U.S. schools fail millions of urban children and families every year. A chronic achievement gap puts capable children at risk simply by virtue of race, socioeconomic status or zip code. And across the board, our children are increasingly falling behind international norms for both graduation rates and test performance – all because they don’t have adequate access to quality school options.
For systemic improvements to be realized, equal access to quality education is critical. Urban families who cannot afford to live near high-performing neighborhood schools should be able to enroll their children in quality schools. And those children should be able to attend safe schools where good teachers help them meet their learning goals each day, each semester, and each year.
It’s an achievable goal; innovative, alternative schools have shown that they can drive improvements for children and the school system overall. To this end, we support a variety of quality school options for students. Since 2006, we have invested in quality school options from traditional district improvement to quality charter schools to alternative school models and innovative learning models. We seek to:
- Better meet the educational needs of a broad range of children
- Drive innovation and improved standards among schools competing for enrollment
- Measurably improve performance and graduation rates among children at both elementary and secondary levels
STRATEGY
We strive to increase the number of quality school options for children through investing in high performing charter schools, alternative school models and innovative learning models that are proven to produce positive student achievement results.