A list of seven ideas for improving student achievement that require no funding is welcome news amid the doom and gloom of state budget impacts on K-12 education.

Washington Post education columnist Jay Matthews suggests devoting more attention to reading, increasing parent-teacher and student-teacher communications (more positive encouragement all around) and unleashing charter schools.  Of course the latter would apply only to the 40 states that allow charter schools, not Washington and the other nine states that maintain their quaint opposition to innovative school models.

On the other hand, the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristoff believes that increased funding for and innovations in K-12 education should be the country’s number one priority.   His solution is increased funding coupled with reforming teacher evaluation and certification, increased pay for the more effective teachers, and providing disadvantaged kids with a higher number of effective teachers.  Kristoff believes “…the existing national school system is broken and we’re not trying hard enough to fix it”.

These opinions, along with those of President Obama, reflect a growing consensus that the “business-as-usual” approach to improving our schools cannot continue, and a growing frustration with those in education who want only more funding to maintain the status quo.

Read about a local academy and its parent foundation who ARE breaking the mold, enjoying success, and have big plans for scaling up their work.