There's no "secret sauce." But there are common features that define top networks like Boston's Brooke charter schools.

As described by Richard Whitmire, the "cool kids club" of the charter school movement was founded in the late '90s, with the launch of the Aspire network in California.

From there, an interconnected web of charter school founders spread across the country, learned from one another, won the backing of big foundations and started the nonprofit management organizations and standalone schools that educate roughly one-fifth of the country's three million charter school students — and get some of the strongest academic results for low-income children.

This movement within the charter movement includes the likes of Uncommon Schools, Yes Prep, IDEA Public Schools, and smaller organizations from L.A. to Boston, many of them chronicled in Whitmire's book The Founders. In some ways, it stands apart from the charter sector as a whole. It receives many of the positive national headlines about charter schools, accounts for most of the movement's prestigious prize winners, and attracts a substantial share of its philanthropic support.

The leaders of these schools technically compete for students. But many of them work together. They visit each other's schools, picking and choosing practices they can import to their own organizations. During an event this week, hosted by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, Whitmire said these schools, many of which follow a "no-excuses" model, seldom start out with mediocre results. They tend to be "high-performing charters from the first day they open." (more…)