Renaissance Schools Fund

"In June 2004, Mayor Richard M. Daley, then Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Arne Duncan, and leaders from the Chicago business community announced Renaissance 2010 (Ren10). The goal of this bold initiative was to open 100 new schools and provide all students, regardless of socioeconomic background, with the opportunity to compete on the global playing field. The Renaissance Schools Fund (RSF) was established by the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club as the fundraising and strategic partner to the Renaissance 2010 effort. RSF has been the catalyst for the charter school movement in Chicago, raising over $70 million to open 70 new schools which will serve over 40,000 students at capacity. We established the due diligence process and infrastructure for the selection, evaluation, and authorization of quality new schools. Our initiative has more than tripled the number of charter schools in Chicago. We created 13 charter networks and developed top performing models. We have helped launch the city’s first all-boys public high school, the first public high school for the arts, and the first partnerships among universities, corporations and K-12 education entrepreneurs to design math, science and technology schools. In April 2011, we launched a new fund under a new name: New Schools for Chicago."