Alt.School

The $100m is for the entire alt.school project, which includes 7 spaces in CA (2 pending opening). I appreciate some of the ideas they're trying (Khan's on teaching, for example), but the NYPost article makes it sound a bit precious. It's another private school, and we'll see if they can crank out kids with real educations, or just more special snowflakes.

The one thing about these alternative schools that makes it hard to really critique their successes is that they have selective admissions. When you cherry pick your students (and their parents) you can pick kids who will work out well in the program. Half the work is the admissions process. Not many of these schools start our with a bunch of mediocre students and unavailable or inflexible parents and then turn them into engaged academic stars.

That said, the whole chrome book and video surveillance aspect of their curriculum turned me off. Their technology integration sounded like it was meant to reduce staffing costs and replace teachers.