Partnership Schools is a network of eleven Catholic Pre-K through 8th grade schools serving predominantly children in Harlem and the South Bronx. Enrollment has grown from 1,969 students to almost 3,600 students today. Seventy-two percent of their elementary school students were accepted to top-tier selective high schools.
At a time when nationwide math achievement for students in grades 3 through 8 in public schools declined significantly compared to pre-pandemic norms, New York Partnership returning 3rd grade students average National Percentile Rank (NPR) jumped nearly 7 percentile points, and average NPR among returning 5th and 7th graders climbed nearly 5 percentage points. Similarly, returning Partnership students in grades 3, 5, 7, and 8 continue to beat pre-pandemic national averages in reading.
Our support enabled the implementation of its academic model at a failing elementary school it took over, St. Charles Borromeo, and enabled it to work with Teach Like a Champion (another Heckscher grantee) to implement its Reading Reconsidered curriculum, which systematically builds foundational general knowledge across literature, history, and science. We have provided general operating funds and supported a strategic partnership with Teach like a Champion to provide remote learning professional development to all Partnership Schools teachers.
Importantly, in New York and elsewhere where politicians shut down in-person schooling during the pandemic despite the overwhelming evidence that in-person education could be done safely and that the impact of remote schooling would be catastrophic on poor children, Partnership Schools continued to offer in-person learning.