Charter School Growth Fund
The Charter School Growth Fund (CSGF), a philanthropic venture fund, gives proven educational leaders the resources they need to replicate their successes and create networks of high-quality public charter schools. Through its activities, CSGF helps grow the national charter sector more rapidly to provide high-quality schooling to many more children than would be possible through the grassroots growth of single schools. In addition to providing multi-year grant and loan packages to promising charter school developers, CSGF becomes a partner in the true venture capital sense, providing crucial strategic support every step of the way.
The Charter School Growth Fund is supporting the creation of 100,000 new, high-quality public charter school seats to serve students like these from Yes! College Preparatory.
The Foundation supports CSGF because the venture fund is having a major impact on education in the communities where it invests. Currently, CSGF funds charter school developers across a variety of urban and rural areas in eight states and the District of Columbia, including Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, North Carolina, Michigan and Texas, It expects to add about a dozen new networks each year across the country.
One charter school developer funded by CSGF is YES! College Preparatory in Houston, Texas. The grade 6-12 school serves low-income students - 86% of whom would be the first in their families to attend college. YES! has successfully taken its entering students from at least one grade-level behind in math and English to a point where 100% of them in the six graduating classes thus far have been accepted to a four-year college or university. The CSGF investment of $1.5 million over three years is enabling YES! to grow from three schools serving 1,157 students to seven schools serving 2,969 students. By achieving its growth goals, YES! would double the graduation rate of low-income students from Houston public schools by 2016.
