Leadership Fund II

Teamwork.

We see strength in numbers. While talented individual leaders can improve student achievement in individual classrooms, we believe that teams of talented leaders can improve student achievement in schools, and ultimately the district as a whole.

Leadership Fund II has continued to recruit and develop exceptional school leaders. In addition, we are now focused on positioning teams of those leaders in the schools that need them most and rewarding them for results.

Objectives.

Developed in consultation with civic leaders and senior CPS officials, we maintain the following objectives for Leadership Fund II:

	Continue to invest in programs and initiatives that recruit and prepare talented school leadership. In business, good leadership is the single most important ingredient in a successful organization. Research demonstrates that the same is true for schools. We have maintained investments in the most effective programs from Fund I and are consistently looking for others that fit our mission. In total, we have made 13 program investments to date. Six are now financially independent of The Fund, with new public and dollars supporting their work.
	Position teams of leaders with the tools, structures and data they need to improve student performance. A strong company places teams of its most talented managers in the divisions that need the most help and provides them with the data they need to make the business better. We can do the same for our schools. We are currently working to increase the level of collaboration among our portfolio of programs in order to effectively position and deploy teams of high-quality school leaders. To date, 245 schools - more than 40 percent of the CPS total - benefit from three or more Fund-supported leaders.
	Reward results. Business leaders are compensated, in part, based on the value they create for the shareholder and the customer. Improved results are compensated accordingly. We believe the same principle can be applied to schools. Leadership Fund II continues to provide financial rewards to those teachers who pursue and achieve National Board Certification. In addition, we continue to pursue opportunities to reward those teachers, principals and other leaders who agree to take on the toughest challenges, as well as those who can demonstrate results in improving school performance.

Results.

Guided by our objectives, to date The Fund has:

Helped CPS leadership fundamentally overhaul and improve the way it recruits and prepares principals. In 2003, Pritzker Realty Group President and CEO Penny Pritzker, vice chairman of The Fund and one of our founding directors, recruited some of Chicago's most prominent business executives to serve with CPS CEO Arne Duncan and his senior staff on the Leading to Great Principals Blue Ribbon Task Force. As a result of their work:

	Eligibility standards for principals are now based on demonstrated performance and include a writing and policy exam
	Principals - for the first time - have a clearly defined set of expectations for what they must know and be able to do
	Local School Councils, which make the ultimate hiring decision regarding a school's principal, now have a stronger pool of candidates from which to choose.

Currently, more than 480 principal candidates meet the rigorous new requirements, exceeding our Fund II goal of 400; more than 170 hired to date in traditional schools and we are on track to meet our goal of 300 hired by 2008.

Boosted the number of National Board Certified Teachers in the classroom. National Board Certification is the highest credential in the teaching profession. And it matters. Three major, independent studies examining hundreds of thousands of student records have confirmed the impact these master teachers have on student achievement. In CPS:

	646 CPS teachers have earned NBC - up from just 11 in 1999
	69 schools in 2006 benefited from teams of three or more NBCTs
	29 schools in 2006 - including 20 low-income - had 15 percent or more of their faculty National Board Certified

Together with Mayor Daley, and CPS and union leadership, The Fund has mapped out a strategy for increasing the number of these master teachers to 1,200 by 2008, with 25 low-income schools where 15 percent or more of the faculty are NBCTs.

Positioned alternative certification as a key human resources strategy for CPS. At the time The Fund made its first investment in a portfolio of programs that recruit and develop exceptional exceptional recent college graduates, and offer mid-career professionals with deep content knowledge a pathway into the classroom, just one such program existed: Golden Apple Teacher Education. Today there are 18, and their graduates have helped fill critical shortages in CPS - particularly in math and science.

We are now focused retaining these teachers. Nationally, nearly 50 percent of all new teachers stay in the classroom less than five years. In urban districts, even fewer remain. For Fund II, The Fund maintains an unprecedented goal for an urban school district: 70 percent of teachers from alternative routes stay in CPS for at least five years. Of the two programs The Fund supports with multiple-year cohort data:

	GATE currently boasts a 63 percent five-year retention rate
	AUSL boasts a three-year retention rate of more than 90 percent

Begun to help position and support Fund-supported leaders in teams to improve whole-school performance. Halfway through Fund II, in 2006, two in five of Chicago's public schools - serving more than 150,000 students - had three or more leaders from The Fund's portfolio of programs. More than 500 schools benefited from at least one of the leaders we helped support.

Learn more about our portfolio programs >