Type Grant
Start Date 2016-00-00
Amount 12,700,000 USD
Goods In the fall of 2012, Democracy Prep Public Schools was already a known entity in its hometown of New York City and well on its way to gaining a national profile. The fast-growing charter school network, founded in 2006 by a 28-year-old former special education teacher named Seth Andrew, had already opened three middle schools throughout Harlem, along with a high school that was about to send its first graduating class to college. It had completed New York’s first takeover of a failing charter school and was launching another turnaround in Camden, New Jersey. By the end of September, it would receive a five-year, $9.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to expand to other states. The 2012 grant application showcased Andrew’s deftness in attracting powerful advocates. Letters of support accompanied Democracy Prep’s request from Joel Klein, the New York City schools chancellor whose agency had proclaimed the original Democracy Prep campus the best middle school in Harlem; John White, the Louisiana state superintendent and a nationally known school reformer; and Roland Fryer, an influential Harvard researcher who had found that Democracy Prep students in New York made huge strides in both math and English. The network applied for and was awarded an additional $12.7 million in 2016; its request was bolstered by more letters, including one from U.S. senator and now-presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand. In a blog post marking the conclusion of the grant, network CEO Katie Duffy, who replaced Andrew in 2013, was effusive about its success. “Five years ago, it was nearly impossible to imagine a Democracy Prep that not only spans the Northeast Corridor but which extends into the Bayou and out to the Desert,” she wrote. “Now, it is equally impossible to imagine a Democracy Prep that does not.”
Updated over 3 years ago

Source Links