Envision Schools

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Envision Schools is a school management organization, founded in June 2002, that will eventually encompass eight charter-based public high schools in the San Francisco Bay Area.[1] The schools in the network are intended to reach minority and disadvantaged students who have not succeeded in traditional, large urban public high schools.[2]

Contents

[edit] Investment

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation helped launch the school network with a $3 million investment in 2003 to form an initial group of five charter schools.[3] In 2006, the foundation invested another $6.9 million aimed at helping the program duplicate its arts and technology programs.[4]

[edit] Schools

[edit] Current

[edit] Defunct

  • Marin School of Arts and Technology (MSAT) opened in September 2003 at the College of Marin in Novato, California. By the end of the 2006-07 school year, the school graduated its first class, but was closed, blaming conflicts with the Novato Unified School District. However, some observers attributed the closure to another situation. For the first three years of MSAT’s existence, California charter school law mandated that districts pay charter schools a set amount per student. In the Novato Unified School District (NUSD), this amounted to $800 per year per student more than Novato’s other two high schools (both non-charters) received. But in fall 2006, a bill remedying that inequity, SB319, took effect. After one year of functioning without that extra subsidy, MSAT collapsed.[7] Most of its students switched to the Metro program for the 2007-08 school year, commuting to San Francisco, reportedly because not all of their credits would transfer to non-charter high schools.[8]

[edit] Instructional model

Envision high schools are small and academically rigorous and use project-based learning, art and technology. This is predicated on studies that show that students in small high schools fare better academically than those in large ones. The schools are characterized by what Environ terms 'the three R's':

  • Rigorous, challenging instruction
  • Relevant curriculum linked to real world experience
  • Meaningful relationships with adult mentors and personalized learning[9]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Lenz, Bob. "A Model for Charter Schools: The Marin School of Arts and Technology", The George Lucas Educational Foundation. Accessed December 15, 2007.
  2. ^ Bender, Kristin. "Charter schools to target minorities", Oakland Tribune, June 4, 2003. Accessed December 15, 2007.
  3. ^ "New Investment in Envision’s Network of Charter High Schools Boosts Efforts to Expand", Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation press release dated November 29, 2005.
  4. ^ Eslinger, Bonnie. "Bill Gates’ foundation awards $6.9M to S.F.-based charter school group", San Francisco Examiner, November 16, 2006. "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has showered a San Francisco-based charter school organization with $6.9 million — on top of $3.8 million granted three years ago — so they can continue to open new high schools that replicate its arts-and-technology model."
  5. ^ Knight, Heather. "Mayor's visit energizes Ingleside charter school's inaugural class", San Francisco Chronicle, December 24, 2004. Accessed December 16, 2007.
  6. ^ "Charter schools safer, quieter, report finds", Neil Gonzales and Kristofer Noceda, Inside Bay Area, 12 November 2007
  7. ^ " Envision is really, really mad at Novato", San Francisco Schools, June 13, 2007
  8. ^ Speich, Don. "Novato's charter high school calls it quits", Marin Independent Journal, June 5, 2007. Accessed December 16, 2007.
  9. ^ "Teaching and Learning - Instructional Model", Envision Schools, accessed 17 December 2007

[edit] External links