Innovative Educator Network
Launched in summer 2013, The Fund’s Innovative Educator Network (The Network) unites high-performing educators willing to re-think the way they use talent, technology and time to transform student learning citywide. The Network consists of several program elements:
- Design Studios, in which CPS teachers and principals receive an introduction to design thinking and problem solving in education.
- The Summer Design Program (SDP), in which school-based teams of a principal and two or three teachers engage in a series of workshops designed to clarify a school-based academic challenge, identify new or known solutions in Chicago and elsewhere, and plan a classroom, grade-level or school-wide implementation.
- Breakthrough Schools: Chicago, a $2 million competition for school designers and other entrepreneurial educators to develop and launch next-generation schools in Chicago that provide personalized instruction.
- The Chicago Principals Fellowship, a rigorous, yearlong program designed to support and retain top public school principals by providing what many are asking for: differentiated professional development opportunities that help them continue to grow professionally in the leadership of their schools, teachers and students.
- Case Studies and Reports, through which we provide examples of good practice within Chicago’s public schools by profiling principals with timely, innovative solutions to complex challenges.