Grantee Profile: Aspire Public Schools

There’s a favorite season for the founders of Aspire Public Schools, a leading charter school management organization, and it’s definitely spring. That’s when it becomes clear just how far students have come as they prepare to walk down the graduation aisle and into a future that includes college.

Most students in Aspire’s California elementary and secondary schools live in poverty and many grow up in communities that are filled with crime and violence. Yet, since its founding in 1999, Aspire has helped thousands of low-income, immigrant, and minority students beat the odds. The 6,300 students enrolled in the Aspire network are often the first in their families to even consider college, let alone get accepted to top schools such as the University of California system.

Since opening its first charter school in Stockton, Aspire has grown to 21 schools in the Bay Area, Central Valley, and Los Angeles and plans to grow to 75 schools in the coming years. For the past five years, Aspire schools have consistently exceeded state targets for yearly growth on California’s Academic Performance Index (API). Two schools earned a prestigious state education award for two consecutive years for doubling the achievement targets set for them by the state. From 2007 to 2008, the average API growth for Aspire schools was double the average growth in schools statewide.

All Aspire schools are public, open-enrollment schools with waiting lists. Schools offer a more intimate setting--elementary schools cap out at 360 students, secondary schools at 450—and smaller class sizes so that students get more individual attention. “I absolutely think you can’t ignore the importance of making schools personalized,” says Don Shalvey, Aspire’s co-founder and CEO. “Kids have to be well-known.”

On average, students have roughly one hour more of instruction time each day and shorter holiday breaks than their peers in traditional California public schools. Students also receive 10 more days of instruction per year, some of them on Saturdays, when parents can attend classes with their children.

College for Certain

A big reason for Aspire’s success is its relentless focus–starting in kindergarten–with the idea that students will go to college, no matter the obstacles. The school motto is “College for Certain.” Before students can even diagram a sentence, they attend regular forums on the college experience. At the high school level, Aspire follows an early college high school model, with students taking college courses beginning in ninth grade. At first, the courses are offered at the students’ high schools, but eventually students study college coursework on college campuses.

In Aspire’s first four graduating classes, 95 percent of seniors were accepted to four-year colleges. That’s a major achievement considering that the college graduation rates in these students’ communities are typically below 5 percent.

“I’ve never been prouder than when I attend our high school graduations,” says Shalvey. “You see this great group of young adults. Few, if any of them, thought they were college material when they started. And now they’re going on to college.”

The Cycle of Inquiry

Professional development also is a key focus at Aspire, with new teachers assigned mentor coaches. Coaches are so intimately involved that they sometimes wear wired earplugs in the classroom, providing tips like an NFL coach does with his quarterback.

Jody Sampley, a Harvard University graduate and seventh grade humanities teacher and teacher coach, has been with Aspire since 2004. She says she wouldn’t want to be with any other school system. A big attraction is the reflective nature of the work, where teachers constantly study their methods and analyze student test scores and performance data to hone in on problem areas. “They [the leadership at Aspire] just really hear and listen to our feedback. It’s just a very, very purposeful and reflective staff.”

That atmosphere is fueled by Aspire’s “cycle of inquiry,” which demands that everyone in the system–from administrators and teachers to parents and students–reflect on what’s working and what’s not. Much like a successful business, the system allows concerns to be aired and responded to more quickly, Shalvey says.

A Message of Hope

Aspire’s approach, in the end, is transforming lives. For students from low-income families that have no experience with college, Aspire offers a message of hope that can completely change the course of a family’s future.

Take Ivan Zamora Diaz, a 17-year-old senior at Lionel Wilson College Prep in Oakland. When his father was incarcerated about 10 years ago, Ivan’s mother, a native of Mexico with a fifth grade education, was forced to work two jobs and go back to school while raising her three young children. Ivan, the oldest, felt an intense responsibility. At Wilson Prep, counselors and teachers both pushed and supported him, becoming a second family over time.

Zamora Diaz says his family is still suffering the fallout from his father’s incarceration. However, there’s a new sense of hope now because of the opportunities Ivan has received through Wilson Prep. Ivan now ranks near the top of his class and has earned almost two years worth of college credits. He will be the first in his family to attend college next year and hopes to attend the University of California, Berkeley or Yale University and study bioengineering.

“I live in a community where someone can choose a path filled with danger, drugs, alcohol, or crime--and sometimes a combination of all paths,” Ivan wrote in a college application essay. But with support from teachers and counselors at Wilson Prep, he opted for a different route to a better life. “There are too many people counting on me now,” he said. “And I have no intention of letting them down.”