The Chicago International Charter School (CICS) Irving Park's middle school is one of 130 schools nationwide piloting the Summit Learning Program (SLP), developed--and offered entirely free--by Summit Public Schools, a high-performing charter network based in California. Summit's eight schools, two of them in Washington State, are known for an…

Ninety-five percent of students at Redwood City's Hoover School, in San Mateo County, California, come from low-income and working-class Latino families, and nearly all start school as English language learners (ELLs). The elementary and middle school piloted the Sobrato Early Academic Language (SEAL) program in 2009 in hopes of raising reading…

This article describes an Oakland Unified schools program of "blended learning" that is designed to reach students who are academically all over the map. Blended learning combines brick-and-mortar schooling with online education "with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace" of learning. The program…

Named Charter Leader of the Year in 2010 by the California Charter Schools Association, Diane Tavenner, CEO of Summit Public Schools, is responsible for the generation of multiple transformative schools and a radically different teaching model for Summit. Summit's first charter high school, Summit Prep, launched in 2003, was featured in the film…