Press "Enter" to skip to content

Teachers Erin Whalen and Kari Croft Win $10 Million Prize to Start School for Homeless and Foster Youth

Los Angeles educators Kari Croft and Erin Whalen have won $10 million to start their own school, courtesy of a nationwide competition funded by Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs.
Los Angeles educators Kari Croft and Erin Whalen have won $10 million to start their own school, courtesy of a nationwide competition funded by Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

article by Joy Resmovits via latimes.com
Instead of going to school, school will come to you.
That’s the prize-winning idea behind RISE High, a proposed Los Angeles charter high school designed to serve homeless and foster children whose educations are frequently disrupted.
Los Angeles educators Kari Croft, 29, and Erin Whalen, 26, who came up with the idea, won $10 million in XQ: The Super School Project, a high school redesign competition funded by Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs.
RISE is one of 10 $10-million winning school projects nationwide. Winners receive the prize money over five years.
XQ officials, in announcing the winners on Wednesday, described RISE as a “completely new” model. The idea is to have three to four physical sites sharing space with existing nonprofits as well as an online learning system. A bus will also be turned into a “mobile resource center,” to bring Wi-Fi, a washer/dryer and homework help to the neediest students.
That way, if a student suddenly moves or can’t get to school, he or she will have various options to get tutoring or the day’s lesson.  “The model exists outside the traditional confines of space and time,” Croft said.
RISE, which stands for Revolutionary Individualized Student Experience, is in its preliminary stages. It will be a charter school, but the staff is still figuring out governance structure, facilities and partnerships. As of now, the plan is to open with a small group of students next fall, but eventually to serve between 500 and 550.
The new school, called RISE, is designed around the needs of homeless and foster youth, 87% of whom drop out of L.A. Unified Schools. The new school will be integrated into the social services network.
The new school, called RISE, is designed around the needs of homeless and foster youth, 87% of whom drop out of L.A. Unified Schools. The new school will be integrated into the social services network. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

Whalen came to education from a different perspective: He grew up in Santa Monica and went to the Garden of Angels School, a private school with no desks or large classes. He wanted more people — particularly children of color — to have similar positive experiences, so he became a teacher, working in Miami and now teaching seventh-grade nonfiction at KIPP Sol Academy, an East Los Angeles charter.
The two met while training teachers for Teach for America.  “We started to realize that … the traditional school setting that we were both working in was really limiting,” Croft said. She saw students with housing instability fall more and more behind because they couldn’t get to school every day. “They were getting penalized for missing the full range of services they needed,” she said.
This year, Croft is piloting the academic portion of the RISE program in a small classroom at Da Vinci’s Hawthorne campus.
Students receive personalized plans detailing what they need to learn. Tests focus on presenting skills, as opposed to pencil-and-paper exams. Students can earn credits as soon as they’ve mastered a unit. RISE will operate on a year-round schedule to accommodate those who have to work or care for their families.
The project’s founders say they hope to cap student-teacher ratios at 25 to 1. Teachers will be trained to help students who have experienced trauma. RISE also plans to work with social service organizations to help students access healthcare, fitness, food, arts programming and legal services.
To read full article, go to: http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-xq-winner-jobs-rise-20160912-snap-story.html


Discover more from Good Black News

Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.

Be First to Comment

  1. W. Keith Sewell W. Keith Sewell September 16, 2016

    A giant step in the right direction. Kudos to RISE and these two extraordinary teachers. Let’s upgrade the educational paradigm our public school system currently prescribes to; One that was designed back in the 60’s, in a non-digital era.

  2. Lorrian Ippoliti Lorrian Ippoliti September 16, 2016

    I’m sitting at my desk in tears reading this article. What an amazing concept and two fantastic educators!

  3. Bob Klahn Bob Klahn September 17, 2016

    This is the first charter school of any kind I believe I could support. All other charter schools run on the theory that you can improve the country’s educational system by destroying the public schools.
    Of course, once the charter schools have to take all the districts students, without the option of booting them out if they don’t perform, the become the public schools.
    Being focused on homeless and foster youth this school has a mission that truly does need to be met, and does not allow for selective admission of the elite, but dedication to all students.
    Now that’s how education should be done.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *