Every weekday, 300 boys gather in a gym on Chicago’s South Side. They are all black. More than 80 percent are poor. Over the past few weeks Chicago has seen a surge in gang violence. But here boys stand in straight lines. Each wears a blazer and a red tie. And in unison they begin to shout their creed: “We believe. We are the young men of Urban Prep. We are college-bound.”
Urban Prep Charter Academy opened in 2006, part of an effort to bring 100 new schools to Chicago’s bleakest areas by 2010. Richard Daley, the city’s mayor, announced Renaissance 2010 (‘Ren 10’) in 2004; Chicago’s business leaders created the Renaissance Schools Fund (RSF) to help support it. Backers of this ambitious scheme hope it will spur competition across school districts. On May 6 RSF held a conference to discuss the “new market for public education”.
At the core of Ren 10 is the desire to welcome “education entrepreneurs”, as RSF calls them. Ren 10 lets them start schools and run them mostly as they choose (for example, with longer days and, in some cases, their own salary structure); it also sets the standards they must meet. Schools receive money on a per pupil basis, and may raise private funds as well.
Chicago is not the only city to pair autonomy with accountability. New York’s school chief, for example, wants to “characterise” the whole city system. In Chicago, Ren 10 is opening charter schools and trying to bring their flexibility to two new models: ‘performance’ schools, where teachers are unionised, and ‘contract’ schools which may hire non-union teachers but must still abide by some district rules.
The first step is to identify the seeds of a good school. Leaders in Chicago’s Office of New Schools (ONS) and in RSF recommend Ren 10’s methods for doing so, which include reviews by local parents, educators and national experts. Ren 10 offers many kinds of schools (ONS even hopes to open boarding schools), but good ones share common traits. The most important, argues Josh Edelman, the head of ONS, are strong leaders, neighbourhood outreach and a rigorous curriculum based on a clear mission. Urban Prep is structured around the goal of helping local boys, admitted by lottery, to get to college. Longer school days give teachers more time to help boys catch up. Being a pupil is each boy’s ‘job’.
RSF chooses schools that seem most likely to succeed, then gives them up to $500,000 (Rs.2.6 crore) over 30 months. So far the group has raised $44 million (Rs.185 crore). Increasingly, RSF looks for those with sound management and plans to use data to improve performance (Urban Prep tests students every six weeks). After five years ONS will assess each new school to judge whether to renew its contract.
So far 55 schools have opened: 32 charter campuses, 19 performance schools and four contract schools. As Ren 10 moves towards its goal of 100 (and perhaps beyond), it will be a continuing challenge to replicate good schools and open new ones. Chicago has reached its legal limit on the number of new charters it may award. The Illinois Senate has passed a bill to raise the cap.