Uncommon Schools: Redefining Urban Public Education

For sixteen years, Uncommon Schools has been redefining what is possible in urban public education - starting and running outstanding public charter schools that close the achievement gap and prepare low-income students to enter, succeed in, and graduate from college. We started small, opening North Star Academy Charter School with 72 fifth-grade students in Newark in 1997. Two years later, Roxbury Preparatory Charter School in Boston welcomed its first class of sixth-graders. This fall, nearly 10,000 students entered our classrooms in our 38 schools across five cities: Boston, Newark, New York City, Rochester, and Troy. We have grown dramatically since those first years - Uncommon is now larger than 94% of public school districts nationwide and is one of the largest charter management organizations in the country.

But growth is only positive if it means more kids are getting access to an outstanding education - which is why I am so proud to say that Uncommon is proving it IS possible to run great schools at scale. This fall, CREDO - an independent research organization at Stanford - released a study highlighting Uncommon as proof that the achievement gap can be closed, finding specifically that:

• Uncommon low-income students performed so well in math and reading that the effects of being at an Uncommon school "completely cancel out the negative effect associated with being a student in poverty."
• Low-income students who attend an Uncommon school on average grow as much or more than their non-low-income peers attending traditional public schools.
• In math, students of color who attend an Uncommon school had on average more significant academic growth than white students at traditional public schools.
• Our special education students experienced academic growth almost as strong as general education students in traditional public schools.

These results are a reflection of the incredibly hard work our scholars and their teachers do every day in every Uncommon school. We felt grateful to be honored for this hard work this summer when we received the 2013 Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools, which recognizes "the public charter management organization that has demonstrated the most outstanding overall student performance and improvement in the nation in recent years while reducing achievement gaps for low-income students and students of color."

Just as importantly, Uncommon is demonstrating the financial viability of our efforts. Every one of our schools is designed to operate on public per-pupil funding once it reaches full enrollment. Today, 24 of our 38 schools are operating on public funding alone, with another seven slated to achieve financial sustainability next year. As a result of this disciplined financial management, we are able to leverage and target our philanthropic dollars strategically. Citi's support and other private donations help fund each school's start-up years, the purchase of new buildings as we expand, and allow us to pursue special initiatives as we tackle our biggest challenges, such as supporting, developing, and retaining our exceptional teachers.

I'm extraordinarily proud to be a part of this movement, and I'm grateful every day for the intelligence, creativity, and commitment of my colleagues. We look forward to growing our impact over the coming years, eventually serving over 16,000 students as our current schools grow to full enrollment and we open additional new schools, We'll continue to think about how to share what we've learned with others but also continue to ask ourselves how we can get better at our work, because we know that the work of serving students and families is as difficult as it is important, and there is always room for growth. That's why I'm so grateful for the generosity of partners like Citi. Support from 'e for education' will help us continue to provide life-changing educational opportunities to children across the Northeast.