Ideas from elsewhere: Education

The Small Schools Residency; Oakland, Calif.

The residency was founded in 2005 and is a partnership between the Oakland Small Schools Foundation and the Nonprofit and Public Management Program at the University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

The foundation is a nonprofit group founded in 2003 by principals and business leaders from around Oakland.

Its goal is to strengthen Oakland's small public schools, and it works toward that goal through a number of programs, including helping the schools find funding and do strategic planning.

Another program is a six-month residency that allows students earning their master's degrees in business administration or public policy to work directly for a principal on a project.

The aim is for participants to learn about and contribute to school reform, while sharing knowledge that could help the school's business and management operations.

Some participants have gone on to work in the education field after earning their master's degrees.

For more information, see www.smallschoolsfoundation.org.