Noble maps out massive charter school expansion, feds support it
Teachers union: School closures will be the "natural consequence" of more charter high schools.
Despite a financial crisis in Chicago Public Schools and increasingly organized opposition to the prospect of more charter schools, Chicago’s largest charter network has plans for a massive expansion in the city, according to a successful grant application it submitted to the federal government.
The Noble Network of Charter Schools, which already runs 16 schools and educates 10 percent of all city high school students, plans to open eight more high schools in Chicago in the next five years. Noble forecasts educating 6,000 more students for a total “market share” of 15 percent of Chicago Public Schools’ high school population.
By 2020, the charter network projects its total revenues from CPS and the state will climb above $200 million annually for the education of 17,675 high school students.
“We continue to experience demand for additional Noble seats from the families we already serve, and the families that want us to come into our communities,” says Sara Kandler, development director at Noble. “We hear from them about the impact that Noble has made on their children, their nieces and nephews, their neighbors—and we have new families coming to us regularly saying, ‘I want a Noble option, or I want a Noble option closer to home.’ And so that’s what drives our continued vision for expansion,” says Kandler.
The U.S. Department of Education is supporting the expansion through an $8.4 million “Replication and Expansion” grant awarded at the end of last month. Noble was one of just 12 charter networks in the country selected to receive the grant.
Noble’s application, submitted in mid-July, calls for the network to grow at the rate of two campuses per year — and includes specific locations for the first three campuses as well as Noble maps out massive charter school expansion, feds support it:
