Building a Community of Excellence
CSP Services to Partner Schools
Overview
Charter School Partners’ Community of Excellence is made up of a cadre of Twin Cities schools – urban and suburban – that demonstrate a fierce commitment to the highest principles of quality and excellence in charter schools.
CSP’s Community of Excellence is selective: only schools that show loyalty to the facets of excellence CSP has identified for charters are invited to attend. Schools in CSP’s Community of Excellence will demonstrate high levels of overall proficiency, growth or growth potential as measured by formal academic assessments.
In addition to performance, CSP Partner Schools must be a strong contributor to the larger charter movement and exhibit unrelenting persistence in ensuring quality and achievement in Minnesota’s charter schools.
Our Community of Excellence is comprised of inner-city schools who serve predominantly students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, high performing urban and suburban schools as well as schools that are more of a blend of populations.
At a time of tremendous challenges for the charter community in Minnesota, it is imperative that this diverse community of high-performing charters band together and support each other in order to improve the quality of all charter schools in Minnesota and be an example of what a high quality movement is all about – an essential strategy to protect the future of the charter movement in Minnesota.
SERVICES
The following services will support the continual improvement of CSP Partner Schools, showcase the success of the Community of Excellence and continue our efforts to advocate for quality and high achievement for Minnesota’s charter schools.
Data Driven Schools: Data Driven Decision Making
In collaboration with the Minnesota-based education technology cooperative, TIES, CSP has introduced TRIO ‘Turning results into Outcomes’, a proprietary data-management software tool designed to aid teachers and school leaders as they make sense of complex data and build a culture of data driven decision-making. CSP will cover TRIO’s licensing fee and provide technical support and assessment coaching to its Partner Schools.
Teacher Quality: Closing the Achievement Gap
To encourage our schools to access a proven means to address the achievement gap crisis, CSP will continue its partnership with Teach for America and pay for half of the annual TFA Corps Member placement fee for both years of a teacher’s service commitment.
School Leadership: Cambridge Education Initiative
Cambridge Education School Assessment: in partnership with the London-based Cambridge Education, CSP will offer a high-quality customized school improvement package designed to engage school leaders and teachers in continually improving the quality of their school’s education delivery and outcomes, regardless of the school’s age or stage of development.
Nurturing our Community
Speakers/issue Forum: CSP will offer a series of regular gatherings that bring national, regional and local educational experts to the Twin Cities to speak on a wide-range of topics. These sessions are designed exclusively for our Partner Schools and will put our schools and school leaders in conversation with leaders on the local and national vanguard of charter education reform and best practices.Featured Profile on Website: CSP will develop and write a profile of each of its Partner Schools that will be featured on CSP’s website to showcase the success of the individual school.
Advocacy: In its first year of operation, CSP became the voice for quality and achievement in Minnesota’s charter schools. CSP will continue to advocate in several areas:
Media/Coalitions: CSP will develop and place key editorials and be an increasing presence in the media. in addition, CSP will continue to work with the new coalition of educational reform partners focused on improving the quality of charter schools and closing the achievement gap in Minnesota.
Blog: CSP’s Blog focuses on the latest national, state and local efforts to bring quality and achievement to Minnesota’s charter schools.
Policy Briefs/research Studies: Periodic CSP Policy Briefs will develop proprietary research to analyze the factors that promote high quality performance among charter schools and use these studies to define best practices.
