cwc vision document

7/29/2019 CWC Vision Document

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Executive Summary..................................................................................................................... 3

II. Our Approach............................................................................................................................. 5

III. The Fundamentals ..................................................................................................................... 5

A. Academic Excellence ........................................................................................................................... 5

B. Diversity ............................................................................................................................................... 6

C. Community ........................................................................................................................................... 7

IV. Talent ........................................................................................................................................ 8

V. Growing to Scale........................................................................................................................ 9

A. Market Analysis: Situating Our Unique Model in the Charter School Landscape .............................. 9

B. Designing for Growth......................................................................................................................... 10

C. Launch (2012 2016)......................................................................................................................... 11

VII. Appendix ............................................................................................................................... 13

A. Organizational Structure..................................................................................................................... 13

1. National Network............................................................................................................................. 13

2. Clusters and K-12 groups ................................................................................................................ 14

3. Member Services Organization ....................................................................................................... 14

B. Financial Model .................................................................................................................................. 15

C. Testing the Regions ............................................................................................................................ 15

D. Founding Team Bios .......................................................................................................................... 16


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I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

To make the American public education system the world-class system it ought to be, we need the weight of all our

communities united behind the effort. Citizens of the World Charter Schools (CWC Schools) aims to be the best,

biggest, and most diverse network of charter schools in America.

We plan to be a rising voice in a growing national movement for education reform by seizing the opportunities

presented by state and federal recognition of charter schools critical role in reform, increasing local demand from

families seeking better public schools for their children, and the ever-changing demographics of neighborhoods

across the country.

We are fueled by an urgency to unleash our potential - as individuals, as communities, and as a country - a potential

we will only realize if we conscientiously work to build strong communities within and outside of the classroom and

equip all children with an education that enables them to navigate and confront the challenges of both today and

tomorrow. Our network, the first national network with a commitment to economic and racial diversity, will take a

leading role in framing what is possible and desirable as we prepare our communities for the future. We plan to

influence the conversation with respect to what an excellent education looks and feels like, requires, and

accomplishes, while building a broader base of support for change. We believe we can make several vital

contributions to the education reform conversation:

First, we will put our schools in the future business.1Schools that look close to how they did 50 years ago2

will not prepare our children for their futures. While schools have not changed, our world has, rendering many of

our schools, even the best ones, obsolete. Both our instructional approach and our school composition will address

needs of the 21st century and beyond. Standardized tests are a useful measure, and necessary in todays

accountability culture, but there is no need to choose between academic performance, as measured by standardized

achievement tests, and inspired teaching. We will build interactive, dynamic classrooms in which critical thinking

and creativity can thrive alongside standards and academic benchmarks, and where students can build the skills they

need to participate thoughtfully and effectively in our democracy in the years ahead.

Moreover, our citizenry is becoming more diverse every year.3 Yet in the face of this flourishing diversity in

neighborhoods across our country, we continue to see racially and economically segregated schools. These schools

do not serve any of our students or communities well in either the short or long terms. Not only are some students

disproportionately left behind academically in low-performing, segregated schools, but so many of our schools and

students are lagging behind our fast-moving, complex and interconnected world.

1This is not about ideology. Its not about theology. Its about what we can do to give our kids a better tomorrow by putting our country back

in the future business. Charter schools showed we can put our schools in the future business. Now we have to do what is clearly called upon togrow and expand charter schools and have that idea infect every other part of our lives. Former President Bill Clinton delivering a keynoteaddress at the 2011 National Charter Schools Conference in Atlanta.2New State Education Chief Shares Vision in Visit, (April 9, 2011) available athttp://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2011/apr/09/new-state-education-chief-shares-vision-visit/ . (Tennessee State Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman noted, I think we need new and different kind ofschools. I think too many schools look exactly the same, and too many schools look pretty close to how they did 50 years ago.).3 Multiracial and multiethnic Americans (usually grouped together as mixed race) are one of the countrys fastest-growing demographic groups.And experts expect the racial results of the 2010 census, which will start to be released next month, to show the trend continuing or accelerating.http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/us/30mixed.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1&hp . The U.S. is projected to have no clear racial or ethnic majority

by 2050. http://www.americanprogress.org/projects/2050/ .


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Now, more than ever, our students need meaningful school experiences that build cross-cultural understanding and

tolerance before they enter the global workforce. Our future world leaders will need to engage in cooperation,

dialogue and debate across racial, ethnic, economic and national boundaries. This leadership will require an ability

to know, understand, and work with people of all races and economic backgrounds. Our schools will strive to build

our students capacity to be future world leaders nothing less.

Second, we will expand parent choice and meet a demand for more high-performing public schools. We stilldo not have enough public schools that provide an excellent education for all students. What we do have are

thousands of families on charter school waiting lists hoping that a favorable lottery draw will give their kids a

chance. We also have thousands of other families leaving the public system altogether, taking with them their

social, political and financial resources.

Allparents should be able to send their children to a high-performing public school in their neighborhood. They

should also be able to choose a school that more accurately reflects the population of the neighborhood they chose

and the population at large. Currently, however, they have few, if any, school options that offer this opportunity for

their children. Waiting lists for strong, diverse charter schools are growing. For example, nearly 950 families of all

backgrounds applied for only 110 kindergarten spaces in Los Angeles Larchmont Schools last year, while the

Denver School of Science & Technology network received 700 applications for only 140 ninth grade spots.4 We

have been thrilled by the number of school, district, and state level leaders who have connected directly with us

already, expressing interest in our model as a means to create viable public school options in their communities. We

are building a network of high-performing, diverse neighborhood schools to meet and cultivate - this demand.5

Third, we will pilot a new model for charter growth and management. A key consideration for our network has

been to ensure we can maximize our impact on students and communities across the country. For this reason, we

have developed a model that will allow us to scale aggressively and take advantage of new opportunities for growth

when they arise. We are able to generate funds from within the communities we serve because the mixed

socioeconomic make-up of our population contains families who are able and willing to make financial donations. In

addition, we have created an innovative governance structure that will alleviate overhead and administrative burdens

in a national structure, which has often slowed the growth of other networks, and take advantage of economies of

scale. Our cutting-edge governance structure will ensure high quality, empowered leadership and cost efficiency.

We are at a unique moment in time, where we have both the political and social conditions to support our model on

top of a significant need for it. We can offer a new and innovative national model for others to study, replicate and

utilize to push education reform further forward. We are eager to positively impact the lives of thousands of

children and communities across our country. We hope you will join us.

4See, Larchmont Charter Network Board of Directors Meeting Materials: Lottery and Enrollment Updates, 3/11/11, available athttp://bod.larchmontcharter.org/pat and Demand in charter schools forces lotteries, long waiting lists. The Denver Post, 2/10/2010, available at

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_14402706. Bothofthesenetworksembraceamissionofservingdiversestudentpopulations.5Parents increasingly want public schools to help their children develop the skills necessary to navigate and contribute to diversity in theworkplace and civic life and recognize that diverse schools offer a unique opportunity to develop these skills. California Educational OpportunityReport, Listening to Public School Parents, study conducted by UCLA Institute for Democracy, Education and Access (2009), available athttp://www.csea.com/content/FieldOffices/90/uploads/CAEdOpp.pdf.


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II. OUR APPROACH

Citizens of the World Charter Schools will provide an excellent public education that is academically rigorous and

socioeconomically, racially and culturally diverse and builds community both within and outside of the school.

Citizens of the World Charter Schools will serve diverse neighborhood communities, providing a high-quality

education for all students from kindergarten through high school. With exceptional leadership at all levels and

opportunities to participate in interactive, dynamic learning experiences with students from all backgrounds, our

schools will prepare students for success in college, a diverse society, and a global economy. In addition, by offering

a viable public school option in these neighborhoods, we will be bringing families back into the public system.

With whole communities engaged with each other in the public system and witnessing children of all backgrounds

thrive in a high-performing, diverse public school, we believe we will cultivate a true understanding that public

education can work for all students. With real skin in the game, our schools families, like us, will be fueled by an

increased sense of urgency to realize our countrys still untapped potential. By investing in its success, our

communities will help us move our country closer to an excellent, world-class American public education system.

III. THE FUNDAMENTALS

A. ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

Educating Citizens of the World in the 21stCentury

Our schools will ensure our students develop into the educated citizenry of the future: thinking creatively and

critically, finding joy in learning and striving to grow in all possible ways. Respectful of this nations remarkable

cultural and social diversity, and cognizant of our ties as human beings on the planet and as individuals in an

increasingly digital, fast-paced world, our students will become productive, caring and responsible citizens of the

world.

Our Instructional Approach

Our schools will embrace a rigorous yet highly student-centered, constructivist, project-based approach to teaching

and learning. Constructivist teaching, or teaching for understanding, structures learning to build on what students

already know and support them in revising and refining their understanding as they work towards mastery. In other

words, rather than assuming students are blank slates onto which teachers etch new information, we view our

students as thinkers with emerging theories about the world. In this way, our students will engage in learning

processes that develop conceptual understanding and self-knowledge, in addition to content knowledge. We will

monitor student progress via ongoing assessment that includes teacher observations of students at work, student

exhibitions and project-based work, in addition to standardized assessments. Using the results to evaluate, inform

and adjust instruction, we will ensure that each student meets and exceeds state performance standards whiledeveloping a true lifelong passion for learning.

Our approach to teaching and learning stems from the following core beliefs regarding when learning best occurs:

Students are treated as individuals, with lessons tailored to their differences and taught in several ways Students construct their own meaning


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Students are motivated to seek understanding through dynamic investigation and exploration in the contextof real world scenarios and projects

Students have clear and high expectations and receive appropriate guidance and enthusiastic support Standardized tests provide only a small part of the picture in determining student achievements Students know how to collaborate, cooperate, and negotiate with diverse people and understand others

perspectives.

A Virtual Tour

Walking into our classrooms, one would see that, while we expect every student to achieve the same state content

standards, our teachers embrace the diversity of individual students skills and learning styles and draw on myriad

approaches and instructional strategies to meet their individual needs. Teachers regularly interact with students,

encourage and ask probing questions and listen to students supporting evidence for their answers. Additionally,

recognizing that global citizens will need to work in a variety of ways - independently and also within a group,

cooperatively at times as a member of the group or at other times as a leader - highly skilled teachers, often

supported by a teaching assistant, will incorporate a blend of whole group lessons, small group instruction, andindividual student conferencing into the classroom on a daily basis.

In our younger grades, you would see many learning activities happening simultaneously: In the book nook, some

students read self-selected stories at their reading level, while another small group of students works with a teaching

assistant to review strategies for figuring out tricky words before they start their independent reading. In a circle on

the carpet, the teacher conducts a guided reading lesson, modeling how expressive, fluent oral reading promotes

comprehension and enjoyment or in kid language, reading like youre talking makes the story more fun to read

and easier to understand.

A visit to an upper grade classroom would have a similar feel, but learning activities would be adjusted to reflect

student independence. Students may transition from a brief, whole-group lesson on incorporating voice into

memoirs into writing groups where they select a work-in-progress to share with a peer for response. They read their

work aloud as their partners listen and react to the story being shared with expressions of amusement, worry,

confusion, or empathy on their faces. On the second read, the writing partners jot down suggestions for their

classmates based on the whole group writing lesson. Every piece shared in the writing groups offers a glimpse of

each students life, offering an authentic way for sharing personal stories, cultures, and learning processes. The

teacher rotates through to each group recording comments as informal assessment and noting good examples. As the

lesson closes, she may ask a few students to share what they learned and highlight how other students could benefit

from trying something similar the next day when they return to their memoirs.

By providing a K-12 model, we will be able to create a seamless educational experience for students. We will know

our students, support their strengths, tackle their challenges and work with their families as we strive to prepare

them for college, career and their roles as educated persons in the 21st century and beyond.

B. DIVERSITY

Our schools will be effective working models of the larger society students will someday join. Diversity in our

student body will enrich students classroom experiences, meet a growing demand for diverse schools among

parents, teachers and students, and offer longer term societal benefits not possible in non-diverse school settings.


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We agree that unless our children begin to learn together, there is little hope that our people will ever learn to live

together.6

The excellent education we will provide our students will build their capacity to lead in an increasingly global

marketplace. Learning from other sectors, we recognize the value of simulated training. Just as we prepare our

astronauts to embark on journeys in space, our doctors to perform operating procedures, and our armed forces to

carry out critical missions, we will offer our students the opportunity to simulate and prepare for their broaderengagement in a pluralistic, global society by experiencing an educational setting that reflects the broader world.

Effective preparation for global citizenship does not come simply from reading books on related subjects. Students

will not reach their fullest potential as engaged democratic citizens merely by reading books about diversity.

Entering college or the workforce without actually having engaged with others who are different than them will

leave our students less prepared for the world of tomorrow. Skills needed to relate to students of other racial, ethnic,

economic and cultural groups require practice and can only be developed through exposure and interaction with

diverse people, cultures, ideas and viewpoints. With these values reinforced and enhanced by our instructional

design, our students will be able to work, play and build community across lines of difference.

We recognize the challenges - legal and non-legal faced by other efforts to bring students together by integrating

schools. Our plan does not involve busing students away from their home communities. Instead, we aim to create

true neighborhood schools. We will identify existing diverse neighborhoods across our country and offer an

alternative public school choice in these neighborhoods. These neighborhoods will be characterized by a) the

presence of two or more distinct racial or ethnic subgroups with one subgroup representing no more than 60% of the

total population and b) significant socio-economic diversity as measured by household income. Our initial research

has revealed that more of these neighborhoods exist than we even imagined, and the need and desire for integrated

models, especially in these sites is high.7

C. COMMUNITY

We recognize the powerful opportunity we have to unite our communities around a common purpose the success

of their children and the neighborhood schools they attend. We believe that investing all our families, including

those who may have otherwise left their neighborhood schools, in public education and each other is critical to long-term educational reform and the health of our society.

A true school community is one in which all membersstudents, teachers, families, and community partnersnot

only have the opportunity to participate, but also feel welcome to actively engage in school life. While establishing

a school community is a part of the mission and vision statement for many institutions, schools often struggle to

create an authentic environment that is inclusive, regardless of the cultural or economic differences of its members.

A close look at the school should reflect partnership at every level.

Within the school, we envision our classrooms as learning communities that value the varied strengths of every

member. Just like real-world communities, each member of the classroom brings different assets to improve the

composition of the group. Classroom instruction provides a plethora of opportunities for students to learn with and

from each other, and through this experience, students learn to appreciate the contributions of their peers. Similarly,we hope to develop our teaching faculty into a supportive community that values and extends their talent. They will

work together to plan units, solicit feedback on lessons, and share instructional techniques. They will also celebrate

6 Justice Thurgood Marshall addressing school integration inMilliken v. Bradley (1974).7 See,Appendix C: Testing the Regions for examples of sites, many of which, we researched because we encountered talent in the area that wasinterested in this model. We found a high correlation between this talent and diversity similar to the context in which we know this model hasworked, Hollywood.


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successes and, together, work their way through challenges, while encouraging each other to grow as teachers and

leaders.

The school, in partnership with parent volunteers, will facilitate the participation of all our families. Becoming a

member of the school governing board, making copies in the office, or coming over the weekend to help with

campus beautification are among the ways parents can become active at school. To assist with recruiting a diverse

student body, we will invite parents to help school leaders understand what they value in the school, convey theirenthusiasm for the school to other parents, and assist with translation in parent meetings. We will maximize

attendance by ensuring that parent conferences, governance updates and community learning activities are held

during convenient times for our families.

We will celebrate the engagement of all families and monitor it to ensure that there is no gap in participation among

families of different subgroups. If there is a gap, we will connect directly with parents and families to better

understand their needs and uncover any barriers to their full participation. We know all parents want the best for

their children and see it as our responsibility to work with parents to understand how and where they can best play a

part in our school community. This engagement will not only strengthen our schools because families and teachers

will be partnering in support of student learning, but also strengthen our communities by extending the reach of the

cross-cultural connections we will be forging in our classrooms to the community as well.

The surrounding community, often overlooked, is also a valued member of the school community. The school

should be a partner in the neighborhood it shares and cultivate relationships with the surrounding residents and

businesses. We will adopt an open door policy whenever appropriate and invite community members to campus

events. Principals might invite a local business leader to be principal for the day or participate in the neighborhood

watch to help keep the neighborhood clean and safe for all of its members. Fostering relationships with community

partners will establish a positive relationship with the school and community and do great things to promote to

success of the school itself.

Ultimately, we believe that the experience of being directly engaged, or re-engaged, in high-performing, diverse

public schools that their children attend, will inform the way our parents and communities view public education.

By seeing first-hand that all children, including their own, are excelling in our schools, we believe our parents will

internalize deeply the potential that exists in all children and gain an added conviction that a diverse public school

education provides broad benefits for all children.

IV. TALENT

The greatest lever in ensuring educational excellence is exceptional leadership at all levels of a school system. For

this reason, we know our people will be our greatest asset and our greatest need. We will ensure that we are the best

in class at attracting, training, developing and retaining our talent. All members of our network will be individuals

who demonstrate an unwavering conviction that all children can perform at high levels. We will recruit people with

a track record of outstanding results, who truly value the diversity our model embraces and understand the

importance of talent and leadership development.

Our model requires, attracts and respects stellar people. Outstanding educators want to be part of a high-quality

organization that provides relevant support, acknowledges and encourages their capacity to address and attack local

issues, and invests in their development. Exceptionally smart, talented and committed people do not want to be told

what to do all the time. They want to be part of something great and part of making it great.

We value leadership. At the classroom level, our academic model demands and rewards those who do not wish to

teach from a script, but rather are motivated by the opportunity to continually develop their instructional expertise.

Excellent teachers are critical in project-based, constructivist classrooms. Planning for this model requires an


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increased level of sophistication, as teachers construct project units that build on student interest, address state

learning standards, manage the structures that allow for student autonomy, assess student learning, and provide for

varying levels of scaffolding and support.

We value the talent of our site-level leaders, the principals and executive directors. Our organizational structure

empowers and expects a lot from local leaders. We will entrust them as guardians of our fundamentals of Academic

Excellence, Diversity and Community at their sites. Yet they will have the authority and responsibility to craft theirschools with attention to their local conditions, needs and opportunities and determine the best means to engage with

their school and external community.

V. GROWING TO SCALE

A. MARKET ANALYSIS: SITUATING OUR UNIQUE MODEL IN THE CHARTER

SCHOOL LANDSCAPE

Existing networks are doing incredible work that is necessary for children and important to reform. In many ways,

they have laid a foundation for our work. We also believe our model has a critical role to play in the reform

conversation and has room to grow in the current landscape. There is currently no national charter network thatcombines the fundamentals we have described above.

Our schools compared to existing charter networks:

Model CriteriaCWC

SchoolsKIPP

Denver

School of

Science &

Technology

High

Tech

High

Achievement

First

Socioeconomically Diverse Yes No Yes Yes No

Racially Diverse Yes No Yes Yes No

Project-Based/Constructivist Academic Approach Yes Some No Yes No

National Network Yes Yes No No Regional

In addition, while the number of charter schools throughout America is increasing every year, the networks that

share our emphasis on diversity number in the single digits and serve significantly fewer students than the largest

networks out there. The largest networks with an emphasis on diversity, Denver School of Science & Technology

and High Tech High in San Diego, listed above, last year served 1,000 students in 5 schools and 3,500 students in 9

school, respectively.8

8 Denver School of Science & Technology information, available athttp://dashboard.publiccharters.org/dashboard/select/school/denver_science_and_technology/year/2010 ; High Tech High data available athttp://www.hightechhigh.org/about/ .


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The larger, farther-reaching charter networks currently do not share our focus on diversity:

Charter Networks9

Approximate

Student

Population

Number

of

Schools

Racial/Ethnic

Breakdown

FRPL

Population

KIPP (National) 27,000 9995% African-

American and Latino84%

Aspire (California) 10,000 30*91% African-


Achievement First (Northeast) 5,000 1996% African-


*Data for 23 schools with complete demographic and FRPL data on Aspire website

Based on these factors, the market for our model is far from saturated and our schools will play a unique and

valuable role in the school portfolio of any state or district.

B. DESIGNING FOR GROWTH

In light of the gap that still exists between the sheer number of students in need and the number of charters across

the country, the charter sector has recently been criticized for a pervasive fear of growth . . . . stifling fresh thinkingand innovation to reach more children with the best instruction.10

We are not afraid of growth. To the contrary, we believe deliberate, aggressive growth is absolutely necessary, and

that the scale of our effort must be commensurate with the scale of the problems and needs in our public school

system if we truly intend to create an excellent American public education system. For this reason, we aim to

maximize the number of students and communities that we serve across the country through a national network.

From the beginning, we are designing for growth.

Most charter networks have grown organically and slowly. Their early organizational structures often end up

mismatched with both community demand and their growing organizations needs. In addition, the common, highly

centralized Charter Management Organization (CMO) model has presented barriers to rapid growth, with the

average CMO opening on average only one new school a year.11

In contrast, we are both expecting demand andplanning for our growth deliberately. In the context of organizational growth, our model offers a greater ability to

scale than others. First, given the mixed socio-economic make-up of our student population, our schools will benefit

from community fundraising in a way that is not feasible in an all low-income school population. While growth and

funding to support facilities will always demand philanthropic support, we will be able to create sustainable

kindergarten through twelfth grade schools that can operate financially independently on a combination of state

funding and community/parent donations.

Second, we have designed an organizational structure that avoids the bureaucratic and financial trappings of a

massive central office, while still taking advantage of economies of scale. Described in more detail below, this

structure will ensure a balance between national oversight and locally driven but shared support services. A leaner,

9 Data obtained from network websites: KIPP: http://www.kipp.org/reportcard/2008/ ; Aspire: http://www.aspirepublicschools.org/ , data from 23school webpages linked to main site; Achievement First: http://www.achievementfirst.org/, data from 19 school webpages linked to main site.10Going Exponential: Growing the Charter Sectors Best, a 2011 study released by the Policy Institute, an independent center for policyinnovation.11 Robin Lake at the University of Washingtons Center on Reinventing Public Education commented in a recent interview that CMOs aregrowing slowly and exist in a very limited number of cities. The CMO model is typically highly centralized, with services akin to school districts.That model, so far, has produced new schools pretty slowly (the average CMO grows by one school a year), and many CMOs have built up veryexpensive central offices that could not exist without continued philanthropic support. Education Next The $500 million Question by KevinHall and Robin Lake, Winter 2011, available at http://educationnext.org/the-500-million-question/ .


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less expensive national management organization will then focus on the big picture, growth strategy, and research

and evaluation. This structure will not only allow us to accelerate learning across the network, but also accelerate

our growth both locally and nationally, as we will be more financially sustainable.

Our governance structure balances our desire to ensure both high quality across the network and empowered local

leadership, while also allowing for sustainable, rapid growth nationally. We deliberately designed this structure to

attract, harness and maximize the talents of excellent, driven leaders at all levels. Our organizational structure willbe comprised of three entities:

National Network A lean national organization that will hold the big picture of our work across thecountry, establish regional boards and facilitate learning across the network.

Regional Clusters Groups of K-12 schools led by a regional board Member Services Organization A national value-add support services organization led by regional

leaders and from which schools will purchase services as needed.

We are mindful that ensuring alignment in values and quality will be essential to carrying our work forward

effectively and have designed this structure to ensure checks and balances across the organization. A more detailed

description regarding the interaction between these entities can be found inAppendix A.

C. LAUNCH (2012 2016)

We will open no less than four regional clusters between 2012 and 2016 and will remain open to opportunities to

expand beyond this initial growth plan. Each cluster will contain at least two K-12 groups and serve over 4,200

students at full enrollment. At a minimum, we plan to serve nearly 17,000 children K-12 when all four clusters

reach maturity, making us comparable to a small to medium sized school district and the largest mixed-

socioeconomic and mixed-race charter network in the country.


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Year1 Year2 Year3 Year4 Year5 Year6 Year7 Year8 Year9 Year10

Clusters/Boards 1 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4

ExecuIveDirectors 1 4 6 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Principals 2 8 12 16 16 17 20 22 25 28

Elementary 2 8 12 16 16 16 16 16 16 16

Middle 0 0 0 0 0 1 4 6 8 8

High 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 4

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

ProjectedNetworkGrowth:Year1toYear10


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We have targeted Southern California for our Year One Launch in September 2012. In subsequent years, we are

currently considering the following sites:

New York Washington, D.C. Texas Minnesota Georgia North Carolina Indiana Massachusetts California: Oakland Tennessee

These sites either have an extensive history supporting charter schools, are in the process of re-evaluating their

charter laws and considering comprehensive approaches to reform, or have interested groups or individuals that have

reached out to us to begin conversations regarding starting our schools there. Recognizing that many diverse

communities across our country exist and may be attracted to and well-served by this model, we are open to

exploring other communities as they emerge. We are excited to engage more deeply with both the sites above and

others as we develop our plans to scale our presence across the country.

VII. APPENDIX

A. ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

1. NATIONAL NETWORK

CWC Schools is the national organization guiding the growth and development of the schools and clusters that make

up the CWC Schools network and ensuring the fundamentals weve outlined Academic Excellence, Diversity,

Community and Talent are factored into decisions at every level of the organization. To this end, as a key

responsibility of its work, CWC Schools will establish effective regional boards to oversee each Cluster. In

recognition of the critical role a governing board plays in the success of a school, to the extent possible in each

region, for the first two to three years of a Cluster, CWC Schools staff members will work alongside local leaders to

provide direct board leadership and support in building and sourcing talent for the governing board. Two members

of our staff and founding team have been engaged in this type of charter school work for the last six years, and under

their leadership as staff and board members, four charter schools with missions similar to ours are now operating in

Los Angeles. Over 1,000 children attend these four schools. Two of the schools led by our team members are in the

top 30 (out of 800) highest performing schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

This critical start-up period will not only allow for more direct communication and support between Clusters and the

national organization, which will ensure alignment and responsiveness to each others needs, but it will also allow

for time for training and alignment on effective board practices.

The national organization will also provide support and leadership in the areas of Strategic Planning and Growth,

Real Estate Acquisition and Development, Educational Research & Development, Evaluation, Fundraising and

Governance.


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CWC Schools will serve also as a leading advocate for charter schools, educational reform and innovative practices.

CWC Schools intends to advocate for legislative reform to allow for schools of choice in all states and to ensure that

students from all socio-economic and racial backgrounds have access to quality public schools across the nation.

CWC Schools will engage at the local, state and federal level to ensure that charter schools are a viable option in all

communities and that the lessons learned through our work are incorporated into the thinking on how to reform

education throughout the country.

We anticipate keeping the CWC Schools staff relatively small, even as the number of schools increases we do not

want to create an overly bureaucratic national management model, but rather aim to empower local communities and

leaders to implement the CWC Schools model.

The Board of Directors of the CWC Schools will include a committed group of experts in strategy, operations,

education, fundraising, law, real estate, entertainment and more. The Board will provide critical leadership and

guidance to take the organization to scale and execute its mission.

2. CLUSTERS AND K-12 GROUPS

The CWC Schools model is structured as a framework of individual schools within K-12 groups within regional

clusters.

CLUSTERS

Each Cluster is locally governed by a regional board, incorporates local talent and leadership and is the fiduciary

agent for the schools under its supervision. Each Cluster will have no more than three K-12 groups, and in most

cases only two K-12 groups, under its direction.

K-12 GROUPS

Each K-12 group will be run by an Executive Director, who is responsible for leading the regional strategy, in

partnership with the Cluster board, as well as the day-to-day management of all activities of the Cluster. A typical

K-12 Group in the CWC Schools model will have 2 elementary schools (grades K-5), 1 middle school (grades 6-8)

and 1 high school (grades 9-12). At full enrollment, a K-12 group will server over 2,100 students and the full

cluster enrollment will be over 4,200 students.

SCHOOLS

Each school within the K-12 group has a high degree of autonomy and is run by its Principal. Each school, while

observing the fundamentals of our model, will be empowered to innovate as they identify and adapt to unique local

needs. The Principal at each site reports to the Executive Director. Our K-5 schools will enroll 88 students per

grade and middle and high schools will operate with 150 - 160 students per grade, based on attrition between grades

5 and 6 and between grades 8 and 9.

3. MEMBER SERVICES ORGANIZATION

A unique aspect of our model is our plan for clusters to form a member services organization (MSO) to provide key

services exclusively to all schools/clusters within the network. In this way, once we have reached a sustainable


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number of schools and clusters, we will be able to remove several operational functions and associated costs from

the national management organization and ensure that the needs of local leaders are more directly driving the scope

and scale of support services. Clusters and schools will contract and pay only for the level of support they need.

The MSO will provide services in the areas of Human Resources, Technology, Accounting & Finance, Professional

Development, Data Management, Student Assessment and other areas as needed. The MSO will also leverage the

buying power of the network to reduce costs associated with employee benefits, insurance, telecommunications,

office supplies, etc. Through this shared entity, we believe we can create true best-in-class services, reduce costs

and ensure that site leaders remain focused on student achievement and community engagement.

B. FINANCIAL MODEL

The financial model for this venture is constructed around two basic premises first, the national organization

(CWC Schools) will require philanthropic support to sustain operations and second, the Cluster/MSO model is a

closed-loop system that will become self-sustaining as the organization grows to scale.

The national arm of the organization will be as lean as possible to reduce the funding need as much as possible, but

due to legal restrictions on the roll of a CMO, there will be an ongoing need for support of the national organization.

Over time, we believe we will be able to attract support from private donors and foundations to support the nationaloffice. We also believe the activities held by the national office research & development, facilities, advocacy,

growth and capacity will resonate with funders and will be fundable over the long-term.

The relationship between the Clusters and the MSO is designed to work at scale as a closed loop system the

costs of the services provided by the MSO will be borne by the schools without subsidy from the national office.

The MSO will provide a variety of services to the schools, including: accounting and financial management, HR

support, technical support, assessment and data management and general operational support.

Site-specific budgets are being developed as final decisions are made about specific locations.

C. TESTING THE REGIONS

Below is a sampling of regions we tested in thinking about the viability of our model in those sites. We looked at

both the socio-economic and racial/ethnic breakdown of these communities and researched the school context in

these sites as well. Specifically, we were looking to see whether there was high segregation in local schools,

compared to the community demographic, and low performance in local schools as well (results of this research are

in the tables referenced below, but not included here).


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D. FOUNDING TEAM BIOS

J. KRISTEAN DRAGON, Chief Executive Officer

Most recently, Kriste served as Executive Director of The Wonder of Reading, one of the largest childrens literacy

programs in Los Angeles. Kriste began her work in education as a middle school mathematics teacher in South Los

Angeles. She later served as Executive Director of Teach For America in Los Angeles and Vice President of

regional operations for six of Teach For Americas western regions. In this role, Kriste managed the then largest

community of Teach For America regional leaders and was responsible for the placement and ongoing support of

over 900 Teach For America corps members. She has also served as professional development coordinator at

UCLAs Center X, developing mathematics curricula and training more than 4,000 teachers in the Los Angeles

Unified School District. Kriste served as board chair for Citizens of the World Charter School Hollywood, served as

vice chair of Community Magnet Charter School, and is a member of the board of Larchmont Charter Schools. She

has a Juris Doctorate from the University of Georgia and a bachelors degree in communications from the Universityof Alabama. Kriste is a Fellow at the Broad Center for Management's first cohort of Education Leaders.

KRUPA DESAI, Chief Strategy Officer

Krupa joins Citizens of the World after serving as the Senior Managing Director of Development at Teach For

America in Los Angeles. In that capacity, she managed the regions fundraising campaigns, doubled the regions

revenue in two years, and worked to develop both short and long-term regional growth plans. Previously, Krupa

worked as an associate attorney at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges on entertainment and intellectual

property litigation. Her career in education began as a Teach For America corps member in New York City,


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teaching 7th and 8th grade science at I.S. 183, The Paul Robeson School, in the South Bronx. Krupa graduated from

Yale University with a B.A. in American Studies focusing in Politics, Policy and Governance and earned her Juris

Doctorate, cum laude, from New York University School of Law.

DR. HILLARY JOHNSON, Chief Academic Officer

Hillary began her career nearly twenty years ago as a Spanish-bilingual kindergarten, 1st grade and Reading

Recovery teacher in Oakland, CA through Teach for America. Prior to joining Citizens of the World, she spent 13

years as an independent consultant, helping organizations, schools, and teachers improve their performance. Her

experience includes various engagements with district schools and central offices, charter schools, charter

management organizations, and work with 4 charter authorizers, including at Charter Schools Institute at the State

University of New York. Recently, she served as project manager of Los Angeles Unified School Districts Charter

Schools Collaborative. Hillary graduated with distinction from the University of California at Berkeley and earned

her doctorate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education as a member of its Urban Superintendents Program.

GENE STRAUB, Chief Financial Officer & Chief Operating Officer

Prior to joining Citizens of the World, Gene served as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Youth

Policy Institute. Previously, he has served as Chief Operating Officer at Larchmont Charter School, Chief Financial

Officer for marketing firm IMMS, and Chief Operating Officer of Break the Cycle Inc., where he had oversight ofdevelopment, program implementation, public policy and all financial activities. He also served as Senior Vice

President-Studio Operations for Twentieth Century Fox, where he was responsible for daily operational activity of

the 54-acre studio lot and had oversight of an $85 million operating budget. Gene serves on the Board of Directors

for Larchmont Charter School, Bert Corona Charter Middle School, and Monseor Oscar Romero Charter Middle

School and was a founding board member of Valley Charter School. Gene earned a B.A. in Finance from Michigan

State University and has received a Diplme de Cuisine with honors from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, France.

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