A 360 Approach

For-profit companies are making good private schools available even to Africa’s poor. They can do it – and can do it on an enormous scale – by hiring neighborhood residents to teach, and scripting out every word of every lesson on an e-reader.

As kids and teachers head back to school, we wanted to turn away from questions about politics and unions and money and all the regular school stuff people argue about, and turn to something more optimistic — an emerging theory about what to teach kids.

A overview of 2014's Fixes columns - connecting the dots between 60 or so ways that people are trying to change the world.

Colombia has attempted to decrease murder and homicide rates by setting up curfews for teenagers, forcing bars to close earlier in the evening, and creating gun laws to prevent the carrying of weapons. As a result of this epidemiological, data-driven approach, along with other governmental factors, the homicide rate has decreased significantly in most of the cities in which it was implemented.

A 2006 report noted that Ohio and Kentucky were lagging behind other states in college attainment rates - community leaders were concerned about remaining competitive in a global economy. A group of leaders in the Cincinnati area are improving school systems by using data for progress, not punishment.

Research in the U.S. suggests that a small class size is not enough but in combination with teacher training it leads to a change in achievement.

Preschoolers in the U.S. who misbehave are increasingly being expelled. In Connecticut, trained counselors educated teachers about how to deal with emotionally traumatized kids which reduced expulsions.

As Vermont struggles to create legislation regulating school district management and financial efficiency, the state looks to models in Maine and New Hampshire for guidance. In Maine, school districts have tried to save money and resources through consolidation; in New Hampshire, officials have reworked the way schooling is financed altogether.

York schools are considering changing public schools into charter schools, following the example of New Orleans and Michigan, in order to help their crumbling school system. The privatization of these schools can help the facilities become more financially stable, in turn preventing school closures and instability for their students.

A program in Philadelphia is pioneering new ways to treat the urban wounded. By seeing it as PTSD, and not pointing fingers, the city is using mental health tools to decrease violence and heal communities.