EducationNews.org

1)      I understand that the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation has just invested more than 3 million dollars in California charter Schools. How did this come about?

To clarify your question, the Dell family foundation has invested much more than $3 million in California charter schools; however, $3 million was committed to the California Charter Schools Association specifically.

The majority of our grant portfolio is focused on improving education environments in urban areas to accelerate student achievement and increase access to quality education.  We believe high performing charter schools not only offer some exciting choices for quality education, but have the larger impact of raising the bar for public schools overall in California and nationwide.  In particular, the latest grant to the California Charter School Association is to support the development and deployment of ZOOM! Data Source, a new statewide data program developed by the Association that enables teachers and principals to easily access and use their achievement data to make informed decisions that accelerate their students learning and development, as well as drive a high standard of quality among charter schools throughout the state

What's really exciting about this particular project is that the tool was developed by the stakeholders it will serve.  Principals and teachers took an active role in the product selection and features and will play an active part in its rollout.    It's a comprehensive offering including training, support, and services that will no doubt prove invaluable to schools as they evaluate what works and what doesn't to improve student achievement.

We are incredibly impressed with CCSA's focus on quality as well as its extremely customer-oriented, qualified staff and its very thoughtful, thorough planning and development process.  Our two organizations are very like-minded in our focus on quality and providing principals and teachers with data to enable them to make decisions that can help them improve their students' performance.

2)      Could you tell us a bit about Michael and Susan Dell and their Foundation?

The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation is dedicated to improving the lives of children living in urban poverty around the world. With offices in Austin, TX and New Delhi, India, the Dell family foundation funds programs that foster high-quality public education and childhood health, and improve the economic stability of families living in poverty. With an endowment of $1.3 billion, the foundation has committed almost $450 million to global children's issues and community initiatives to date.  About a third of our portfolio is committed to U.S. education initiatives.

3)      Why specifically charter schools? Why have they chosen charter schools to support?

Actually, charter schools is just one area of investment in education.  In the U.S. we strive to improve student academic performance through three main initiatives:  driving performance management in large urban districts, developing strong school leadership and enabling innovation through charter schools. 

Charter school cultures encourage innovation and accelerate the availability of high quality options in public education because they are more autonomous and have more freedom to introduce new ways to teach our youth. In the U.S we have invested nearly $60 million to-date to support charter schools in 18 states to better demonstrate their performance, improve their quality and student achievement, and facilitate the collaboration between their schools and public school districts.  Charter schools spur healthy competitive pressures in education, offering parents and students school choice, while presenting opportunities for urban public school systems to learn from their successes and approaches to education. At the same time, we believe that all charter schools must be highly accountable and show continuous improvement in academic performance.

4)      How will this money be spent? Is it earmarked for technology or instruction or computers?

The dollars will be fairly evenly split between 1) licensing costs for Data Director for the initial roll-out and 2) the training, support, and services to successfully implement in the schools.  Over time, we expect that as the schools will see such value in this product/services, they will be willing to fund it themselves.

5)      Would you know how many charter schools there are in California and how many will receive monies?

According to the California Charter Schools Association, there are more than 700 charter public schools that serve over a quarter million charter school students in the state of California. Currently 189 charter schools have signed up to participate in the first year of the program we funded, which was originally slated for 150 charter schools. Over the next five years, ZOOM! Data Source expects to impact more than 600 charter schools, reaching over 200,000 students, and could eventually expand to hundreds of charter schools throughout the country….and may even be adapted for use outside of charter schools. 

6)      Are there any preconditions to the awards?

Project success measures primarily focus on 1) product demand, adoption, and usage at the school level, 2) customer experience and 3) usage of better data by CCSA to make better resource allocation decisions by better identifying needs across charter schools.

7)      Is there a web site for the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation where interested others can get more information?

Yes, they can go to www.msdf.org to find out more information or to apply for a grant online.

8)      Are they planning any other grants or gifts to other institutions or agencies?

We have many things in the works right now to fund the quality charter school movement throughout the United States.

9)      What question have I neglected to ask?

What excites us about the commitment to fostering quality, highly effective charter schools is not just the students who will be positively affected in charter schools today, but the impact of raising the bar for public schools overall through the innovations and lessons learned in the charter school environments.  The quality charter school movement can truly have a rolling, transformative effect on the entire U.S. public education system.

We were completely impressed by CCSA's commitment to quality, terrific staff and thoughtful approach to developing this system.  We look forward to seeing the results!

Published September 29, 2008