Vision
We envision a world in which all children receive the nurturance,
guidance, and resources they need to reach their fullest potential.
Mission
Our mission is to create and sustain equitable, intellectually vibrant,
personalized schools and to make such schools the norm of American
public education.
Theory of Action
We believe that the CES Common Principles - emphasizing equity,
personalization, and intellectual vibrancy - serve as a guide to
creating schools that will nurture students to reach their fullest
potential. We believe that to change the public school system, we
need to create and sustain large numbers of individual schools that
fully enact CES principles - schools that can serve as models to
other schools and demonstrations to the public that it is possible
to re-imagine education.
In addition to the individual schools, we also need to create the
conditions under which whole systems of schools will become
equitable, personalized, and intellectually vibrant. To affect these
whole systems, we seek to support regional centers to develop the
capacity to aid schools and to influence school districts and states.
And we seek to influence wider public opinion and policy-makers to
create policy conditions conducive to the creation and sustenance
of schools that enact CES principles.
To
these ends, we have established four organizational goals:
Grow. We seek to increase the number of schools that adopt
the CES mission of becoming intellectually vibrant, personalized,
and equitable through enacting the CES Common Principles. We seek
to increase the number of regional centers that have the capacity
to support schools in this work.
Improve. We seek to improve the work of the schools that
have already dedicated themselves to more completely enacting CES
principles, with particular focus on creating more equitable schools.
We seek to improve the work of the centers that support schools in
our network.
Exchange. We seek to improve the dissemination and exchange
of knowledge and practices that enhance schools' capacity to become
more intellectually vibrant, personalized, and equitable. We seek
to improve the dissemination and exchange of ideas that enhance centers'
capacity to support schools.
Influence. We seek to influence public policy and public
opinion to create a policy environment which is more conducive to
the creation of equitable, personalized, intellectually vibrant schools.
Principles
CES schools share a common set of beliefs about the purpose and
practice of schooling, known as the CES
Common Principles. Based on decades of research and practice,
the principles call for the creation of:
- Personalized instruction to address individual needs
and interests
- Small schools and classrooms, where teachers and
student know each other well and work in an atmosphere
of trust and high expectations
- Multiple assessments based on performance of authentic
tasks
- Democratic and equitable school policies and practice
- Close partnerships with the school's community
The Coalition sees school reform as an inescapably local phenomenon,
the outcome of groups of people working together, building a shared
vision and drawing on the community's strengths, history, and local
flavor. The Common Principles are meant to guide the school in setting
priorities and designing practice, as each school develops its own
programs, suited to its particular students, faculty, and community.
CES regional centers and CES National seek to support schools in
this work. For more on the programs and activities of CES National,  .
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