Archives: Partnership News

News5 highlights several Metro Catholic families’ determined work to have strong attendance, including the Simibi family, pictured above, and Anna Garnett, a mom who shared why it is so important to her that her children make it to school every day: “I had it rough when I was little, so I think it’s more important for them to get their education.”

“Awesome kids, awesome families,” Principal Joe Gehring comments. “We’re in this together.”

That “together” includes the Cleveland Brown’s Stay in the Game initiative, which provides incentives to kids and research-backed support to schools. Our network team has worked closely with Stay in the Game to build strong systems for acting on attendance data, and our schools have leaned in to leverage relationships with families to problem-solve.

We’re thrilled to have Metro Catholic and its families spotlighted in this way. To read the article, click here. 

Happy Father’s Day from the Stand Together Dads Mentoring Program at St. Thomas Aquinas School! We’re celebrating the amazing fathers and father figures who lead with love, strength, and presence every day. To view the video created by the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, click here.

St. Thomas Aquinas School in Cleveland hosted a vibrant Juneteenth celebration, bringing together students, families, and local Black-owned businesses for a day of learning and community. Organized by operations coordinator Tonya Maze, the event featured history displays, hands-on activities, and a powerful message of Black empowerment. Maze and Principal Rachael Dengler aim to deepen the school’s commitment to Black history through future curriculum and library expansions. The celebration reflected the school’s broader mission to uplift students and honor Juneteenth as a vital part of American history. To read the article, click here. 

Beth Blaufuss, VP of Strategic Initiatives at Partnership Schools, argues that while Catholic schools contribute meaningfully to the public good—serving diverse student populations and producing civically engaged graduates—school choice policies alone are not enough to sustain them. Despite Ohio’s longstanding voucher programs, more than a third of Catholic schools in Cleveland have closed since the 1990s, showing that access to public funds doesn’t automatically ensure sustainability or excellence. The author makes the case that school choice can be a powerful tool of social justice—provided that we leverage public funds to provide not just school choice policy, but actual, excellent school options where they are most needed, and that we equip schools to be powerful community-building institutions. To read the article, click here.

Ray Domanico underscores the ongoing challenges facing Catholic schools in New York City, particularly the decline in enrollment and the recent closures of several institutions. He highlights the success of Partnership Schools, which saw a notable 28 percent enrollment increase from 2020 to 2023, demonstrating that innovative approaches can still yield positive results. Domanico calls for collaboration between successful Catholic high schools and struggling parochial schools to find sustainable solutions. He also advocates for political support, including tax-credit scholarships, to help preserve the vital role Catholic schools play in the city’s educational landscape. To read the article, click here. 

Partnership Schools is an ambitious, innovative school management organization that grew from an experiment to a transformative force for change. Over the course of the next few years, their vision is to continue their work in Cleveland while expanding to new dioceses with school choice funding. In this CNA profile, read more about the impact on two schools – one in the Bronx and the other in Cleveland – from the perspective of their current principals.

 

The Grattan Institute, an Australian think tank, studies a broad range of issues, including education. In a recent report on how to drive that nation’s student outcomes, they recommended one innovation in particular: what they call “multi-school organizations”—MSO’s, for short. Their report features Partnership Schools as an exemplar. 

Researchers from the institute interviewed teachers and principals at Partnership Schools, as well as others at New York charter school networks Success Academy and KIPP, about how being a part of an MSO can help streamline school systems, increase principal and teacher effectiveness, and ultimately improve student outcomes.

Their report addresses a dynamic of Partnership Schools that is quite intentional but rarely discussed: the size of our network. Grattan’s report describes it as “goldilocks sized” —small enough to be responsive to individual school needs and big enough to allow for shared resources and support that are often not possible in stand-alone schools. 

Key findings they shared also include:

Network support and expertise allows Principals to focus on instructional leadership.

Partnership Schools principals shared that network support allows them to save time on administrative work and logistics and focus more of their efforts on activities related to teaching and learning, including classroom observations, instructional coaching, and school culture.

Principals also gain support from a cohort of peers with whom they can collaborate. At the same time, they retain the flexibility to set a vision and build a school fit for the unique needs of the communities they serve.

“Principals can have a big impact on students’ achievement, as well as on students’ and teachers’ experience at school,” the report explains.“A highly effective principal can raise typical student achievement by up to seven months in a single year, and even more in disadvantaged schools.”

Selection of a common curriculum ensures consistency and quality across all schools

The Grattan team finds that when CMO’s like the Partnership select a common curriculum, they can ensure quality and consistency across all schools. Shared curriculum also allows network staff to provide targeted professional development and shared learning across schools. In this model, teachers describe feeling supported by the network saying, “the central team gives us what we need – everything is right there.” 

To read the full report or listen to a brief podcast summary, click here. To read more about professional development in the Partnership, which the report also mentions, click here.

This Father’s Day, we celebrate all the dads out there – biological, honorary, spiritual, and more – especially our three fathers of the Stand Together program at St. Thomas Aquinas School in Cleveland’s St. Clair-Superior neighborhood.

“Ricardo Richmond, Alex Afzal and Jeffrey Allen are the backbone… They regularly come into the school to serve as role models, supporters, and mentors for the kindergarten through eighth grade students there. All three also have children of their own at the school,’ WKYC writes.

These amazing fathers hope that the idea of Stand Together not only grows within the St. Thomas community, but also expands to other schools and neighborhoods in the greater Cleveland area.

Read more at our very own Partnership Post blog post here, and watch the whole WKYC news segment here.

Mike Petrilli, the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, hosted Kathleen on the Education Gadfly Show to talk about the debate over religious charter schools. Mike and Kathleen’s segment lasts for the first eleven minutes, followed by Amber Northern’s “Research Minute” for the remainder of the episode. Petrilli and Porter-Magee discuss the potential questions and concerns of introducing religious charter schools from both a religious liberty standpoint and practical lens.

Listen to the whole Education Gadfly podcast episode here, and from earlier in the month, check out Kathleen’s full Flypaper article, “3 reasons why religious charter schools should give us pause.”

Frederick Hess launched his new book, The Great School Rethink (Harvard Education Press, 2023) this month, and he kicked things off with a panel discussion featuring our very own Kathleen Porter-Magee, along with Ian Rowe (AEI), Cade Brumley (Louisiana State Superintendent of Education), and Christina Grant (DC Superintendent of Education).

“Dr. Hess discussed how the pandemic was a moment of “punctuated equilibrium” that offered a chance to rethink long-held assumptions and practices in education,” Greg Fournier wrote. During their talk, the group focused on how we can particularly change up schooling within the areas of time, teaching, technology, school choice, and schools’ partnerships with parents.

Watch the full panel discussion HERE on AEI’s site.