Green Dot Public Schools is a leading charter school operator in Los Angeles and the third largest in the country. Formed in 1999 in response to the low graduation and college enrollment rates that plagued the city’s public high schools and were especially acute among low-income students, Green Dot launched five founding schools with a vision to create small, successful charter schools that demonstrate a more effective way to provide public education to low-income, high-risk youth.
All of Green Dot’s five founding schools were named in Newsweek’s annual ranking of the best high schools in the country and were medal winners from U.S. News and World Report, which placed them in the top 2.5% of schools in the nation. Today, Green Dot serves more than 10,000 students in 21 schools across Los Angeles and, in 2014, opened its first school in Memphis, Tennessee.
Our Impact
Eighteen Graduate School Fellows and Analyst Fellows have helped Green Dot scale and sustain their work for students. Education Pioneers have:
- Created a performance dashboard for Green Dot’s home office to help the organization better track its progress toward strategic goals.
- Researched best practices in teaching writing and developed a new writing program to prepare Green Dot’s students for college-level writing across their curriculum.
- Analyzed fundraising across Green Dot’s schools and created a guidebook of policies to ensure each campus has the financial support it needs.
- Managed the move of two charter school campuses, ensuring appropriate resources and training were in place on time so that school staff could focus on the students.
- And more.
