What It Takes to Grow Great Schools

I was in Cleveland recently visiting FORWARD Girls Leadership Academy, Cleveland’s new public charter high school for girls. The founding team was settling into their new building, establishing the culture they want students to experience, and building the foundation for rigorous instruction. 

It was great to see the students so engaged and the energy of a new school filled the halls. It certainly struck me how much work had been done before the doors had even opened. Holly Trifiro and her team at Future Ready Cleveland have worked alongside school leaders like FORWARD founder Luciana Gilmore to help promising ideas become real options for Cleveland families.

Opening and growing a single school like FORWARD Girls Leadership Academy is incredibly hard.  To change what’s possible for families across a city, you have to grow a lot of great schools. That takes exceptional school leaders and great teachers, but it also takes a lot of work outside the school building.

Having worked alongside education leaders in cities across the country—and having been in that seat myself—I’ve seen some great examples of what leadership looks like outside of the school building. Across the 24 cities we work in at City Fund, the thing every place has in common is people doing whatever it takes to create the conditions for great schools to grow. They figure out what is getting in the way and then work to solve it. That might mean building a teacher pipeline, changing a funding formula, finding or building good school facilities, or thoughtfully approaching how schools innovate in instruction. Different needs come up in different places, but the focus stays the same: helping every student find the public school that works for them.

Finding the People Great Schools Need

Last year about 75% of public schools said they had trouble filling at least one open teacher role. There are 5,000 teacher vacancies in Missouri alone. BLAQUE KC is responding by launching Teach KC to build more ways for people from the community to become teachers. New Schools for Baton Rouge launched Teach225 to help schools find the people they need while making it easier for more people to find their way into teaching. Each year NSBR hosts a career fair that brings together public charter schools, educator prep programs, current teachers, and people considering a career change. City Education Partners has helped recruit and train more than 1,000 teachers through paid residencies and Grow Your Own programs since 2015. Its Teach San Antonio initiative drew more than 3,000 aspiring educators in just a few months. Achieve Miami’s Teacher Accelerator Program has helped more than 500 educators enter the field since it launched in 2023. 

Growing great schools requires finding and developing excellent educators. Cities can't count on an established school network to come in with a team full of veteran teachers. Local leaders like those in San Antonio, Kansas City, Baton Rouge and so many other cities are creating organizations, platforms, and development programs to strengthen their own city’s talent pool. 

Changing the Conditions Around Schools

Sometimes, what’s getting in the way of growing great schools in a city can only be addressed at the state level. Funding formulas, charter authorizing rules, and access to facilities are often set by state policy, so local leaders have to work beyond their own city to change the conditions their schools operate in.

Working with advocates and lawmakers, local education leaders helped advance new policies in several states. In Georgia, lawmakers created new incentives for districts to approve and support charter schools. Tennessee changed how charter schools receive state funding and put another $20 million toward facilities. In Pennsylvania, a new formula steering more money to the poorest districts is also reaching charter schools, since their funding is tied to district spending. And in Texas, lawmakers replaced a cap on charter facilities funding with a formula that will provide roughly $100 million more each year.

Indianapolis took on an even broader question: how should a city govern and support all of its public schools when they are no longer run by a single system? For years, district and public charter schools have operated under different rules and with different access to public resources. Local leaders, including the team at The Mind Trust,  helped develop the Indianapolis Public Education Corporation, a new entity that will take responsibility for facilities, transportation, and property-tax collection for public schools within Indianapolis Public Schools’ boundaries.

For great schools to grow and thrive, the conditions around them matter. Fair funding, access to facilities, strong authorizing, and effective governance can determine whether a school is able to open, expand, and serve more students. 

Opening more great public schools

Too many families still don’t have access to a great public school. And while cities across the country are grappling with declining enrollment, that doesn’t mean the need for new schools has disappeared. Families are still looking for schools that work for their children, and cities are finding ways to grow great schools that respond to what their communities need.

This fall, Memphis opened a STEAM school for girls. Atlanta’s new Academy for Innovation in Medicine gives students hands-on exposure to medicine and science through a partnership with Grady Health System, and new public schools connected to HBCUs in Alabama are giving students earlier access to college coursework. Oklahoma City launched P3 Urban Montessori in August to expand access to Montessori programming for young learners. 

Other cities are growing schools that have a history of serving students and families well. In St.Louis, Atlas Public Schools opened a second campus in the Carondelet neighborhood. Newark opened another North Star Academy campus, and Albuquerque replicated the Albuquerque School of Excellence

There isn’t one kind of school that every community needs. The work is figuring out where families need better options, finding the people and schools that can meet that need, and helping them open and grow.