Green Dot Public Schools

Green Dot is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Downtown Los Angeles which operates eighteen public schools in Greater Los Angeles.^[1]

The organization was founded by Steve Barr in 1999. The schools Green Dot operates are each named Ánimo, the Spanish word for rigor and strength. The graduation rates of schools operated by Green Dot are higher than those of the Los Angeles Unified School District, with 80% of students graduating from Animo schools, compared to 47% for LAUSD. In 2006, Green Dot opened 5 charter schools within the attendance area of Los Angeles' troubled High School. In 2008, a majority of permanent teachers at Locke High School voted to reconstitute the underperforming school as a Green Dot Charter School.

School results

Green Dot serves middle and high school students in and around Los Angeles, CA. The five Green Dot schools that opened prior to 2006 are achieving high results compared to neighboring traditional public schools on several key metrics. Green Dot's first campus, Animo Leadership in Inglewood, has an API score of 806 compared to the 589 score of neighboring Hillcrest High school.

In 2008, an op ed in the LA Times raised numerous concerns about plans for Green Dot to "operate Locke High School during the regular school year" and predicted failure.^[2] However, UCLA's National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing produced an Evaluation of Green Dot's Locke Transformation Project that found generally positive results. The CRESST Evaluation claims, "results from matched samples of students suggest that 9th graders who entered GDL generally performed better on a range of student outcome measures than they would have if they had attended a comparable LAUSD high school." Countering concerns that Green Dot would simply purge students that proved more challenging to educate, the CRESST Evaluation concludes, "GDL students were very similar to Locke’s demographic profile prior to the GDL transformation, as well as to comparison students from GDL feeder schools who attended three comparison high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD)."^[3]

Expanding

The Greendot public school system currently has 19 charter schools which include:

• Animo Leadership Charter High School
• Animo Inglewood Charter High School
• Oscar De La Hoya Animo Charter High School
• Ánimo South Los Angeles Charter High School
• Animo Venice Charter High School
• Ánimo Pat Brown Charter High School
• Ánimo Ralph Bunche Charter High School
• Ánimo Jackie Robinson Charter High School
• Ánimo Watts Charter High School
• Ánimo Locke 9th Grade Academy
• Ánimo Locke Academy A
• Ánimo Locke Academy B
• Ánimo Locke Academy C
• Ánimo Phyllis Wheatley
• Ánimo Western Charter Middle School
• Ánimo James B. Taylor Charter Middle School
• Ánimo Ellen Ochoa Charter Middle School
• Ánimo Mae Jemison Charter Middle School
• Ánimo Jefferson Charter Middle School

External links

• Green Dot Public Schools website

References