Eric.ed.gov – Rocketship Education: Pioneering Charter Network Innovates Again, Bringing Tech Closer to Teachers. An Opportunity Culture Case Study

When Rocketship Education, a pioneering, rapidly expanding charter school network, looked at its results, it could have rested on its laurels. With seven schools in California together ranking as the top public school system for low-income elementary students, Rocketship had proof that its blended-learning model–combining online learning with face-to-face instruction–works. But next year, Rocketship leaders will fix a disconnect they see between what happens in the online learning lab and the classroom, to give teachers more control over the students’ digital learning and further individualize the teaching. Instead of reporting to a separate computer lab, fourth- and fifth-graders will move within an open, flexible classroom between digital learning and in-person instruction, with those moves based on their individual needs and the roles that specific teachers are best suited to play–similar to the Opportunity Culture Time-Technology Swap-Flex model and the Role Specialization model. This case study looks at what Rocketship has done so far to achieve its top results, and where it’s headed. In 2011-12, 82 percent of Rocketship’s students scored “proficient” or “advanced” on the California Standards Test for math, compared with 87 percent of students in California’s high-income districts, and far higher than in low-income schools. Rocketship schools aim for an average of 1.5 years of student learning growth annually to achieve these outcomes with so many students who start out behind. [Jiye Grace Han, Bryan C. Hassel, and Emily Ayscue Hassel contributed to this case study.]