At A Glance

As a venture capital fund for public education, The Chicago Public Education Fund invests dollars and ideas in well-managed, high-impact programs that improve school leadership and student achievement system wide. Using our model, The Fund provides critical strategic management assistance to the programs we support, helping them create strategic plans, hire management teams, recruit board members, and develop additional sources of financial support.

In 2003, The Fund completed its first, $10 million fund, focused exclusively on building a pipeline of high-quality school leadership. Leadership Fund I recruited hundreds of talented new teachers, launched a district-wide initiative to identify master teachers, and emphasized principal development programs that combine education and management models.

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Leadership Fund II, launched on April 29, 2004, has continued to invest dollars and ideas in high-impact programs that recruit and develop skilled school leadership. It is now focused on deploying teams of those leaders in the schools that need them most, and enabling them to use data to constantly improve what they do in their classrooms and schools. Finally, Fund II may provide incentives to teams of teachers and principals who agree to work in the city’s lowest-performing schools and reward those who get results.

Click to enlarge Fund II map >