The Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools Frequently Asked Questions

What is The Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools?


The $250,000 Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools is an annual award given to the urban public charter school management organization that demonstrates the most outstanding overall student performance and improvement in the country while reducing achievement gaps among poor and minority students.

The inaugural Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools was awarded to Houston’s YES Prep Public Schools in 2012. The announcement was made at the National Charter Schools Conference, which is convened by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, on June 21, 2012 in Minneapolis.

The Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools is the sister award to The Broad Prize for Urban Education, which is given to traditional school systems. The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation launched both awards to help schools systems across America learn from innovative public school systems producing the strongest student outcomes.

What does the winner receive?


The winner of The Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools receives $250,000 for college-readiness efforts for low-income students, such as scholarships, speaker series or campus visits.

Why did you create this award?


The Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools was created to recognize and reward the most outstanding academic performance and progress among urban charter management organizations serving the largest number of students so that public school systems nationwide can learn from their success.

The first public charter school opened in 1992 to provide parents and students a choice of schools outside of traditional public schools. Charter schools are tuition-free public schools that receive public funds and are held to the same federal and state academic standards as traditional public schools. However, they are granted more flexibility in operating, in exchange for agreeing to be academically accountable.

Since 2000, the number of public charter schools in the U.S. has increased more than 250 percent, and the number of students they serve has increased by 400 percent. As of the 2010-11 academic year, 1.8 million students–4 percent of all American public school students–attended charter schools.

Given that public charter schools have reached a critical mass, The Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools seeks to: 
• Recognize those charter models that show the most outstanding academic outcomes at scale, particularly for traditionally disadvantaged students 
• Create an accessible repository of high-quality data on student achievement and policies and practices in the largest charter management organizations across the country  
• Showcase the best practices of successful public charter management organizations so that other schools nationally can learn from their success 

What are the eligibility criteria? Why did you establish those criteria?


Charter management organizations that have been operating a minimum of five schools for at least four years and which serve sizeable percentages of urban, poor and minority students are automatically eligible. Organizations cannot apply or be nominated for the award.  

Organizations eligible for the award in 2012 had:
• Five or more charter schools in operation as of 2007-08  
• 1,500 students or more enrolled each year since 2007-08  
• At least 40 percent of students eligible for free or reduced-price school lunch since 2008-09  
• At least 40 percent of students from minority groups since 2008-09  
• At least 75 percent of its schools meeting federal urbanicity criteria since 2008-09  

Going forward, winners from the previous three years will be ineligible.

These criteria were established to ensure that the charter management organizations considered for The Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools are comparable, in that they serve a significant number of students, share similar demographics, operate at scale, have been in existence long enough to yield multiple years of data and organize schools under the same management organization.

Most charter schools that are ineligible for the award are single-operators that are not affiliated with a charter management organization. Organizations that outsource school operations to other charter management organizations also do not qualify.

Although many ineligible individual charter schools have made strong student gains and have important lessons to share, the practical need to collect and run comparable data made the inclusion of all charter schools impossible at this point.

As the number of charter management organizations and schools continues to grow in future years, it is likely that many more charter management organizations will become eligible for the annual award. The Broad Foundation will continue to review the eligibility criteria and will make revisions to future eligibility requirements deemed necessary to establish the most appropriate, fair and useful comparison possible.

Which organizations are eligible?


Click here for a list of management organizations eligible for the 2013 Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools.

Who selects the winner?


A review board of prominent education experts from across the country–many of whom also serve on the review board that analyzes data on the school districts eligible for The Broad Prize for Urban Education–reviews student achievement data received from the eligible charter management organizations and their states and collected by MPR Associates, a national education research consulting firm. The review board selects the winning charter management organization. For a full list of review board members, please visit: www.broadprize.org/publiccharterschools.html. [Note: The Broad Foundation and MPR Associates do not play a role in voting for the winner.]

What methodology is used? What quantitative data do decision-makers review?


Typically, states report student achievement data for charter management organizations at the school–rather than aggregate–level. Consequently, The Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools’ methodology aggregates school-level student achievement data for all schools affiliated with each of the eligible management organizations to generate organization-wide results and statistics that are presented to the review board. The data are collected, checked and analyzed by MPR Associates, one of the nation’s leading education research and consulting firms, based in Berkeley, Calif.   

The review board considers the following student achievement and demographic data: 
• Performance and improvement results on mandated state tests in reading, math and science 
• Performance and improvement results on mandated state tests in reading, math and science adjusted for poverty 
• The reduction and magnitude of achievement gaps between ethnic groups and between low-income and non-low-income students 
• In the case of high schools:  
  -State-reported graduation rates 
  -Advanced Placement exam participation and passing rates  
  -SAT and ACT exam participation rates and scores  
• Demographic data (e.g., student enrollment, income, language, special education, ethnicity) 

No formula is used to choose the winner. Members of the review board select the winner based on their analysis of publicly available student achievement data, their professional judgment, experience and mutual discussion. Among the factors the review board considers are student outcomes, scalability, size, poverty and demographics.

How do I find best practices and student data analyses on the CMOs analyzed under this award?


For information on the 2012 winner YES Prep, including student outcomes, the school system and its educational model, visit: www.broadprize.org/publiccharterschools/2012.html 

This fall, The Broad Foundation will also release: 
• Summaries of data analyses on all organizations eligible for the award 
• Research-based best practice findings from a site visit to YES Prep 
• Rubric upon which the site visit research is based. 

How does the review board compare high school management organizations to elementary school management organizations? How does the review board analyze the results of charter management organizations that operate schools in different states?


Assessment data are standardized so that it can be comparable across organizations. For example, performance and improvement levels are compared to all public high school and elementary school students in the state, respectively, and compared to predicted levels based on poverty. The resulting degrees of performance and improvement versus students at the same school levels make the data comparable across management organizations. For charter management organizations that operate schools in different states, organization-level analyses are first summarized for each state. National aggregations to reflect management organization-level results are presented where methodologically sound.

Will there be site visits? What qualitative data will be evaluated?


After the winner is announced, a team of experienced researchers and practitioners led by RMC Research Corporation, an education consulting company based in Denver, will conduct a site visit to gather qualitative data. RMC Research Corporation also conducts site visits for The Broad Prize for Urban Education. The site visit team will analyze organization-wide policies and practices related to student achievement, according to a transparent, research-based rubric (currently under development). The site-visit framework will be grounded in the research literature regarding school and organizational practices found to be effective in raising student achievement. The framework will cover three key areas: teaching and learning, leadership, and operations and support systems.  

The site visit team will gather evidence through extensive document collection and analysis, classroom visits and interviews with the management organization’s leadership, principals, teachers, staff, students, parents and community representatives during a four-day visit in the fall.

Who collects the quantitative student achievement data?


MPR Associates manages the rigorous and comprehensive quantitative data collection and analysis process required. MPR Associates plays the same role for the traditional school district award, The Broad Prize for Urban Education.

How will this award be different from the existing Broad Prize for Urban Education?


The Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools closely mirrors the process used for the existing Broad Prize for Urban Education given to traditional school districts. For example, similar categories of student achievement data and analytical methodologies are considered. Also, some of the same decision-makers play a role in both awards. However, the quantitative methodology used for the charter prize is modified as necessary to account for differences in the availability and quality of school-level data. In addition, unlike the school district award, because there are fewer eligible management organizations, no finalists are selected, and the review board selects the winner. A site visit occurs after the winner is announced to inform the field, rather than as part of the selection process.

What will the annual process look like?


The annual Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools’ process encompasses the following:

1. Each fall, charter management organizations are identified as eligible candidates based on size, demographics, urban environment and years of available data. 
2. Publicly available student achievement data for eligible organizations are collected during the fall and winter. 
3. The review board analyzes publicly available data and selects the winner. 
4. The winner is announced in the summer and data showing the overall student gains, performance and achievement gap closures that formed the quantitative basis for the decision are released. 
5. A site visit to the winning charter management organization is conducted in the fall by researchers and practitioners to gather qualitative data on policies and practices regarding teaching and learning, leadership, and operations and support systems.  
6. Best practice findings from the site visits are released by the foundation in the winter. 
7. Efforts are made to improve all aspects of the process on a continuous basis. 

What is The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation?


Founded by self-made entrepreneur Eli Broad and his wife Edythe, both graduates of Detroit Public Schools, The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation is a philanthropy that seeks to ensure that every student in an urban public school has the opportunity to succeed. Bringing together top education experts and practitioners, the foundation funds system-wide programs and policies that strengthen public schools by creating environments that enable good teachers to do great work and students of all backgrounds to learn and thrive. The Broad Foundation’s Internet address is www.broadfoundation.org, and foundation updates are available on Twitter @broadfoundation.

What do you mean by “charter management organization”?


Given that commonly used terms and definitions in the field are still developing, The Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools uses “charter management organization” to refer to organizations that operate multiple public charter schools under a shared management strategy or organizations or firms with one clear educational model that covers multiple public charter schools. The schools at issue also must receive public funds and operate schools under the same admissions rules as traditional public schools.  

The term “charter management organization” is intended to be consistent with the definition of “charter management organization” used by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools’ charter school database.

What percent of all public charter schools do the eligible schools comprise?


During the 2010-11 school year, there were 5,277 public charter schools in the U.S. Some 5 percent of these schools were operated by the eligible charter management organizations.

Questions?


Contact: cmoprize@broadfoundation.org