Straight from the students: finding supportive communities in public charter schools

In 2009, through the Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative, we invested in three school districts: Hillsborough County Public Schools, Florida; Memphis City Schools, Tennessee; and Pittsburgh Public Schools, Pennsylvania, and a group of charter management organizations (CMOs).

Once a month, Anna Leonhard gets together with nine of her fellow teachers. They work in close collaboration on a variety of activities to strengthen their teaching practice—planning common units, observing each other teach, and analyzing student data.

Walk into Roots Elementary and you'll quickly see that it's not your average school. Rather than classrooms of 30 students being taught the same material by one teacher, each Roots student works with a teacher to develop a personal learning plan.