She moved to Boston knowing no English, but ended up a valedictorian

The Match High School Class of 2018 Valedictorian, Saïsa Nicolas, is featured in The Boston Globe today.  She is truly an amazing young woman who has overcome many obstacles to achieve success both in and out of the classroom.  Her teachers praise her for her intelligence and her compassion, and we're excited to see what she does next when she attends Wesleyan University this fall!

Read the full story here.

High school seniors reveal choices in joyous ‘signing day’ ceremony

In the fourth and final installment of Liz Willen's series for The Hechinger Report, she reports on the final college decisions of the six Match High School seniors who she's been following since the fall.

On June 2nd, Liz attended Match High School's annual senior signing day where the 43 members of the Class of 2017 announced where they're going to college next year before an auditorium full of families, teachers, peers, as well as Match middle and elementary school students.

Click here to read the article.

Click here to listen to Liz Willen's podcast interview with Educate, a partner to The Hechinger Report on "What happens when students get into college—but can’t afford to attend?"

At Boston Charter School, College Decision Ceremony Mirrors NCAA’s National Signing Day

As a follow up to his May 3rd article, Kirk Carapezza from WGBH attended Match High School's annual senior signing day where the 43 members of the Class of 2017 announced where they're going to college next year.  The announcements were made before a packed auditorium full of families, teachers, peers, as well as Match middle and elementary school students.

Click here to read the article.

Click here for audio of the event and interviews with staff members and students.

A New Path to a College Degree

Match Beyond is featured on the cover of Education Next, highlighting the programs origins as well as other similar programs popping up around the country.  Author Jon Marcus writes, "In all its variations, the new approach is poised to become a disruptive force in higher education for low-income racial and ethnic minorities...colleges and universities will have to start adapting to the needs of a dramatically different student population."

Click here to read the full article.

Schools That Work

David Leonhardt of The New York Times featured Match High School in his recent op-ed on Boston charter schools. In citing research done by professors at M.I.T., Columbia, Michigan and Berkeley, David writes, "Students who go to Boston’s charter schools learn reading and math better and faster than students elsewhere...Boston’s charters eliminate between one-third and one-half of the white-black test-score gap in a single year."

Click here to read the full article.

Many charter schools lag in enrolling students lacking English fluency

Disparities in student enrollment between charter and district schools have long been a lightning rod. Six years ago a new state law allowed for the doubling of charter-school seats in the lowest-performing districts, though it required charters to develop strategies to recruit, enroll, and retain English-language learners, students with disabilities, and other academically disadvantaged students at levels that mirror hometown school systems.

Match Charter Public School is highlighted as one of two charter schools whose average number of English-language learners exceeds the Boston Public School system's average.

Click here to read the full article.

Finding Common Ground in the Commonwealth's Charter Debate: Sharing Best Practices

So far, the primary point of contention in the Massachusetts debate about lifting the charter cap is about money: how public charter schools are funded, and whether or not they hurt traditional public schools. Eclipsed in all the back-and-forth over the funding formula, however, is almost any conversation about one of the charter movement’s primary objectives: to demonstrate new, effective ways of educating students and operating schools.

Click here to read Claire Kaplan's oped about the need to invest more in sharing best practices and educational resources across the charter-district divide.

A charter success story, dreaming of a sequel

This was the first of four stories published by The Boston Globe on how families could be affected by charter school expansion.

Janelle Smith was a member of the first graduating class of Match High School, which she said "prepared [her] for college and for a lifetime of rewarding work." She wants the same for her daughter, Alorah, but due to the state's current restrictions on new charter schools, Alorah has been on long waiting lists for years.

Click here to read the full article.

Are charter schools truly innovative? The answer can depend on your definition

For decades, charter schools have been billed as “laboratories of innovation,” conjuring up images of teachers and administrators brainstorming and testing cutting-edge instruction that — if proven successful — could deliver salvation to urban education. But the track record of Massachusetts charter schools on innovation is mixed. While some charters are innovative, others simply strive to build high-quality schools using existing methods and do not necessarily invent new practices.

Match Charter Public School is highlighted for its innovative tutoring model that led to the creation of its own graduate school of education - "an unheard of move for a public school."

Click here to read the full article.