In mid-October, Aspire received word that the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF) granted Aspire with a $2.5 million multi-year gift for Los Angeles development. The grant will cover the support for a Regional Office in Los Angeles, as well as the scaling up of new schools as they open.

"We are thrilled and honored by the confidence the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation has in Aspire," said Don Shalvey. "Now we can continue to grow in a key market, and make a difference for kids and families in Los Angeles."

Aspire successfully opened its first K-5 school in the Huntington Park neighborhood of Los Angeles this fall, and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has expressed interest in working with Aspire to establish approximately 14 new, small schools throughout the district in the next five to seven years. Expanding in LA is part of Aspire's mission to serve California students who are not performing to their academic potential, and Aspire's strategy of working in partnership with districts who support the creation of new public school options.

LAUSD is the lowest performing school district in California and the most challenged both academically and with regards to housing students. Today there are nearly 800,000 students -- and only 600,000 seats. The district has an aggressive facilities plan with 81 schools under construction, and when finished the district will still be 120,000 seats short. Overcrowding has a severe impact on student achievement. Seventy-one percent of LA's fourth-graders are not proficient in math, and 69 percent are not proficient in reading, according to the National Assessment of Education Progress, and low income and ethnic minority students face particular challenges in Los Angeles.

Currently in LA, there are over 50 charter schools in operation within LAUSD that serve 33,000 K-12 students, which only represents less than five percent of overall district enrollment. Charter schools have the potential to make a significant impact in Los Angeles, reducing the overcrowding crisis in the public schools and offering more high-quality schools of choice at the district or sub-district level.

Working with LAUSD's Superintendent Roy Romer, Aspire successfully opened its first K-5 school in the Huntington Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, and LAUSD has expressed interest in working with Aspire to establish 14 new, small schools throughout the district in the next five to seven years. Aspire plans to focus in just a few sub-districts in Central and East Los Angeles to increase concentration. In building 14 new charter schools, Aspire can affect the lives of over 6,000 children, and achieve its mission of sending more kids to college.

The gift from MSDF over the next four years will allow Aspire to build these schools successfully in Los Angeles, making a fundamental difference in the lives of thousands of students and families, and enabling the organization to catalyze broader change statewide.