Jordan Posamentier is a former research analyst at CRPE.
Five years ago, Baltimore City Public Schools seemed on the brink of a breakthrough. By almost all accounts, the district-led portfolio system—traditional and charter school options, all authorized and managed by City Schools’ central office—was working.
This analysis of trends across portfolio districts shows where cities are making progress on strategy implementation and where they are getting bogged down.
Every spring for the past three years, CRPE has reviewed how school systems implementing the portfolio strategy are faring. Through phone interviews with key contacts in these districts—sometimes the superintendent, sometimes a cabinet member—we look at each of the strategy’s key components, catalog work underway in each area, and score results based on a rubric.
