A group of Madison parents and educators who say they're frustrated by larger class sizes and the emphasis on test scores in the public schools plan to start a new private high school next year.
The Madison Expeditionary Learning Academy is modeled on similar schools in other states and a charter school in Kenosha that allow students to learn through projects, field work and lessons that integrate art, engineering, mathematics, science and technology.
The school plans to feature an engineering lab where students can design and fabricate products, such as a piece of furniture. The idea is to adapt school to what adults experience in the modern work world, said Michelle Sharpswain, who is leading the development of the school.
"Our goal with this high school is for kids to never need to say, 'When will I ever need to know this?'" Sharpswain said.
The goal is for the school to start with about 40 ninth-graders next year and eventually enroll 320 students in grades 9-12. Tuition will be in the range of $10,000 to $15,000 a year, slightly more than Edgewood High School but less than Madison Country Day School.
If it enrolls that many students, it would be the second-largest private high school in Dane County behind Edgewood. Abundant Life Christian School with about 60 high school students is currently the second-largest, according to data reported to the Department of Public Instruction.
Organizers are still trying to find a location for the school, preferably close to Downtown, Sharpswain said.
Sharpswain held meetings in spring 2010 to find out what another high school in the Madison area might look like. Participants wanted a rigorous, college-preparatory curriculum, a highly qualified staff who like teenagers, and subject matter that connects to the real world, among other things.
The school's project-based learning model would be similar to public charter high schools in the Monona Grove and Middleton-Cross Plains school districts and to one set to open next fall in Verona. Unlike those schools, however, its "expeditionary learning" approach is based on a national model developed in 1992 and now used in more than 150 schools in 30 states. Fewer than 10 of those are private schools, Sharpswain said.
Barbara Perkins, whose daughter might attend the new school next fall, has home-schooled her three children because she said the public schools don't provide enough individualized instruction. Her daughter, who wants to be a writer, is interested in the ability to develop her own senior year project at the school.
"It puts more responsibility and more real-world experience to the kids to be able … to articulate a project, being able to complete a project and being able to work across age-group teams of people," Perkins said. "Sometimes school doesn't address those needs."
The Madison School District has been grappling with how to meet the demand for alternative education models. Teachers at Toki Middle School have been developing an expeditionary learning model at the school for the past two years and this fall petitioned the School Board to convert the school into a charter school. According to their application, schools in New York using expeditionary learning models made progress in raising achievement levels of low-income and minority students.
The district advised the board to hold off on considering the application until its charter school policy is rewritten, said Joe Gothard, assistant superintendent for secondary schools.
Gothard acknowledged class sizes and testing can be a challenge for public schools given budget constraints and mandated curriculum, but he said Madison prides itself on innovation.
"We have innovative teachers who are practicing different ways of meeting our student needs all the time," Gothard said. "The notion of a rectangular classroom with a teacher delivering a lecture at a chalkboard is a thing of the past."
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has long been the core of customer service, but for many years it was overlooked and misunderstood.
The term CRM was introduced in the 1990s, but was first known as ‘database marketing’ in the 1980s.
“In the early 90s, CRM was painted with a pretty bad brush, companies didn’t realise the value of the what it could do,” says Stephen Duncan, product manager retail and CRM at Pronto software. “It was seen as cumbersome and very labour intensive.”
But as technology has advanced, so too has CRM, and retailers are beginning to realise its benefits and reap the rewards.
Duncan believes the future of retailing lies in CRM, and retailers having a strong omni-channel presence.
“I see CRM starting to become more of a core competency rather than a fringe offering. CRM is part of the backbone for omni-channel because that’s where you are capturing the data about the customer,” says Duncan.
Today, companies can recognise, track, and store customer’s shopping patterns and spending behaviours, allowing them to target market customers specifically.
Loyalty programs have seen a boom over the past decade, with Flybuys still one of the biggest since it launched in 1994.
“Anybody can sell stuff, anybody can fine tune their supply chain, bring in new products, and decrease their costs. But if retailers don’t have a loyalty program, or are not reaching out to their customers specifically, then another retailer will, and they’ll be left behind,” says Duncan.
“With a more targeted focus, more people will come into stores and spend more money. If you really want to keep up with the market today, then you have to know your customers,” he adds.
Smartphone technology has helped advance target marketing, with retailers now able to provide instant offers to customers with just the click of a button.
As we find ourselves in a new year full of possibilities, now is a good time to reflect on events that impacted our industry in 2012 and how you should plan your digital marketing efforts throughout 2013.
The continuing transformation of travel consumers into multi-device and multi-channel users, the explosive growth of the mobile and tablet channels, the proliferation of new social media platforms, and ongoing Google algorithm updates are just some of the topics that made headlines last year.
This is also the perfect time to review your business goals and objectives. What did you achieve in 2012 that you would like to improve upon this year? What business goals did you not achieve? Were you distracted by the next big thing and as a result lost sight of hotel digital marketing fundamentals? Which digital channels and formats most effectively reach today’s hyper-interactive travel consumers and generate the highest ROIs? What strategy should hoteliers adopt to stay competitive in this increasingly convoluted digital world we all live in?
The 2013 Top Ten New Year’s Digital Marketing Strategy Resolutions, presented by HeBS Digital for the 13th consecutive year, answers these questions and provides guidance on what hoteliers should do to succeed in the year ahead. With an improved outlook for the industry, technological advances, and the usage of mobile devices growing exponentially, opportunities for incremental revenues abound.
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