According to Superintendent Wendy Shannon, nobody in the Byron Public Schools district set out to flip their classrooms, but necessity became the mother of invention. The district, in suburban Rochester, was due for a math textbook revision. Teachers already knew the old math texts were poor matches for the state's new math standards, and that a curriculum update was needed. But they faced a huge problem.

"With two failed operating levy referendum issues and a bad economy, we'd already had to cut $1.2 million from Byron's school budget," Shannon says. "We literally had no money for new textbooks."

The teachers came up with a radical idea: They'd create their own math curriculum. Byron High Principal Michael Duffy questioned each teacher privately to make sure they really were up for such an ambitious task. Satisfied that they were, he gave them his blessing.

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By Kathleen Fulton
THE Journal