Leading up to National Charter Schools Week, the National Alliance will profile outstanding charter schools throughout the country.
We begin our National Charter Schools Week (NCSW) Countdown on the East Coast by highlighting an outstanding school in Boston called Match Charter Public High School. The high school is one of the four campuses that is a part of Match Schools, which span grades PreK-12. Match Charter Public High School is an award-winning, independent charter school whose mission statement, “Success in college and beyond for every student,” pushes students to excel in both academics and character development. Match lives up to its mission statement and has won multiple awards including EPIC Gold- and Silver-Gain Schools, and being ranked on Newsweek’s America’s Best High Schools list and Jay Matthews’ Challenge Index Top 100 High Schools. But don’t let this accolades list be the only thing about Match that impresses you. The students show accomplishments in real life—with 93 percent of Match students enrolling in a 4-year college and the average SAT score being 1518 on a scale of 2400. What makes Match great goes beyond academics to their impressive extracurricular programs. Match has an athletic program that offers high school soccer, basketball, and track. These teams compete in the Massachusetts Charter School Athletics Organization against 14 other charter schools. Match schools also have a summer program called Match More, where the mission is to ensure every student in their PreK-12 school has access to high-quality summer experiences. Statistically students lose months worth of academic skills during the summer break according to The National Summer Learning Association; thus, programs like Match More are essential in giving students access to educational opportunities, turning the summer into a learning leap versus a learning loss period. Match also realizes the importance of the teachers who are molding these young minds and offers the 2-year Match Teacher Residency program to build the pipeline of talented teaching staff. Aspiring teachers gain highly intensive training as a Match Teacher Resident (MTR) enrolled in the Charles Sposato Graduate School of Education. After the first year, successful MTRs receive an initial Massachusetts teaching license and a full-time teaching position in a high-performing urban school in the city of their choice. In the second residency year, educators are working as full-time teachers and given individual coaching while participating in a year-long distance-learning course. With Match’s attention to building up their students and its emphasis on well-trained teachers, we can see this school is working toward creating a formula for continued success.
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