Waiting for “Superman”, a documentary currently angling for an Academy Award nomination, puts much of the blame for the poor state of education in the United States on bad teachers and on teacher unions. But it’s possible that teachers could be more of the solution than the problem.

 

Using a cooperative model similar to those utilized by doctors and lawyers, educators have banded together in select locations around the country to form teacher-run schools. The idea was born in Henderson, Minnesota, in 1994, where Minnesota New Country School was established. In time, a cooperative called Edvisions was set up which has helped form a total of 12 teacher-run schools in the state, and 35 more around the country. Edvisions schools feature no principals, more generalists than specialists among instructors and peer review when it comes to grading teacher performance.

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

Can Teachers Run Schools? (by Tom Vander Ark, Huffington Post)

Can Teachers Run Their Own Schools?: Tales from the Isles of Teacher Cooperatives (by Charles Taylor Kerchner and Laura Steen Mulfinger, Claremont Graduate University) (pdf)