SPREADING SUCCESS

Organizations Bring Model Schools to More Students

We have set ambitious national goals for improving college-ready graduation rates—increasing the number of young people who graduate high schools with the skills and knowledge necessary for college and work—and we cannot do it alone. Consequently, we have sought out and engaged hundreds of partners in dozens of cities.

Some of our most-successful partners to date are new school developers that work through charter management organizations (CMOs). CMOs help charter schools replicate their successful approach at one school throughout a larger network of schools that share common principles and designs.

We have invested more than $128 million in CMOs to support 365 high schools around the country. The first cohorts of students in our CMO-supported schools have outpaced their district peers in achievement tests and in measures of their overall engagement in academics. Furthermore, the schools have graduation rates of more than 90 percent.

In September, we expanded our investments in CMOs through a grant to Green Dot Public Schools to build five new schools in Los Angeles. The Green Dot network already includes five schools, and they’ve achieved impressive results: 95 percent of Green Dot’s students graduate, and 75 percent go straight to four-year colleges. These percentages are much higher than those at comparable public schools in the city. The success of Green Dot’s students is based on the model’s six design elements, including a college preparatory curriculum for all students, safety, and greater parental participation.

We also made a second investment in the NewSchools Venture Fund, which incubates CMOs as they solidify their school designs and begin to replicate their first schools. Thus far, low-income students in NewSchools Venture Fund-supported charter schools are outperforming comparable students in their districts. On average, low-income high school students in those CMOs score 36 percent higher in math and 52 percent higher in reading than their peers. With our newest grant, NewSchools Venture Fund will support up to 20 school developers who will create nearly 200 schools serving 100,000 students in cities across the country.

When we began this work seven years ago, only about 50 percent of low-income and minority students graduated from high school, and only about 10 percent earned college degrees. We are encouraged that, after decades of stagnation, American graduation and college-readiness rates are improving, in part because of the hard work of grantees like Green Dot and NewSchools Venture Fund.