The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently announced that leaders in nine communities across the U.S. have signed on to a District-Charter Collaboration Compact, an initiative designed to highlight new ways that public charter schools and traditional public schools are working to provide high-quality education for all students.
The cities participating in these compacts are Baltimore, MD; Denver, CO; Hartford, CT; Los Angeles, CA; Minneapolis, MN; Nashville, TN; New Orleans, LA; New York NY; and Rochester, NY.
“Traditional public schools and public charter schools share a common goal of preparing all students for future success,” said Vicki L. Phillips, director of Education, College Ready, at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in a prepared statement. “Too often, issues not tied to academic outcomes can make it difficult for schools and teachers to have the opportunity to learn from each other and build upon successful practices, whether those practices are found in district-run or charter-run schools. We hope this compact helps to fill a void for these cities and will lead the way for a committed partnership to work together to improve all schools.”
Through the District-Charter Collaboration Compact, districts are committing to replicating high-performing models of traditional and charter public schools while improving or closing down schools that are not serving students well.
Additionally, each city compact addresses persistent tensions between district and charter schools and identifies specific opportunities for the two groups to leverage each others’ strengths in pursuit of a common mission. These include equity issues, such as whether both district and public charter school students have access to necessary funding and facilities, and whether charter schools are open to all students, including those with special needs and English Language Learners.
A number of the compacts also include commitments among district and charter partners to jointly develop a shared approach to school enrollment, co-develop measures of effective teaching, align the district’s curriculum to the Common Core State Standards, and share access to school data systems. Each city compact is signed by the district superintendent and multiple charter school leaders, with support from other partners in the city, such as the city’s mayor, local teachers’ unions, and school board members. Each of these cities will be eligible for a modest investment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to advance the work outlined in the compact.
A second group of cities that are developing District-Charter Collaboration Compacts will be announced in April 2011. In the coming months, cities that have developed compacts will be eligible to compete for a larger, multi-million dollar grant to work collaboratively to accelerate student achievement across their cities.
For more information about the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s education strategy, please visit:
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Education Strategy
For more information about the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, please visit:
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