Rocketship Discovery Prep and Grassroots Innovation

It isn't every morning that reading the newspaper provides inspiration and hope for a better future for our children.  I read the story about Professor Gupta's work in India first and then the article about Danner's educational model and the charter schools his company has developed. I realized that common treads run though both stories. Their overlapping focus is grass roots innovation. Neither is waiting for government or corporate solutions. They are forging head of their own initiative.

Rocketship Discovery Prep; short documentary about the school

The Washington Post's Rocketship prepares for its big launch is an in depth article about entrepreneur and educator John Danner's Rocketship Discovery Prep charter schools.  Danner is a technology multimillionaire who set out to resolve the achievement gap between poor and privileged students that dooms many students to starting out behind, never catching up and dropping out of school to the peril of our national economy.  To say nothing of the peril of our moral imperative as a civilization to educate our children!

Five years ago Danner founded charter elementary schools in San Jose confident that he had found a solution to the achievement gap. Approximately 90% of Rocketship Discovery students are eligible for free or reduced lunch (indicator of economic status) and 80% are not native English speakers. Recent test scores are indicating his students are out scoring county and state averages in California. The success of these five schools has made them the darlings of the school reform movement. He now has grand dreams of expanding his existing 5 schools to locations around the country. The big question is whether this model that is successful in a small handful of communities can go nationwide and continue that success.


Technology plays a major role in Danner's approach.  Computers address the issue of individualized programs for each student and the costs of that education.  Coming from the technology sector, Danner understands utilizing computers for tasks that require tracking individual needs and assessment.  He also has experience in the trenches as a second grade teacher. Educational technicians and computers play a major role in drilling students in an environment that can cater to their individual needs. At other times during the school day the students interact with the teachers to develop critical thinking skills. The teachers time is not used for rote skill building exercises.  This impacts on the bottom line and has proven successful based on test scores.  The model is relatively new, but it is inspiring to see wealthy individuals taking the initiative to make things better for all of us.

Rural India as I saw it years ago.

This concept of grassroots innovation was echoed by an Associated Press article Indian professor uncovers inventions in the Lynchburg News and Advance.  Professor Anil Gupta has spent over twenty years in the small villages of India looking for the inventions of the unsung geniuses among the local populations. Gupta's premise is that the most exciting and powerful ideas for fighting poverty don't come from research by large corporations but come from ordinary people doing what they need to do to survive. 


Most of his discoveries relate to agriculture, such as a more productive strain of peppers or a hollow spear that pokes a hole in the ground as it drops a seed.  However not all. Professor Gupta has documented over 25,000 inventions.  At the very least the ideas are shared with other villagers. Other inventions are capitalized for further development and the potential of making it to the marketplace.


These are exceptional stories and I love starting my day inspired and thankful that men and women "out there" are not sitting around waiting for answers.