TEAM Charter Schools

Last week, Governor Jon Corzine, Mayor Cory Booker, NJ Education Commissioner Lucille Davy, and West Ward Councilman Ronald C. Rice participated in the ribbon cutting ceremony marking the opening of our first elementary school, SPARK Academy.  Over 250 parents, supporters, and guests filled the gym at the former St. Rose of Lima building where SPARK’s 100 five year-olds now attend kindergarten.

Click here for the cutest video you’ve ever seen.  It’s impressive, especially considering that our five year-olds have only been with us for a few weeks.

Click here for the video that was quickly posted on Governor Corzine’s website.

Some quotes from the ceremony:

Governor Corzine (video here): 

“Believe me, if I could have a hundred TEAM Academies from K through 12, you would find Jon Corzine standing next to them, making sure that happens because every child ought to be focused on 2022 or 2023 [the year they will go to college].”

Mayor Booker (video here):

“I want every single parent in our city to have quality options.  It’s not a crazy dream, it’s something that we can do.”

“We are going to get there … to the point where this school is not the exception but the rule.”

Click here for more videos.

As mentioned in the introduction of Gov. Corzine that day, TEAM Schools and many other charter schools serving low-income students in New Jersey benefited tremendously from the Governor’s School Funding Reform Act.  In addition to the extra funding, Commissioner Davy has smoothed the way for high-quality charter schools to grow, granting us expansion from just over 300 students when she came into office, to approval to serve over 2400 students over the next five years.   We’re deeply grateful for their commitment to Newark’s children.

Many thanks to the supporters who made this day possible, and the amazing founding staff and students of SPARK Academy.

Ryan Hill, Founder and Executive Director of TEAM Charter Schools speaks in favor of more time in school, as practiced at TEAM in Newark and the rest of the KIPP schools across the country.

On this national issue, President Obama says, “We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed for when America was a nation of farmers… That calendar may have once made sense, but today it puts us at a competitive disadvantage… That’s why I’m calling for us to not only expand effective after school programs, but to rethink the school day to incorporate more time.”

Newark described as being at a tipping point for how high-performing charters can influence the improvement of education across the region.

By SHARON McCLOSKY

If, as they say, a rising tide lifts all boats, Newark, N.J. may soon need a marina.

Charter school advocates often contend the presence of successful charter schools in otherwise poor performing school districts can only help by forcing the remaining schools to improve.

They may have found a friend in Newark.

Challenged by a growing number of high-performing charter schools within its bounds, the Newark Public School District last week announced an ambitious plan to turn around its schools to create a system that is bolder, more accountable, more transparent and more innovative.

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Monday, January 12, 2009
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times Op-Ed

The fight against poverty produces great programs but disappointing results. You go visit an inner-city school, job-training program or community youth center and you meet incredible people doing wonderful things. Then you look at the results from the serious evaluations and you find that these inspiring places are only producing incremental gains.

That’s why I was startled when I received an e-mail message from Roland Fryer, a meticulous Harvard economist. It included this sentence: “The attached study has changed my life as a scientist.”

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The Economist’s education correspondent recently visited TEAM Charter Schools to learn about and report on examples of innovation in US education. Read the reflections from her week here. While she was anxious about her Thursday visit with TEAM — “I’m actually a bit nervous. KIPP has a fearsome and to my mind not entirely attractive reputation in England for a zero-tolerance approach to discipline…” — her fears were easily and readily dispelled. She says about TEAM, “…I cannot remember when my expectations and reality last clashed so much: the day turns out to be the most fun I’ve ever had visiting schools.”

Education’s Ground Zero
By Nicholas D. Kristof
Op-Ed Columnist
Published: March 21, 2009

Michelle Rhee testifying before the House Education and Labor Committee at a hearing on mayor and superintendent partnerships in education held last July.

The most unlikely figure in the struggle to reform America’s education system right now is Michelle Rhee.

She’s a Korean-American chancellor of schools in a city that is mostly African-American. She’s an insurgent from the school-reform movement who spent her career on the outside of the system, her nose pressed against the glass — and now she’s in charge of some of America’s most blighted schools. Less than two years into the job, she has transformed Washington into ground zero of America’s education reform movement.

Ms. Rhee, 39, who became Washington’s sixth school superintendent in 10 years, has ousted one-third of the district’s principals, shaken up the system, created untold enemies, improved test scores, and — more than almost anyone else — dared to talk openly about the need to replace ineffective teachers.

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Watch Bill Gates‘ much-discussed TED Talk about the two questions that keep him up at night. With US public education as a point of discussion, Gates describes KIPP as a source of hope.

The section on KIPP begins at about minute seven.

There are a few places, very few, where great teachers are being made. A good example of one is a set of charter schools called KIPP.

January 26, 2009
By Bill Gates
www.gatesfoundation.org

It is invigorating and inspirational to meet with the students and teachers in these schools and hear about their aspirations. They talk about how the schools they were in before did not challenge them and how their new school engages all of their abilities. These schools aim to have all of their kids enter four-year colleges, and many of them achieve that goal with 90 percent to 100 percent of their students. Every visit energizes me to work to get most high schools to be like this [view article . . . ]

The new science lab, recently completed in the exciting Rise Academy basement reconstruction, is ready for next year’s students. Final touches are being completed elsewhere in the project.

The new basement will house Rise Academy’s first eighth grade class. TEAM Schools typically begin with one grade, adding one grade level each following year until reaching capacity. Rise Academy will do so next year with 360 students in it’s campus at 21 Ashland St.

Below are some pictures of the recent reconstruction. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to such a necessary and exciting project.

May 2008

January 2009

Monday, January 12, 2009
By JOEL I. KLEIN and AL SHARPTON
The Wall Street Journal

It is not acceptable for minority students to be four grade levels behind.

Dear President-elect Barack Obama,

In the afterglow of your election, Americans today run the risk of forgetting that the nation still faces one last great civil-rights battle: closing the insidious achievement gap between minority and white students. Public education is supposed to be the great equalizer in America. Yet today the average 12th-grade black or Hispanic student has the reading, writing and math skills of an eighth-grade white student.

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