Inner City Education Foundation Public Schools

What is The College-Ready Promise (TCRP)

In November 2009, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $60 million gift to The College-Ready Promise, a partnership consisting of five Los Angeles-based Charter Management Organizations - ICEF, Alliance, Aspire, Green Dot, and PUC.  ICEF's share of these funds will be around 20% or $12 million over 7 years.  This is the largest gift to ICEF in our 15-year history.

Vision, Mission, and Goal

Our five CMOs have come together with an overriding conviction: we can advance the frontiers of American education by bolstering effective teaching to lift student achievement and improve the life chances of low-income children. We begin this work with a proven culture of achievement and degrees of operational freedom that position us to go well beyond what most in the field can aspire to. Yet we also start with a healthy spirit of self-criticism, a commitment to relentless candor about our performance, and a willingness to challenge traditional assumptions to shape our aspirations and choices. We are committed to delivering results that—even after ambitious and necessary levels of outside funding—will involve per-pupil spending that is substantially below that of every urban district in America serving similar students of need. Our hope is that the outcomes made possible by this grant (and related funding) can offer compelling proof to Los Angeles, to California, and to the nation that a powerful blend of new investments in teacher effectiveness, wedded to the innovative practices needed to assure that such investments pay off, is a promising strategy to realize the human potential of millions of children America today leaves behind.

Our goal is audacious but achievable, as we hope this proposal will make clear. Even while managing ambitious growth plans and navigating the unprecedented fiscal challenges that face our state, we aim to have our high-need children nearly match the current college-readiness rates of children in school districts like Beverly Hills and Malibu by 2014, on a path to exceeding them over ten years. If thousands of students from low-income families can achieve these results it will deliver a definitive rebuttal to those who doubt the potential of our students and inspire broader efforts to make their success the rule.

How will we get there?

First, we will implement an aligned, transparent evaluation system to identify and reward highly effective teachers, and to guide the development or exit of those who have not reached highly- effective status. This means we will align all promotions, pay, feedback and professional development to a newly developed teacher evaluation system that places highest priority on student outcomes. We will incorporate internal and external research and work with thought partners—including the Gates Foundation—to ensure the development of a clear, fair, and transparent system that provides teachers with useful and actionable information. This will be used to set ambitious yet attainable expectations for teachers. Such a system represents a fundamental change in the teaching profession.

Second, we will create a compelling career path that provides financial rewards and differentiated opportunities to teachers who have shown high levels of effectiveness. We will discard the traditional “step-and-column” pay scale and replace it with a new performance-based regime that: 1) provides significant increases in salary for teachers who consistently deliver outstanding student gains; 2) creates incentives for excellent teachers to work with the highest- need students; and 3) creates compelling options for the most effective teachers to stay in the classroom rather than leaving for administrative roles. If teachers are unable to show sufficient progress in raising student achievement, they will be placed on a path towards being counseled to leave. Beginning teachers will have up to five years to prove their effectiveness while experienced teachers will have less time. A clear “warning-to-exit” process will ensure fairness and adequate support for teachers failing to demonstrate high levels of effectiveness.

Third, we will align teacher supports with this new evaluation system, providing clear guidance and meaningful assistance to teachers to improve their performance. Working with our teachers, we will create a new suite of collaborative, inquiry-based professional development programs. Our comprehensive plan will ensure that teachers are provided the supports necessary to excel on the evaluation system and move along the career path. It will involve multiple layers of support, including summer coaching and mentorship by highly effective teachers, online training, collaborative planning, a real-time instructional data support system and a central team of our most proven teachers that can support struggling schools or individual classrooms.

Fourth, we will improve principal leadership to make sure these teacher effectiveness initiatives are implemented with integrity. Principals are critical to the success of these efforts, and implementation will require them to hone new skills as they become true instructional leaders. Principals will receive training on how to use and administer the evaluation system and career path, as well as training in how best to serve as coaches and mentors for their teachers. For inexperienced principals this training will begin in our year-long residency program.