --> 00:34:26,220 Their previously rising enrollment stalled. 726 00:34:26,220 --> 00:34:28,970 Finally, in the summer of 2014, 727 00:34:28,970 --> 00:34:30,930 a state court ruled that the district 728 00:34:30,930 --> 00:34:34,320 had broken California law in deciding to close the schools 729 00:34:34,320 --> 00:34:36,820 because it had not given enough weight 730 00:34:36,820 --> 00:34:39,240 to their students' academic success. 731 00:34:41,420 --> 00:34:43,280 That sort of opposition would certainly 732 00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:45,270 stifle the growth of good charter schools, 733 00:34:45,270 --> 00:34:47,980 but it doesn't seem to be a problem here in New Orleans, 734 00:34:47,980 --> 00:34:49,380 where support for charter schooling 735 00:34:49,380 --> 00:34:51,783 spiked in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. 736 00:34:51,783 --> 00:34:55,866 (contemplative orchestral music) 737 00:35:01,410 --> 00:35:04,320 When the storm hit in August of 2005, 738 00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:07,740 it closed every school in the city, and damaged most. 739 00:35:07,740 --> 00:35:09,660 It took six weeks for the first school 740 00:35:09,660 --> 00:35:11,640 to reopen, a small Catholic school 741 00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:14,340 in the French Quarter called Cathedral Academy. 742 00:35:14,340 --> 00:35:16,720 The staff there had to make hundreds of calls 743 00:35:16,720 --> 00:35:18,670 to track down students who'd been scattered 744 00:35:18,670 --> 00:35:20,810 to other cities and other states. 745 00:35:23,210 --> 00:35:25,020 Cathedral Academy not only opened 746 00:35:25,020 --> 00:35:26,520 its doors to its own students, 747 00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:28,810 but also to those of another Catholic school 748 00:35:28,810 --> 00:35:31,210 that had been more badly damaged by the storm, 749 00:35:31,210 --> 00:35:34,200 having sat under 10 feet of water for weeks. 750 00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:36,850 The students attended in shifts, and the staff 751 00:35:36,850 --> 00:35:39,570 of both schools alternated management duties. 752 00:35:41,140 --> 00:35:43,180 Not every school was able to find places 753 00:35:43,180 --> 00:35:45,160 for its students within the city, 754 00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:48,800 but determined educators still found ways to keep teaching. 755 00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:52,310 Two other Catholic schools, Cabrini High and Holy Cross, 756 00:35:52,310 --> 00:35:55,400 located a Christian school in Baton Rouge that was willing 757 00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:58,360 to host their lessons in the evening at no charge. 758 00:35:59,450 --> 00:36:01,120 So, for weeks, the students made 759 00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:03,880 daily three-hour round-trips to Baton Rouge, 760 00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:06,190 returning home long after dark. 761 00:36:06,190 --> 00:36:08,810 Finally, after a grueling two-month cleanup effort, 762 00:36:08,810 --> 00:36:11,270 Cabrini High itself was able to reopen, 763 00:36:11,270 --> 00:36:12,550 but not wanting to leave the students 764 00:36:12,550 --> 00:36:14,810 of Holy Cross in the lurch, it too adopted 765 00:36:14,810 --> 00:36:17,540 a shift schedule, minus the three-hour commute. 766 00:36:19,570 --> 00:36:21,790 By November, eight Catholic schools 767 00:36:21,790 --> 00:36:24,280 had reopened, but none of the public schools. 768 00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:27,370 And by the following May, 60 private schools were 769 00:36:27,370 --> 00:36:31,140 serving students, but only 25 public schools had reopened, 770 00:36:31,140 --> 00:36:33,370 and virtually all of those were charters. 771 00:36:33,370 --> 00:36:36,000 That wasn't lost on state and local officials, 772 00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:37,740 and charter schooling in the Big Easy 773 00:36:37,740 --> 00:36:39,168 was cleared for takeoff. 774 00:36:39,168 --> 00:36:43,540 (contemplative orchestral music) 775 00:36:43,540 --> 00:36:47,060 Today, 3/4 of New Orleans public school students 776 00:36:47,060 --> 00:36:48,960 attend charters, a higher share 777 00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:51,030 than anywhere else in the country. 778 00:36:51,030 --> 00:36:54,620 And charters here are more likely to belong to networks. 779 00:36:54,620 --> 00:36:56,760 As a result, New Orleans is seen 780 00:36:56,760 --> 00:36:59,670 as a test case for charter school expansion. 781 00:37:01,390 --> 00:37:03,830 So, how is it working out? 782 00:37:03,830 --> 00:37:05,800 According to the researchers at Stanford, 783 00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:07,780 charter schools in Louisiana are 784 00:37:07,780 --> 00:37:10,390 outperforming traditional public schools, 785 00:37:10,390 --> 00:37:13,080 and that's particularly noticeable in New Orleans. 786 00:37:13,080 --> 00:37:16,240 The difference isn't enormous, but it's good news. 787 00:37:20,380 --> 00:37:23,440 But there is one disappointing element to the story. 788 00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:26,520 Networks of charter schools in Louisiana are actually 789 00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:29,760 performing slightly worse than independent charters. 790 00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:33,310 The best are not crowding out the rest, at least not yet. 791 00:37:36,420 --> 00:37:39,940 It's a similar picture to the one I found in California 792 00:37:39,940 --> 00:37:42,610 and that others have found nationwide. 793 00:37:42,610 --> 00:37:45,440 There's a lot of scaling-up in the charter sector, 794 00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:47,060 but it's indiscriminate. 795 00:37:47,060 --> 00:37:49,300 If we want to find a place where the schools 796 00:37:49,300 --> 00:37:51,240 being replicated are outperforming 797 00:37:51,240 --> 00:37:53,420 the rest, we'll have to keep looking. 798 00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:59,043 Which is why we're headed to Casablanca. 799 00:37:59,043 --> 00:38:02,710 (dramatic orchestral music) 800 00:38:11,170 --> 00:38:13,810 (record scratches) No, not that Casablanca. 801 00:38:13,810 --> 00:38:15,181 Because you're getting on that plane. 802 00:38:15,181 --> 00:38:16,460 (contemplative orchestral music) 803 00:38:16,460 --> 00:38:18,400 Welcome to the Casablanca Valley, 804 00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:20,750 just outside Santiago, Chile. 805 00:38:20,750 --> 00:38:24,282 We haven't come here for the waters or even the wines. 806 00:38:24,282 --> 00:38:25,240 (woman speaks in foreign language) 807 00:38:25,240 --> 00:38:27,080 Oh, thank you very much! 808 00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:28,920 We haven't come here just for the wines, 809 00:38:28,920 --> 00:38:31,303 but as long as we're here... 810 00:38:31,303 --> 00:38:33,600 (upbeat acoustic guitar music) 811 00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:37,050 Winemaking in Chile goes back almost 500 years. 812 00:38:37,050 --> 00:38:40,540 But in 1938, the government capped wine production, 813 00:38:40,540 --> 00:38:42,590 restricted the creation of new vineyards, 814 00:38:42,590 --> 00:38:45,800 and outlawed the importation of foreign machinery. 815 00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:47,460 Officially, the import ban was 816 00:38:47,460 --> 00:38:49,890 supposed to boost domestic manufacturing, 817 00:38:49,890 --> 00:38:51,810 but cutting it off from foreign competition 818 00:38:51,810 --> 00:38:53,940 actually caused it to stagnate. 819 00:38:53,940 --> 00:38:56,140 In the meantime, European vintners 820 00:38:56,140 --> 00:38:58,270 developed ever-improving wine presses, 821 00:38:58,270 --> 00:39:00,600 fermentation tanks, and bottling systems, 822 00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:03,430 virtually none of which made it to Chile. 823 00:39:03,430 --> 00:39:06,620 With so little consumer choice and competition, 824 00:39:06,620 --> 00:39:08,080 winemakers could put pretty much 825 00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:11,520 anything in a jug and sell it, at least they could 826 00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:15,320 until trade barriers were slashed in the 1970s. 827 00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:17,930 Suddenly, Chileans had access to wines 828 00:39:17,930 --> 00:39:21,200 from all over the world, which they promptly ignored 829 00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:24,840 in favor of newly available soft drinks and beer. 830 00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:27,350 Wine consumption fell off a cliff. 831 00:39:27,350 --> 00:39:30,010 (contemplative chimes music) 832 00:39:30,010 --> 00:39:32,370 That put Chile's wineries in a bind. 833 00:39:32,370 --> 00:39:35,250 Their domestic market dried up, and they couldn't export 834 00:39:35,250 --> 00:39:38,440 what they'd been making because it just wasn't good enough. 835 00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:41,870 For a few years, the industry was badly shaken. 836 00:39:44,260 --> 00:39:46,020 But then it stirred. 837 00:39:46,020 --> 00:39:48,500 With the trade barriers gone, Chileans could 838 00:39:48,500 --> 00:39:50,960 finally import the latest equipment, 839 00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:53,800 and new players could easily enter the marketplace. 840 00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:56,860 Even foreign investors were allowed to come to Chile 841 00:39:56,860 --> 00:40:00,270 to start joint ventures or launch labels of their own. 842 00:40:02,260 --> 00:40:04,760 One of those new labels was Lapostolle, 843 00:40:04,760 --> 00:40:07,130 founded by the makers of Grand Marnier liqueur 844 00:40:07,130 --> 00:40:09,510 and Chateau de Sancerre wines. 845 00:40:09,510 --> 00:40:11,850 Companies like Lapostolle didn't just bring 846 00:40:11,850 --> 00:40:14,010 a lot of foreign dollars into Chile. 847 00:40:14,010 --> 00:40:15,480 They also brought the knowledge 848 00:40:15,480 --> 00:40:18,130 of how to run a cutting-edge wine business. 849 00:40:19,070 --> 00:40:21,800 Some of that know-how is evident in the construction 850 00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:24,280 of Lapostolle's Clos Apalta Winery. 851 00:40:24,280 --> 00:40:27,200 Half of the six-story building is underground, 852 00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:29,870 for temperature control, and the wine flows 853 00:40:29,870 --> 00:40:32,350 from one floor to the next by gravity, 854 00:40:32,350 --> 00:40:34,179 eliminating the need for pumps. 855 00:40:34,179 --> 00:40:37,210 (upbeat orchestral music) 856 00:40:37,210 --> 00:40:40,210 After the final barrel stage, the wine is bottled 857 00:40:40,210 --> 00:40:43,570 and shipped to 60 different countries around the world. 858 00:40:43,570 --> 00:40:46,370 In 2008, several of those bottles wound up 859 00:40:46,370 --> 00:40:49,210 in blind tastings by the Wine Spectator. 860 00:40:49,210 --> 00:40:50,590 Apparently the dump buckets didn't see 861 00:40:50,590 --> 00:40:53,630 a lot of use that day because Clos Apalta was named 862 00:40:53,630 --> 00:40:56,680 the number one wine in the world, for the money. 863 00:40:58,880 --> 00:41:01,090 But the knowledge of how to make good wines 864 00:41:01,090 --> 00:41:03,860 at competitive prices didn't stay locked up 865 00:41:03,860 --> 00:41:06,010 in the vaults of foreign producers. 866 00:41:06,010 --> 00:41:07,750 It was contagious. 867 00:41:07,750 --> 00:41:11,690 As soon as these high-tech operations arrived around 1980, 868 00:41:11,690 --> 00:41:14,400 their techniques began to be copied. 869 00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:17,290 That international crosspollination has spawned 870 00:41:17,290 --> 00:41:19,730 a whole new generation of wineries. 871 00:41:21,490 --> 00:41:24,450 So, over the last quarter century, both the scale 872 00:41:24,450 --> 00:41:27,550 and the quality of Chilean winemaking rose dramatically. 873 00:41:27,550 --> 00:41:30,120 But what does that have to do with education? 874 00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:32,820 Well, just after Chile opened up its wine industry 875 00:41:32,820 --> 00:41:35,290 to consumer choice and competition, 876 00:41:35,290 --> 00:41:37,706 it did the same thing for schools. 877 00:41:37,706 --> 00:41:41,623 (contemplative mandolin music) 878 00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:46,190 First, they decentralized public schools 879 00:41:46,190 --> 00:41:49,590 from the Ministry of Education to the municipalities. 880 00:41:49,590 --> 00:41:52,090 There are about 345 municipalities in Chile. 881 00:41:52,090 --> 00:41:55,310 And second, they introduced a flat, per-pupil voucher 882 00:41:55,310 --> 00:41:56,850 which has since been differentiated, 883 00:41:56,850 --> 00:41:59,670 so parents can choose between a public 884 00:41:59,670 --> 00:42:02,520 or a municipal and a private voucher school, 885 00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:05,130 which are for profit and nonprofit, 886 00:42:05,130 --> 00:42:08,740 and the per-pupil voucher follows the student to the school. 887 00:42:09,850 --> 00:42:12,290 The voucher is differentiated by a student's 888 00:42:12,290 --> 00:42:14,810 socioeconomic background characteristics. 889 00:42:14,810 --> 00:42:17,690 So, when a school enrolls a low-income student, 890 00:42:17,690 --> 00:42:19,520 the school receives approximately 60 891 00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:24,110 to 80% more per pupil than if they enroll a student 892 00:42:24,110 --> 00:42:27,330 from the middle class or upper-middle class. 893 00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:31,500 So, what did all those reforms accomplish? 894 00:42:31,500 --> 00:42:34,730 Did opening up the marketplace do as much for education 895 00:42:34,730 --> 00:42:37,140 as it did for the wine industry? 896 00:42:37,140 --> 00:42:40,180 Chile spends about $2,000 per pupil 897 00:42:40,180 --> 00:42:41,810 in primary and secondary school. 898 00:42:41,810 --> 00:42:44,550 It's more than most Latin American countries spend. 899 00:42:44,550 --> 00:42:46,530 And Chile spends about a sixth of what they spend 900 00:42:46,530 --> 00:42:50,460 in the United States per pupil in K to 12. 901 00:42:50,460 --> 00:42:53,180 Chile outperforms all other Latin American countries 902 00:42:53,180 --> 00:42:55,240 that participate in the international tests, 903 00:42:55,240 --> 00:42:57,740 and Chile is the country that has showed 904 00:42:57,740 --> 00:43:02,020 the most improvement on the most recent PISA test. 905 00:43:02,020 --> 00:43:06,240 Between 2000 and 2009, Chile's overall 906 00:43:06,240 --> 00:43:08,800 quality showed the most improvement. 907 00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:10,970 In 1990, about half of Chileans 908 00:43:10,970 --> 00:43:12,430 lived under the poverty line. 909 00:43:12,430 --> 00:43:15,022 Today, it's, you know, less than 15%. 910 00:43:15,022 --> 00:43:16,340 (upbeat percussion music) 911 00:43:16,340 --> 00:43:19,240 Many people here and around the world have noticed 912 00:43:19,240 --> 00:43:22,290 these improvements, but not everyone is impressed. 913 00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:25,750 Large-scale student protests erupted 914 00:43:25,750 --> 00:43:28,740 in 2011, led most visibly by a college 915 00:43:28,740 --> 00:43:31,844 geography major named Camila Vallejo. 916 00:43:31,844 --> 00:43:34,199 Now a Communist Party Congresswoman, 917 00:43:34,199 --> 00:43:36,930 Vallejo's central demand was that the government provide 918 00:43:36,930 --> 00:43:40,160 universal free access to college. 919 00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:42,790 But the protesters also called for changes 920 00:43:42,790 --> 00:43:46,287 in Chile's system of elementary and secondary education. 921 00:43:46,287 --> 00:43:48,950 (crowd shouting) 922 00:43:48,950 --> 00:43:52,350 They demanded a moratorium or an outright ban 923 00:43:52,350 --> 00:43:55,580 on the creation of new private voucher schools, 924 00:43:55,580 --> 00:43:58,000 a ban on copayments by parents, 925 00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:00,620 a ban on for-profit voucher schools, 926 00:44:00,620 --> 00:44:03,430 replacing local control of public schools 927 00:44:03,430 --> 00:44:07,030 with nationwide central planning, and even an end 928 00:44:07,030 --> 00:44:10,070 to school choice itself in favor of mandatory 929 00:44:10,070 --> 00:44:12,780 student assignment to schools by the government. 930 00:44:14,570 --> 00:44:16,550 Chile's young protesters believe 931 00:44:16,550 --> 00:44:18,370 that their nation's education system 932 00:44:18,370 --> 00:44:21,130 is shortchanging low-income families. 933 00:44:21,130 --> 00:44:24,720 According to Camila Vallejo, "Children who are born poor 934 00:44:24,720 --> 00:44:28,490 "will receive a poor education and continue to be poor." 935 00:44:28,490 --> 00:44:32,510 But Chile's education outcome-gaps between the rich and poor 936 00:44:32,510 --> 00:44:34,140 are actually smaller than those 937 00:44:34,140 --> 00:44:36,370 in most other Latin American countries, 938 00:44:36,370 --> 00:44:39,440 in some cases, the smallest in the entire region. 939 00:44:39,440 --> 00:44:42,330 And Chile's education gaps are shrinking 940 00:44:42,330 --> 00:44:44,990 because the students at the low end of the performance range 941 00:44:44,990 --> 00:44:47,500 are improving faster than those at the top. 942 00:44:47,500 --> 00:44:48,980 (inspirational orchestral music) 943 00:44:48,980 --> 00:44:51,610 Chile's improvement is mainly explained 944 00:44:51,610 --> 00:44:54,350 by the improvement of the lower-income students. 945 00:44:54,350 --> 00:44:57,050 So there's been a closing of the achievement gap 946 00:44:57,050 --> 00:44:59,260 over the last 10 years, and this is reflected 947 00:44:59,260 --> 00:45:02,230 on international tests and also on national tests. 948 00:45:02,230 --> 00:45:04,570 Another way to measure educational outcomes 949 00:45:04,570 --> 00:45:07,500 is the number of years of schooling that students complete, 950 00:45:07,500 --> 00:45:09,680 called educational attainment. 951 00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:12,420 By that measure, Chile has the lowest level 952 00:45:12,420 --> 00:45:16,830 of educational inequality of any country in Latin America. 953 00:45:16,830 --> 00:45:18,940 As for income inequality, it is 954 00:45:18,940 --> 00:45:21,010 high in all developing countries, 955 00:45:21,010 --> 00:45:23,570 but that's been shrinking in Chile, too. 956 00:45:23,570 --> 00:45:25,990 And several teams of researchers have attributed 957 00:45:25,990 --> 00:45:29,340 the improvement, in part, to its system of public 958 00:45:29,340 --> 00:45:32,750 and private school choice, which just happens 959 00:45:32,750 --> 00:45:35,730 to have been introduced during the 1980s, 960 00:45:35,730 --> 00:45:39,410 under the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. 961 00:45:40,780 --> 00:45:42,800 And there's the rub. 962 00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:46,050 Regardless of its success, Chile's education system 963 00:45:46,050 --> 00:45:48,390 is tainted in many people's eyes 964 00:45:48,390 --> 00:45:51,740 because it was favored by a brutal dictator. 965 00:45:51,740 --> 00:45:55,060 That's understandable, but should we condemn something 966 00:45:55,060 --> 00:45:57,820 solely because it appealed to a tyrant? 967 00:45:59,150 --> 00:46:00,420 Here comes the car. 968 00:46:00,420 --> 00:46:02,070 Okay, now watch me. 969 00:46:02,070 --> 00:46:03,060 I'm gonna use number one. 970 00:46:03,060 --> 00:46:05,690 Keep your eye on that thumb, baby, and see what happens. 971 00:46:05,690 --> 00:46:09,410 One of the biggest box office hits of 1934 972 00:46:09,410 --> 00:46:12,850 was the romantic comedy It Happened One Night. 973 00:46:12,850 --> 00:46:15,260 It swept the Academy Awards and is still 974 00:46:15,260 --> 00:46:18,270 delighting audiences nearly a century later. 975 00:46:18,270 --> 00:46:22,320 It was also one of Adolf Hitler's favorite films. 976 00:46:22,320 --> 00:46:24,200 The fact that Hitler liked the movie 977 00:46:24,200 --> 00:46:26,270 doesn't make it any less charming, 978 00:46:26,270 --> 00:46:29,830 nor does its charm make Hitler any less hateful. 979 00:46:29,830 --> 00:46:31,620 It doesn't make sense to judge one 980 00:46:31,620 --> 00:46:33,485 based on the qualities of the other. 981 00:46:33,485 --> 00:46:34,420 (upbeat percussion music) 982 00:46:34,420 --> 00:46:37,480 Under President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela introduced 983 00:46:37,480 --> 00:46:39,790 a curriculum whose central goal is 984 00:46:39,790 --> 00:46:42,780 to promote the official government ideology. 985 00:46:42,780 --> 00:46:44,560 All public and private schools 986 00:46:44,560 --> 00:46:47,030 must follow it or be shut down. 987 00:46:47,030 --> 00:46:50,380 The government acknowledges this by name as indoctrination, 988 00:46:50,380 --> 00:46:52,590 but maintains that it is necessary 989 00:46:52,590 --> 00:46:55,190 to eliminate capitalist ideas. 990 00:46:56,080 --> 00:46:59,600 And they might be right, but that's not one of the goals 991 00:46:59,600 --> 00:47:03,490 that Chilean people ever mention in public opinion surveys. 992 00:47:03,490 --> 00:47:06,640 What they really care about is academic quality. 993 00:47:06,640 --> 00:47:09,480 Parents choose private schools partly because they think 994 00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:12,010 the schools are going to respond to their preferences, 995 00:47:12,010 --> 00:47:15,800 so the school owners listen to parents. 996 00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:17,660 Parents feel that they have, you know, 997 00:47:17,660 --> 00:47:20,130 a more active voice in the schools. 998 00:47:20,130 --> 00:47:23,280 Private schools have more flexibility in hiring 999 00:47:23,280 --> 00:47:27,450 and firing teachers, recruiting good teachers, 1000 00:47:27,450 --> 00:47:30,073 firing poorly-performing teachers. 1001 00:47:30,073 --> 00:47:32,560 (contemplative mandolin music) 1002 00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:35,380 Of course, not all private schools perform well, 1003 00:47:35,380 --> 00:47:38,340 but most studies find that they outperform 1004 00:47:38,340 --> 00:47:41,410 Chile's public schools, after controlling for differences 1005 00:47:41,410 --> 00:47:43,900 in the students and families they serve. 1006 00:47:43,900 --> 00:47:47,090 An even more interesting finding is that competition 1007 00:47:47,090 --> 00:47:49,410 from private schools actually improves 1008 00:47:49,410 --> 00:47:52,310 the performance of nearby public schools. 1009 00:47:52,310 --> 00:47:55,030 But the extent to which public schools improve 1010 00:47:55,030 --> 00:47:57,420 as a result of competition depends 1011 00:47:57,420 --> 00:48:01,250 on how tightly their budgets are tied to their enrollment. 1012 00:48:01,250 --> 00:48:04,260 All government funding for private voucher schools is based 1013 00:48:04,260 --> 00:48:08,070 on enrollment, but that's not the case in the public sector. 1014 00:48:08,070 --> 00:48:10,360 In some municipalities, public schools are 1015 00:48:10,360 --> 00:48:12,390 given substantial extra funding 1016 00:48:12,390 --> 00:48:15,000 regardless of the number of students they serve. 1017 00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:18,520 When that happens, those public schools don't improve 1018 00:48:18,520 --> 00:48:21,320 as much in response to growing competition. 1019 00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:22,300 Makes sense. 1020 00:48:22,300 --> 00:48:26,010 They don't have to improve to remain financially viable. 1021 00:48:26,010 --> 00:48:29,570 A second crucial discovery researchers have made about Chile 1022 00:48:29,570 --> 00:48:33,050 is that chains of private schools have a large advantage 1023 00:48:33,050 --> 00:48:35,850 over independent, mom 'n' pop schools. 1024 00:48:35,850 --> 00:48:39,170 On top of that, the larger school networks perform 1025 00:48:39,170 --> 00:48:41,510 even better than the smaller ones. 1026 00:48:41,510 --> 00:48:45,370 Successful private schools grow. 1027 00:48:45,370 --> 00:48:47,210 This is a very key difference 1028 00:48:47,210 --> 00:48:52,210 between the public-run system and the private-run system. 1029 00:48:52,870 --> 00:48:56,620 In a privately-run school, what we would do is take 1030 00:48:56,620 --> 00:49:01,030 advantage of that opportunity and we will expand the school. 1031 00:49:01,030 --> 00:49:05,030 We will invest to grow and from having 1032 00:49:05,030 --> 00:49:09,350 1,400 students, like here, we will go to 2,000. 1033 00:49:09,350 --> 00:49:13,690 We will purchase a site next door 1034 00:49:13,690 --> 00:49:17,510 and build a new building, you see. 1035 00:49:17,510 --> 00:49:20,460 But in the case of a public-run school, 1036 00:49:20,460 --> 00:49:23,320 who might be interested in something like that? 1037 00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:25,630 The principal doesn't have the money. 1038 00:49:27,200 --> 00:49:28,230 He cannot influence. 1039 00:49:28,230 --> 00:49:30,970 That runs through another system. 1040 00:49:30,970 --> 00:49:33,900 But this doesn't mean that 1041 00:49:35,100 --> 00:49:37,960 the public-run don't do anything. 1042 00:49:37,960 --> 00:49:39,890 You know what they do? 1043 00:49:39,890 --> 00:49:42,810 The good teachers from those schools 1044 00:49:42,810 --> 00:49:45,340 start giving private lessons. 1045 00:49:45,340 --> 00:49:49,210 So, large school like the Instituto Nacional, 1046 00:49:49,210 --> 00:49:51,390 which is a famous public school, 1047 00:49:53,150 --> 00:49:56,580 we should ask ourselves, "How come don't we have 1048 00:49:57,510 --> 00:50:01,630 "30 Institutos Nacionales 1049 00:50:01,630 --> 00:50:05,240 "all over the country, all over Santiago?" 1050 00:50:05,240 --> 00:50:07,810 Because you don't have the incentives. 1051 00:50:07,810 --> 00:50:11,800 The people who have developed and conserve 1052 00:50:11,800 --> 00:50:15,090 and run the Instituto Nacional don't have the incentives 1053 00:50:15,090 --> 00:50:19,030 to duplicate the Instituto Nacional, but they do duplicate 1054 00:50:19,030 --> 00:50:24,030 their personal earnings by giving private lessons. 1055 00:50:25,760 --> 00:50:28,020 But the research on the role of incentives 1056 00:50:28,020 --> 00:50:31,660 and entrepreneurship has not been widely discussed in Chile. 1057 00:50:31,660 --> 00:50:34,170 The public conversation here has been dominated 1058 00:50:34,170 --> 00:50:36,940 by the demands of the country's young protestors, 1059 00:50:36,940 --> 00:50:38,600 and since the protesters helped to bring 1060 00:50:38,600 --> 00:50:40,250 the current government to power, 1061 00:50:40,250 --> 00:50:43,120 its policies naturally reflect their views. 1062 00:50:43,120 --> 00:50:46,720 In the spring of 2014, the Chilean government proposed 1063 00:50:46,720 --> 00:50:49,470 banning tuition copayments by parents, 1064 00:50:49,470 --> 00:50:52,240 re-centralizing control over public schools 1065 00:50:52,240 --> 00:50:54,670 at the national level, and outlawing 1066 00:50:54,670 --> 00:50:57,530 for-profit private voucher schools. 1067 00:50:57,530 --> 00:50:59,380 Not everyone thinks that these ideas 1068 00:50:59,380 --> 00:51:01,250 have been carefully thought through. 1069 00:51:03,650 --> 00:51:04,890 People will feel the impact 1070 00:51:04,890 --> 00:51:06,540 if they do ban for-profit schools. 1071 00:51:06,540 --> 00:51:10,420 1/3 of families send their children to for-profit schools. 1072 00:51:10,420 --> 00:51:13,170 If they ban for-profit schools, one million students are 1073 00:51:13,170 --> 00:51:15,510 going to have to find a new school. 1074 00:51:15,510 --> 00:51:17,860 And I think it's unfortunate because I think, really, 1075 00:51:17,860 --> 00:51:19,510 what we need to be doing is focusing 1076 00:51:19,510 --> 00:51:22,700 on guaranteeing access to high-quality schools, 1077 00:51:22,700 --> 00:51:25,210 improving the quality of our teaching force, 1078 00:51:25,210 --> 00:51:29,040 and other reforms that are much more likely to have 1079 00:51:29,040 --> 00:51:30,740 an impact on improving the quality 1080 00:51:30,740 --> 00:51:32,600 and equity of our school system. 1081 00:51:32,600 --> 00:51:35,920 However, I think that when the politicians start to talk 1082 00:51:35,920 --> 00:51:39,490 about banning for-profit schools, 1083 00:51:39,490 --> 00:51:42,540 if you talk to school owners, they stop investing. 1084 00:51:43,840 --> 00:51:46,530 They think that they're going to lose their school. 1085 00:51:47,550 --> 00:51:50,830 We had the plan to develop and build many schools, 1086 00:51:50,830 --> 00:51:54,270 but, as you probably know, the public 1087 00:51:55,770 --> 00:51:59,380 politics and orientations in Chile 1088 00:51:59,380 --> 00:52:02,420 are not moving in that direction. 1089 00:52:02,420 --> 00:52:07,420 It's moving in the direction of more public schools. 1090 00:52:07,640 --> 00:52:10,890 We did have some sites already selected 1091 00:52:12,260 --> 00:52:16,570 to build new schools, but we have decided not to. 1092 00:52:20,630 --> 00:52:24,670 It's very hard for nonprofits to get loans 1093 00:52:24,670 --> 00:52:27,870 from the bank to kind of expand operations, 1094 00:52:27,870 --> 00:52:30,380 so nonprofit schools that don't belong 1095 00:52:30,380 --> 00:52:35,300 to a religious organization or a large foundation 1096 00:52:35,300 --> 00:52:38,980 run by a wealthy individual, it's very hard 1097 00:52:38,980 --> 00:52:41,290 for them to actually get money 1098 00:52:41,290 --> 00:52:43,490 from the bank and expand their operations. 1099 00:52:43,490 --> 00:52:45,404 (Luis speaking in foreign language) 1100 00:52:45,404 --> 00:52:47,200 Basically, the school's owner 1101 00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:49,300 that you interviewed is right. 1102 00:52:49,300 --> 00:52:50,940 Therefore, we have uncertainty. 1103 00:52:51,840 --> 00:52:55,830 Obviously, it is not just happening to this school's owner, 1104 00:52:55,830 --> 00:52:59,660 but also to all the school owners around the country, 1105 00:52:59,660 --> 00:53:01,310 who are waiting for the new policies 1106 00:53:01,310 --> 00:53:03,850 to see if they are going to keep investing. 1107 00:53:03,850 --> 00:53:06,630 Logically, if the current policies change, 1108 00:53:06,630 --> 00:53:09,260 the owners are going to stop working 1109 00:53:09,260 --> 00:53:11,780 and they are going to start selling schools. 1110 00:53:11,780 --> 00:53:15,164 In fact, there are cases where that is already happening. 1111 00:53:15,164 --> 00:53:16,330 (inspirational orchestral music) 1112 00:53:16,330 --> 00:53:18,570 We can still hope that Chile won't abandon 1113 00:53:18,570 --> 00:53:20,900 the policies that have brought it such academic 1114 00:53:20,900 --> 00:53:24,210 and economic success, but even if it does, 1115 00:53:24,210 --> 00:53:26,820 it has already taught the world a great deal 1116 00:53:26,820 --> 00:53:29,680 about replicating educational excellence. 1117 00:53:30,610 --> 00:53:32,600 What makes Chile so exciting is 1118 00:53:32,600 --> 00:53:34,360 that its most successful educators 1119 00:53:34,360 --> 00:53:36,170 are building networks of schools. 1120 00:53:36,170 --> 00:53:38,650 And the better they are, the bigger they grow. 1121 00:53:38,650 --> 00:53:41,860 Professional freedom, consumer choice, and competition 1122 00:53:41,860 --> 00:53:43,750 are having the same beneficial effect 1123 00:53:43,750 --> 00:53:46,570 in education as in winemaking. 1124 00:53:46,570 --> 00:53:49,620 The catch is that the increasingly uncertain future 1125 00:53:49,620 --> 00:53:51,740 of Chile's parental choice program 1126 00:53:51,740 --> 00:53:54,760 is discouraging the growth of school networks. 1127 00:53:55,830 --> 00:53:59,030 And we're still left with a couple of nagging questions. 1128 00:53:59,030 --> 00:54:02,620 Why do growth and quality go hand-in-hand in Chile? 1129 00:54:02,620 --> 00:54:05,490 And even if we figure that out, how do we know 1130 00:54:05,490 --> 00:54:09,040 that model could be replicated in other countries? 1131 00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:10,860 One way to answer those questions 1132 00:54:10,860 --> 00:54:13,290 would be to find that model working 1133 00:54:13,290 --> 00:54:17,133 in a totally different place, maybe somewhere like... 1134 00:54:17,133 --> 00:54:20,550 (regal orchestral music) 1135 00:54:27,428 --> 00:54:29,770 On the final episode of School Inc., 1136 00:54:29,770 --> 00:54:32,350 Andrew Coulson continues his personal exploration 1137 00:54:32,350 --> 00:54:33,830 around the globe to discover 1138 00:54:33,830 --> 00:54:36,540 the secrets to educational innovation. 1139 00:54:36,540 --> 00:54:39,300 In Sweden, lessons of the past provide a warning 1140 00:54:39,300 --> 00:54:41,820 for educational policymakers today. 1141 00:54:41,820 --> 00:54:44,440 And in India, a population explosion sparks 1142 00:54:44,440 --> 00:54:47,300 something dramatic in their educational landscape. 1143 00:54:47,300 --> 00:54:50,760 With so much at stake, can we ride the wave of innovation 1144 00:54:50,760 --> 00:54:53,250 and replicate educational excellence 1145 00:54:53,250 --> 00:54:55,997 on a scale never before imagined? 1146 00:54:55,997 --> 00:54:59,497 (upbeat orchestral music) 1147 00:55:47,370 --> 00:55:49,380 Major funding for this program 1148 00:55:49,380 --> 00:55:53,910 has been provided by Rose-Marie 1149 00:55:53,910 --> 00:55:56,650 and Jack R. Anderson Foundation, 1150 00:55:58,510 --> 00:56:00,240 Prometheus Foundation. 1151 00:56:02,720 --> 00:56:05,020 Additional funding was provided by: 1152 00:56:06,950 --> 00:56:09,150 Gleason Family Foundation, 1153 00:56:10,540 --> 00:56:13,381 The Steve and Lana Hardy Foundation. 1154 00:56:13,381 --> 00:56:16,085 (inspirational orchestral music)