This Forum Is Dedicated To The Cultural, Spiritual, Economic, Academic, Political, And Social Empowerment Of African-Americans In The United States.
Friday, July 27, 2007
New Schools Ventures (Charter School news)
Charter school group receives $7.9 million Gates grant
LOS ANGELES - In a major challenge to the Los Angeles school system, the private Green Dot charter school operation announced on Monday receiving a $7.9 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to create 10 high schools out of the existing Locke High School in Watts. "It's not by chance a miracle is occurring here," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said at a news conference with Green Dot founder Steve Barr, school officials, parents and teachers. "It is because of the efforts of Green Dot in defying all expectations of the experts and proving their way can work." Plans call for the Los Angeles Unified School District board to reconsider Barr's application to turn Locke into a charter school and allow him to begin to develop plans to create the charter schools by next year, Barr said. School board President Monica Garcia and new board member Richard Vladovic said they will push to have the board approve the application. Locke High faces some of the biggest problems in the district. Each year, the school takes in 1,300 freshmen. By their sophomore year, only 500 have returned, Barr said. Only three in 100 go on to four-year colleges. (Los Angeles Daily News)
Achievement First wins charter, funds
BRIDGEPORT - Achievement First-Bridgeport, a charter school modeled after the Amistad Academy in New Haven, is ready to go. The school won both a state charter and funding this week. The state Board of Education, meeting in a special session Monday, granted the new school a five-year charter that runs from July 2007 through June 2012. Also Monday, the state Legislature completed action on a budget that includes startup funds for the school. Achievement First-Bridgeport will open Aug. 28 with 84 fifth- graders selected by lottery in the former Holy Rosary School, 391 E. Washington Ave. The following year, the school will grow to include a sixth grade. Eventually, it will grow to become a kindergarten through eighth-grade school. Achievement First already runs two schools in New Haven that have won plaudits for their ability to raise academic achievement in low-income areas. (Connecticut Post)
School celebrates hard-won success: Mastery's Shoemaker campus marks a turnaround
PHILADELPHIA – Annette Hayes squeezed into a seat near the stage for the eighth-grade promotion at Mastery Charter School's Shoemaker campus in West Philadelphia because she just knew she was going to holler and cheer for her son, Leroy. Thursday's ceremony was more than a rite of passage for students and families marking the transition to ninth grade at the former Shoemaker Middle School. The event was a rousing finale to a year that saw the successful makeover of one of the Philadelphia School District's most troubled schools into a model charter school. The school's testing showed students had gained one and a half to two years in reading and math. Discipline has improved dramatically at a school that had one of the highest assault rates in the district a year earlier. Students say their attitudes toward school have been transformed, and administrators say the change is visible in students' faces. … It all began in 2001 when Scott Gordon, a former businessman with an M.B.A. from Yale University, founded a charter high school to bring business acumen to education. He recruited prominent business and academic leaders to the board of trustees, including Brook J. Lenfest, president of Brooks Capital Group, and Jeremy Nowack, founder of the Reinvestment Fund. A $2.65 million grant from the NewSchools Venture Fund in 2005 is helping Mastery expand. (Philadelphia Inquirer – registration required)
View Park Prep Has First-Ever Graduating Class
LOS ANGELES – We've recently brought you a two half hour specials on the students of "View Park Prep," a charter school that's making history in South L.A. Thursday, we witnessed history, as its first-ever graduating class of seniors earned diplomas and now each one of them are college bound. (myFoxLA)
De La Hoya gives speech at his high school
LOS ANGELES – The first senior class at Oscar De La Hoya Animo High graduated Thursday. The commencement speaker? The Golden Boy, of course. De La Hoya, who lost a controversial 12-round split decision to Floyd Mayweather last month in one of the richest fights ever, stressed the importance of education to the graduating seniors at Sullivan Field on the Loyola Marymount campus. “Education is your vehicle to control your life,” De La Hoya said. “You have made it through round one. There are 12 more rounds. Life is hard, but you can do it. I believe in you.” The school opened in 2003, and graduated 98 percent of its first senior class. It’s located in downtown Los Angeles, but a permanent De La Hoya Animo High will be built in Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles — near De La Hoya’s gym. It will be the first school built in that area in 76 years. De La Hoya was originally approached about the school by Steve Barr, the founder of Green Dot Public Schools, a leading charter organization in the Los Angeles area. The school is ranked among the top 10 percent of high schools in the state that serve minority communities. (Associated Press via MSNBC)
