YES Prep Public Schools Wins Inaugural Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools

In selecting the winner, The Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools review board examined publicly available data since the 2007/2008 school year collected by MPR Associates, an education research and consulting firm. The review board considered student outcomes, scalability, size, poverty and demographics, and selected the charter management organization that, in its judgment, showed the most outstanding overall student performance and improvement while reducing achievement gaps. No formula was used. For more information on the methodology and review board, visit: http://www.broadprize.org/publiccharterschools/FAQ.html.

Charter management organizations eligible for the 2012 award operated a minimum of five schools for at least four years and served sizeable percentages of urban, poor and minority students. Organizations cannot apply for the award nor be nominated. For a list of eligible organizations, visit: http://www.broadprize.org/publiccharterschools/eligible.html. The list of organizations eligible for the 2013 award will be released this fall.

The Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools is the sister award to The Broad Prize for Urban Educationthat is awarded to traditional school districts. The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation launched both awards to help schools and school districts across America learn from innovative public school systems producing the strongest student outcomes. To facilitate the spread of data and best practices, this fall, The Broad Foundation will release:

• Summaries of data analyses on all organizations eligible for the award
• Research-based best practice findings from a site visit to YES Prep
• Framework upon which the site visit findings are based

This, and other information about The Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools, will be available on www.broadprize.org/publiccharterschools.html.

"This award shines the spotlight on the charter school movement's next great challenge, which is to achieve quality with scale," said Nina Rees, CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. "Public charter schools nationally have an opportunity to demonstrate what 'coopetition' looks like at its best, and many of these charter school organizations are building on their successes to ensure that many more students have access to a quality public school education."