The inspiration for this timely book is the pressing need for fresh ideas and innovations in U.S. higher education. At the heart of the volume is the realization that higher education must evolve in fundamental ways if it is to respond to changing professional, economic, and technological circumstances, and if it is to successfully reach and prepare a vast population of students—traditional and nontraditional alike—for success in the coming decades. This collection of provocative articles by leading scholars, writers, innovators, and university administrators examines the current higher education environment and its chronic resistance to change; the rise of for-profit universities; the potential future role of community colleges in a significantly revised higher education realm; and the emergence of online learning as a means to reshape teaching and learning and to reach new consumers of higher education. Combining trenchant critiques of current conditions with thought-provoking analyses of possible reforms and new directions, Reinventing Higher Education is an ambitious exploration of possible future directions for revitalized American colleges and universities.

Institutions of higher education are constantly facing economic challenges to their survival. Nowhere are the challenges greater than in small private colleges and universities across America. None of these colleges can assume that its stability is assured in perpetuity. No thriving college is immune from unforeseen disaster, just as no struggling college is irreversibly destined for closure. This issue presents stories of colleges in crisis and considers what makes the difference between a college that closes and one that nearly closes but manages to remain open. It offers a range of revealing, hard-won experiences of college presidents who led their campuses in times of crises. Some colleges found no way out, and their stories offer lessons that are just as valuable as the stories of colleges that reinvented themselves and survived. This is the 156th volume of the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series New Directions for Higher Education. Addressed to higher education decision makers on all kinds of campuses, it provides timely information and authoritative advice about major issues and administrative problems confronting every institution.

The Next Century Schools program was launched by the RJR Nabisco Foundation to fund bold ideas for fundamental change in public education. This is the landmark book about that program and the schools that have participated. Now is the time for action, and this book is about one thing only--solutions.

Based on twenty case studies of universities worldwide, and on a survey administered to leaders in 101 universities, this open access book shows that, amidst the significant challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, universities found ways to engage with schools to support them in sustaining educational opportunity. In doing so, they generated considerable innovation, which reinforced the integration of the research and outreach functions of the university. The evidence suggests that universities are indeed open systems, in interaction with their environment, able to discover changes that can influence them and to change in response to those changes. They are also able, in the success of their efforts to mitigate the educational impact of the pandemic, to create better futures, as the result of the innovations they can generate. This challenges the view of universities as "ivory towers" being isolated from the surrounding environment and detached from local problems. As they reached out to schools, universities not only generated clear and valuable innovations to sustain educational opportunity and to improve it, this process also contributed to transform internal university processes in ways that enhanced their own ability to deliver on the third mission of outreach

From David Osborne, the author of Reinventing Government--a biting analysis of the failure of America's public schools and a comprehensive plan for revitalizing American education. In Reinventing America's Schools, David Osborne, one of the world's foremost experts on public sector reform, offers a comprehensive analysis of the charter school movements and presents a theory that will do for American schools what his New York Times bestseller Reinventing Government did for public governance in 1992. In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the city got an unexpected opportunity to recreate their school system from scratch. The state's Recovery School District (RSD), created to turn around failing schools, gradually transformed all of its New Orleans schools into charter schools, and the results are shaking the very foundations of American education. Test scores, school performance scores, graduation and dropout rates, ACT scores, college-going rates, and independent studies all tell the same story: the city's RSD schools have tripled their effectiveness in eight years. Now other cities are following suit, with state governments reinventing failing schools in Newark, Camden, Memphis, Denver, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Oakland. In this book, Osborne uses compelling stories from cities like New Orleans and lays out the history and possible future of public education. Ultimately, he uses his extensive research to argue that in today's world, we should treat every public school like a charter school and grant them autonomy, accountability, diversity of school designs, and parental choice.

Since A Nation at Risk was published in 1983, there has been widespread recognition that public education is failing in the U.S. Numerous expensive reforms have been attempted to no avail, and costs have increased dramatically. Furthermore, economic austerity requires educational systems to do more with less. This book presents convincing evidence that paradigm change – such as the change of lighting systems from the candle to the light bulb – is the only way to significantly improve student learning and simultaneously lower costs. The authors provide a thought-provoking vision of the new paradigm, including a new brain-based pedagogy, a new professional role for teachers, a new central role for technology, and even a new more empowered role for students and parents. The authors also describe three examples – a school, a school district, and a school model – that have implemented many features of the new paradigm, along with evidence of their effectiveness. Finally, this book describes ways we can transform our Industrial-Age school systems to the new paradigm, including ways our state and federal governments can help.

A heated debate is raging over our nation’s public schools and how they should be reformed, with proposals ranging from imposing national standards to replacing public education altogether with a voucher system for private schools. Combining decades of experience in education, the authors propose an innovative approach to solving the problems of our school system and find a middle ground between these extremes. Reinventing Public Education shows how contracting would radically change the way we operate our schools, while keeping them public and accessible to all, and making them better able to meet standards of achievement and equity. Using public funds, local school boards would select private providers to operate individual schools under formal contracts specifying the type and quality of instruction. In a hands-on, concrete fashion, the authors provide a thorough explanation of the pros and cons of school contracting and how it would work in practice. They show how contracting would free local school boards from operating schools so they can focus on improving educational policy; how it would allow parents to choose the best school for their children; and, finally, how it would ensure that schools are held accountable and academic standards are met. While retaining a strong public role in education, contracting enables schools to be more imaginative, adaptable, and suited to the needs of children and families. In presenting an alternative vision for America’s schools, Reinventing Public Education is too important to be ignored.