Susan Colby and Kimberly Wicoff

Determined that every kid in California receive a great education, Don Shalvey founded Aspire Public Schools in 1999 to provide an alternative to poorly-performing public schools. By its fifth anniversary, Aspire was operating 10 schools in the Central Valley and Bay Area. But Shalvey and his Aspire colleagues wanted to do more; they wanted to transform education for all kids in the state.

With help from the Bridgespan Group, Aspire’s leadership established a plan to reach this ambitious goal. They developed a strategy that entailed building cooperative relationships with school districts and set a target for the number of Aspire charter schools needed to catalyze statewide change. They then determined the organizational structure and school model required to deliver on the strategy in a financially-sustainable way.

www.aspirepublicschools.org