Deniz OzgencA Fellowship with Uncommon Schools, as an Education Pioneer
I am doing an internship at Uncommon Schools Inc as a part of the Education Pioneers New York City Cohort this summer. Uncommon Schools is a non-profit Charter School Management Organization founded in 2005. The mission of Uncommon is to start and manage outstanding charter schools (elementary, middle and high schools) that focus on eliminating the achievement gap. Currently there are nine schools in the Uncommon network and the organization is aiming to grow to 20 schools by 2010.
I am working as part of the operations management team. My project for the next 10 weeks is to create consistent and comparable performance metrics across Uncommon Schools and across other groups. More specifically, I will be working on creating a standardized year end “Report Card” and a Performance Dashboard to measure the success of our schools using criteria such as student academic achievement, enrollment, attendance and attrition statistics, teacher performance, parent satisfaction levels and student recruitment. I am working with a CBS alum, Samantha Brenner, who was part of the Social Enterprise Summer Fellowship Program last year. I will be collaborating with other teams in the USI home office, as well as the local heads of operations at the different schools.
The Education Pioneers Program has been very rewarding and interesting so far. The two day orientation in early June helped me gain perspective on issues related to education reform such as the achievement gap, teacher development and retention and student recruitment. It has also been very stimulating to have discussions about our individual projects with the other cohort members.
Journal 2:
I spent my summer at Uncommon Schools Home Office designing and building dynamic management tools that measure school performance as well as school progress towards pre-specified goals and benchmarks. I identified consistent and comparable metrics that span different dimensions of the organization, and created a standardized Year End Report Card and Performance Dashboards that assess overall success of Uncommon Schools based on the selected criteria.
Accomplishments, Results, and Experience:
- I ensured that performance metrics were defined consistently by schools across the Uncommon network.
- I improved the existing performance management tools to be more user-friendly and less error prone based on recommendations from key users.
- I worked on generating buy-in from school leaders for implementing and using the tools.
- I formulated an action plan to implement new management tools.
In addition to student academic achievement, the metrics used in the dashboards and report cards included, enrollment levels, attendance and attrition statistics, teacher attrition, parent satisfaction levels and student recruitment which are critical for our schools.
The academic results of Uncommon Schools were compared to external targets as well as best performers within Uncommon network. The organization is now able to determine strategy based on an organizational “roll-up” of data, which will help Uncommon set new achievable goals using a common language.
These dynamic management tools will facilitate the communication of objectives to school leaders & other stakeholders as well as allocating resources to operational practices that drive results.
The tools will be used for measuring key factors that drive results, identifying problems, trends, and effective practices in real time, optimizing performance, and developing organizational strategy.
The tools I have built are a good interim solution, but they are not optimal for storing data beyond a certain scale. In the future, Uncommon may need other dynamic tools. Therefore I did research regarding possible solutions for the future stages and made recommendations for implementing additional tools as well.
Uncommon Schools provided a positive, challenging and exciting work environment. It was a unique experience to be a part of this past paced, growing, young organization. I was new to education and learned a lot about charter schools, education reform, managing a developing start-up company and thinking strategically about future growth.
