Six Mass. charter schools honored nationally for 'dramatic' student gains

By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent

Six state charter schools, including four in Boston, will collect nearly $700,000 from a national non-profit for making "dramatic gains in student achievement” at “high-need urban” institutions.

A combined $679,000 will be awarded to Bay State principals, assistant principals teachers and instructional aides at the selected schools “for sharing information about their effective practices,” said a release from the Effective Practice Incentive Community, an initiative of New Leaders for New Schools.

EPIC chose 18 schools from 175 eligible in its four-year-old consortium that spans 23 states and the nation’s capital, the announcement said. Participating schools serve high-need populations with over 75 percent of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.

Four-time EPIC award winner MATCH Charter Public School in Allston will receive the highest-rank “Gold-Gain” award of $84,000, officials said.

“The EPIC program provides tremendous support for MATCH,” Alan Safran, the school’s executive director, said in the release. “The program gives us access to effective practices from other schools, gives us the opportunity to learn from others, and provide incentives for retention of high quality staff.”

Local “Silver-Gain” winners include: City on a Hill Charter Public School in Roxbury ($74,000); three-time winner Boston Collegiate Charter School in Dorchester ($165,000); Neighborhood House Charter School also in Dorchester ($147,500); four-time winner Community Day Charter Public School in Lawrence ($131,000); and The Berkshire Arts and Technology Charter Public School in Adams ($78,000), according to the release.

“Boston’s leading charter schools are further proof that effective schools can and do have a dramatic impact on student achievement regardless of students’ educational or economic backgrounds,” Jean Desravines, Executive Director of the award-giving nonprofit said in the announcement.

The EPIC program is paid for through a combination of funding from the federal education department, school district and charter school partners and private philanthropy, officials said.

Since it began in 2007, the program has awarded $2 million to Boston charter school educators, or about one-third of the $6.4 million it has distributed altogether to 1,500-plus charter instructors, the release said.

Other schools awarded this year included five in Pennsylvania, two in both New Jersey and Colorado, and one in Ohio, California and Washington D.C.

E-mail Matt Rocheleau at mjrochele@gmail.com.

Correction: An earlier version of this story omitted "Silver-Gain" winner Neighborhood House Charter School in Dorchester, which received $147,500.