MAKING GREAT SCHOOLS THE NORM

What We’re Learning: If it’s hard to create a great school once, it’s even harder to do it thousands of times.

Since we started making grants in education in 1999, we have worked with a number of charter management organizations, or CMOs, that open and operate new public high schools to provide families with additional options.

Green Dot Public Schools, a CMO that has opened 12 schools in Los Angeles, takes the very same students who are struggling in Los Angeles Unified School District high schools and proves that they can and will excel when they are held to high expectations and given the support they need to meet them. The test scores of the students at Green Dot schools are significantly higher than those of their peers at traditional high schools. At the three schools that have had graduating classes so far, more than 80 percent of the seniors have graduated, compared to barely 50 percent in Los Angeles overall.

However, even though Green Dot and many other CMOs are creating effective new schools, there is a big question looming: Can they fundamentally reform high school education by making great schools the norm, rather than the exception?

Last year, Green Dot did something that may help educators start answering that question. It sought what is called a conversion charter to start operating new Green Dot schools on the premises of Locke High School, one of the lowest-performing high schools in Los Angeles. Instead of building new schools near Locke and giving those students who choose to switch schools a better option, Green Dot is becoming the primary provider of public education to the Locke community.

This approach not only paves the way for Green Dot to impact more students, it also solves one of the most difficult problems facing Green Dot and other CMOs: facilities. Charter schools in many states don’t receive extra funding for facilities, and finding a place where students can engage in rigorous learning can be a serious challenge. But if these CMOs can use pre-existing facilities, then they can concentrate more fully on what they set out to do—providing the best possible education to as many students as possible.

Green Dot’s conversion charter for Locke High School is indicative of one more positive trend in the movement for high school reform. To get its charter, Green Dot had to win the support of a majority of Locke’s teachers. The catch was that none of the teachers would be guaranteed a job at the Green Dot schools that would replace Locke.

But the teachers did vote for the charter, sacrificing their job security for their students’ sakes. In fact, Green Dot is the only CMO in the state whose teachers are unionized. Their unique contract doesn’t provide for tenure but pays slightly more, and it allows greater flexibility for school staff members to make decisions that are tailored to their specific needs. The vote suggests that teachers will be at the vanguard of efforts to fix high schools.

We don’t have the data yet to determine how the Locke conversion will affect students’ performance. But reformers both inside and outside the current system are agreeing that the status quo is unacceptable, and they’re working together toward solutions.