Uncommon Schools, Inc. (Uncommon) is a nonprofit charter management organization that starts and manages among the most outstanding urban college preparatory charter schools working to close the achievement gap in the Northeast. Uncommon builds uncommonly great schools by developing and managing regional networks that are philosophically aligned and highly accountable.     Excellence Charter Schools, NY North Star Academy Charter Schools, NJ Collegiate Charter Schools, NY True North Public Schools, NY Preparatory Charter Schools, NY

Uncommon manages eleven schools in New York City, upstate New York, and Newark, New Jersey. The organization also has two associate member schools in Boston, Massachusetts. Uncommon ultimately will encompass more than 30 schools, serving more than 10,000 K to 12th grade students, in four geographic regions.

Playing on Horace Mann's notion of the "common school," and born of the fact that too many of today's educational institutions steer toward mediocrity, Uncommon was founded to create more uncommon schools - uncommonly good, extraordinary, autonomous, and distinctive. The organization first supported the creation of North Star Academy Charter School of Newark, which opened in 1997 and has since emerged as one of the most celebrated charter public schools in the nation. In 2005, Uncommon formalized its mission as a charter management organization with the goal of starting schools in the Northeast that create transformative college prep opportunities for low-income children.

Uncommon Schools has been raising funds, managing facilities, and providing management support to North Star Academy on an informal basis since the school's inception. The organization was also involved in the development and launch of Excellence Charter School of Bedford Stuyvesant. The school opened in 2004 as New York City's first all-boys public school, with 90 kindergarten and first grade students. Chartered by the State University of New York, Excellence plans to grow to 600 students, pre-K to eighth grade. Uncommon and the Excellence Board developed a 90,000 square-foot state-of-the-art facility to house the school. In that project, as well as North Star's high school building, Uncommon is pioneering the use of innovative public finance mechanisms for charter school facilities.

Uncommon Schools has provided planning, start-up, and management services to Williamsburg Collegiate Charter School, which opened in 2005, having been chartered by the New York City Department of Education, as well as Leadership Preparatory Charter School, which opened in 2006 in Brooklyn and True North Rochester Preparatory Charter School, which opened in 2006 in Rochester, NY.  More recent school openings include Kings Collegiate Charter School and Bedford Stuyvesant Collegiate Charter School in Brooklyn and North Star Academy Elementary School in Newark, NJ.