The School Factory

The School Factory is a non-profit organization based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its mission is "to bring the entire community into its schools, and bring the entire school into its community."

The School Factory is a voluntary think-tank dedicated to emerging public education from community participation. It is an incubator for the development of community-owned and operated learning centers and learning environments. They provide leadership, infrastructure, and training to local community leaders who implement their center following a self-constructed design plan. The community center then becomes the backbone for the community's transformation. Each center is unique, but inherits the best practices of every other center participating in the program through advanced social technologies. This diversity enriches the iterative and incremental growth of the program, causing its organic spread throughout the global community.

Programs

*Bucketworks. This organization calls itself "a health and fitness center for your brain". It offers many services, focusing on art, theater, dance, technology, media, business and leadership, and serves as a "co-working" location where community members can learn from each other by being in the same physical environment

*The Young Women's Institute for Global Studies is a new and progressive high school for young women proposed by Virginia Cassel and James Carlson. They've received a $50,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through the Technical Assistance and Leadership Center (TALC) in Milwaukee, to research and develop the school concept and plan. The school's mission is "To equip young women with the skills to transform an unstable world into one in which peace, justice, and equity are the norm."

*Emergency Digital creates Wiki- and Drupal-based websites for individuals and organizations that encourage community collaboration. It was one of the first ideas born from the Bucketworks incubator.

*Working Innovations works with groups and teams from both the for-profit and non-profit worlds to create experiences known as "Value Gatherings," which bring out the inherent values of team members and put them to work for the team.

*Milwaukee Spotlight Student Film Festival, whose mission is to celebrate and showcase the achievements of young film visionaries with an annual film festival and awards ceremony.

External links

* [http://www.schoolfactory.org School Factory homepage]
* [http://www.bucketworks.org Bucketworks]
* [http://www.tywigs.org The Young Women's Institute for Global Studies]
* [http://www.emergencydigital.com Emergency Digital]
* [http://www.workinginnovations.com Working Innovations]
* [http://www.milwaukeespotlightfilms.org Milwaukee Spotlight Student Film Festival]
*http://www.schoolfactory.org/TheYoungWomensInstituteForGlobalStudies/PressRelease
*http://onmilwaukee.com/family/articles/tywigs.html

Similar organizations

*United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural organization (UNESCO)
* http://www.unesco.org