Venture Fund Fueling Push for New Schools

Douglas S. McCurry, the superintendent of Achievement First, juggles materials for a teacher professional-development session at the charter-management organization's Crown Heights Academy in New York City. Achievement First is one of a growing number of CMOs that are expanding with support from the NewSchools Venture Fund.

—Emile Wamsteker for Education Week

A nonprofit group in California is plowing millions of donated dollars into new charter schools around the country, with uneven but largely promising results.

By Erik W. Robelen

The NewSchools Venture Fund, launched nine years ago to support educational entrepreneurs, recently hit a milestone: It has raised $100 million, helped along by a big gift last summer that propelled it to the top of the heap among the Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s education grantees. So, what’s it doing with all that money?

A core activity of the San Francisco-based venture philanthropy is to create systems of high-performing charter schools, which are publicly financed but not typically operated by school districts, in big cities with chronic academic challenges.

Analysts suggest NewSchools’ biggest impact has been to help firmly establish charter-management organizations—nonprofits that spawn and operate clusters of like-minded charter schools—as part...