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

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.

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.

Noble Street College Prep is the first campus of the high-performing Noble Network of Charter Schools in Chicago. Serving more than 11,000 students, the school focuses on high expectations for students.