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The physical environment of a school impacts the enthusiasm and the experience of all students, regardless of their age. A high-quality facility not only helps engage students in the learning process, but it also conveys a set of values to these students. It tells students that school is important and that the school wants to invest in them. We are grateful for the help of our capital friends, without whom we would not be able to provide our students with the quality facilities they need in order to achieve at high levels. |
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Citigroup, one of the world's pre-eminent financial services company, invested in new market tax credits that supported the development of Excellence Charter School in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
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Civic Builders, one of America's leading non-profit developers of charter school facilities, served as project manager for the development of Excellence, and works with Uncommon Schools on a variety of facility projects.
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New Jersey Community Capital allocated new market tax credits and provided a key leverage loan on North Star Academy's high school project. It has also provided bridge financing for other projects. |
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PNC, a highly diversified and growing financial services organization, served as tax credit investor on North Star's high school project, and is working with North Star Academy on other capital projects. |
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November 5, 2007
North Star Academy Receives Education Trust Award - School Recognized for Closing the Achievement Gap - The Education Trust
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October 31, 2007
"Talent rich and resource poor" - New York Public Radio
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September 5, 2007
"Specialty Schools Part of City Education Reform Efforts" - NY Daily News
"Brooklyn also opened one new charter school this year, Kings Collegiate Charter School, which boasts an extended school year and started classes two weeks ago."
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August 28, 2007
"Chartering a Quick Start" - NY Daily News
"At Kings Collegiate in East Flatbush - one of two newly opened charter schools this school year - 81 girls and boys in French blue shirts and desert khakis listened attentively last week as they were told they had lots of work to do in their 190 days of school."
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August, 2007
Kings Collegiate profiled on News 12 Brooklyn
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August 23, 2007
Interview with Joel Klein - Charlie Rose,
Charlie Rose interviews Joel Klein, Chancellor of New York City Department of Education.
Chancellor Klein notes the outstanding academic performance of Excellence Charter School: "Paul [Tudor Jones] opened up a charter school in Brooklyn. It's called Excellence. Excellence is all-boys 100 percent African-American, Latino boys in the school...It's a high-poverty community in Bedford Stuyvesant. Excellence this year got 100 percent proficiency in math and 92 percent in English."
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August, 2007
Uncommon Schools Director of Operations Lindsay Kruse profiled in The Broad Center Education Quarterly
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August 2, 2007
"Charter school sought in Troy" - The Albany Times-Union
"A new charter school, True North Troy Preparatory Charter School, has filed an application with the state Charter Schools Institute to open for the 2008-09 school year."
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June 28, 2007
"School's Out: Interview with Joel Klein, New York City Schools Chancellor" - New York Public Radio
In this interview, Chancellor Klein discusses education reform efforts in New York City and also highlights the success of Excellence Charter School: "[At Excellence Charter School] this year, their first year of testing...100% of kids were proficient or better in Math and 92% in English Language Arts. That's one of the most high-performing schools in the state and that school uses data and information to make sure students master the skills that they need to know."
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June 1, 2007
"Tale of two public schools: Inequitable funding harms charters' kids" - The Times of Trenton
"Two siblings in Newark attend different public schools: One attends North Star Academy Charter School and has an almost certain prospect of attending a four-year college. The other child attends East Side High School and has only a 15 percent chance of attending a four-year college."
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April 1, 2007
"Full funds for charter students" - The Times of Trenton
"And if you're looking for further proof that North Star has its act together, you need only look at what happened to last year's graduating class: Every one of them enrolled in college."
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March 26, 2007
"Kudos for KIPP" - Wall Street Journal
"The public school establishment and its political supporters continue to talk about closing academic achievement gaps, but charters like KIPP, Uncommon Schools, Achievement First and others are actually getting the job done."
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November 26, 2006
"What It Takes to Make a Student"
- New York Times Magazine
"The methods these educators use seem to work: students at their schools consistently score well on statewide standardized tests. At North Star this year, 93 percent of eighth-grade students were proficient in language arts, compared with 83 percent of students in New Jersey as a whole; in math, 77 percent were proficient, compared with 71 percent of students in the state as a whole."
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March 28, 2006
"Single-sex schools can work"
- USA Today
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April 2005
"Alumni Spotlight: Jabali Sawicki"
- The League Online
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Winter 2005
"Jabali Sawicki and the Excellence Charter School"
- Klingenstein News
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September 7, 2004
"'Every Second Counts' at This School: City Gets Its First Charter School Exclusively for Boys"
- The New York Sun
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June 13, 2004
"In Newark, Graduates Ace the Final: Charter School's 19 Seniors Will All Go On to College"
- New York Times
"North Star shouldn't be called college prep," [Edaine Murray, the class salutatorian of '04] said, "It should be called life prep." ...Shennelle Barnes, who will be going to Howard University in the fall, said she was accepted at 8 of the 17 colleges to which she had applied. "I would have gone to college no matter what," she said. "But I wouldn't have gotten into the school I wanted. North Star is the extra backbone you need."
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October 2003
No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning by Abigail Thernstrom and Stephan Thernstrom.
- Published by Simon & Schuster, 2003
North Star Academy is featured in the Thernstroms' book. In a November 2, 2003 Boston Globe Review of No Excuses, Kim Marshall writes:
"Over the last 25 years, there have been many attempts to improve urban schools: busing students for racial integration; pouring money into schools; emphasizing Afro- or Latino-centered curriculum; increasing the number of minority teachers; reducing class size; setting up after-school programs; regulating and taking over failing schools; and introducing standards and high-stakes tests. The Thernstroms feel that none of these have even begun to close the racial gap.
"What gives them hope is a small number of highly successful inner-city schools (including South Boston Harbor Academy, KIPP Academy in the Bronx, and North Star Academy in Newark)." |
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December 2, 2002
A Matter of Choice - Newsweek
"The critics make sure you hear about the failures, but the successes receive less attention. Boston boasts the "Academy of the Pacific Rim" that gets some of the highest test scores in town using Asian instruction techniques with blank kids; Mesa, Arizona, opened an Arts Academy in a Boys and Girls Club that has local gangs on the run and academic results surging. Whenever I visit Newark, New Jersey's North Star Academy I'm amazed by how much learning is going on. the level of enthusiasm and commitment by teachers and students is phenomenal."
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Spring 2001
Charting Success - Colby Magazine
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A leading lender for charter school facilities in the country and an early supporter of North Star Academy, Prudential provided below-market-rate financing through its Social Investment group for the school's initial facility. |
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Tudor Investment Corporation is involved in active trading, investing, and research in the global equity, debt, currency, and commodity markets. Tudor assisted Uncommon with the Excellence building, providing help with everything from the real estate and contractor search to the cost process. |
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Robert A.M. Stern Architects, LLP, headed by Robert A.M. Stern, the Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, designed the award-winning Excellence Charter School building, and is now working to build an Uncommon high school facility. |
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