A charter school is a publicly funded school that operates under contract with the local school system. Guidelines and regulations governing such schools differ from those of other public schools in that its accountability and expected productivity are governed by its charter. Its goal is to improve the public education system. Most are small schools: For example, in 1996-1997 the enrollment of an average charter school was about 150 students, as compared to 500 students in public schools in those states where the schools coexisted. Charter schools are popular in urban areas, with minority students in those areas constituting most of the enrollment.

Among the highly successful and nationally recognized urban charter schools serving black youth is the Harlem Children’s Zone Promise Academies, founded by Geoffrey Canada; these schools use the community-based approach to stimulate learning. Another, Urban Prep Academy, was founded in the Englewood community, a troubled neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side in 2006. It is the first all-boys public charter high school in the country. In 2010, all of the school’s 107 graduates were accepted into different colleges and universities, including the University of Illinois, Northwestern, and historically black Fisk University, Morehouse College, and Howard University. Tim King, the academy’s founder, said that the school was doing everything that it should to prepare the students for the academic rigors of college. The school “promotes a spirit of brotherhood from the students’ earliest days in high school.” It also promotes a spirit of family and community.