Foundation Grant to Fund 7 New Charter Schools in State

A California charter school organization will add seven campuses over five years using a $4.7-million investment from an educational foundation of billionaire Eli Broad, both groups will announce today.

The not-for-profit Aspire Public Schools has a stated goal of opening 100 schools in poorer urban areas over the next 15 years -- giving it enough weight to force change in existing public schools. It operates seven, all in Northern California, and had planned to open two more next fall without the gift. Aspire was founded in 1998 by a former Northern California school superintendent, Don Shalvey, and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Reed Hastings, now the president of the State Board of Education.

Charters are publicly funded schools that are held exempt from some regulations in an effort to spur innovation.

The money from the Broad Foundation, whose stated mission is to improve urban public education, reflects a growing emphasis on creating networks of charter schools. The goal is to heighten the impact of charter innovations and to provide better financial management.

In recent years, the emphasis on scale has increased as California and other states have adopted additional regulations for charter schools. Hastings and Broad have supported such lawmaking as a way to weed out poorly performing charter schools that could discredit the movement. But the operators of some smaller charter schools complain that they must add campuses and create greater economies of scale to cover the costs of complying with more regulations.

“We want to bet on Aspire,” Broad said Tuesday. “You need more professional back office and other management in charter schools. It’s just more efficient if you have scale.”

His foundation’s $4.7-million donation is expected to help Aspire start schools in Oakland, Sacramento, Stockton and East Palo Alto. The money is the first installment in a $10.5-million grant, the rest of which will go to four to six charter organizations seeking to expand over the next three years, a Broad official said.

“Eli has been incredible in his support,” Shalvey said. “Starting schools is expensive, and this will help tremendously with onetime start-up costs.”

Asked why a school with prominent backers such as Hastings might need more financial support, Shalvey said: “Our philanthropy is based entirely around new schools.” Day to day, he added, “we’re running on the margins just like anybody else.”