John King, Managing Director, Uncommon School's Excellence and Preparatory Networks

John King is the Managing Director of Uncommon School's Excellence and Preparatory Networks. He also serves on the faculty and board of directors of New Leaders for New Schools and is a 2008 Aspen Institute-New Schools Entrepreneurial Leaders for Public Education Fellow.

Both of John's parents died before he was 12. Despite the hardships he endured in his youth, he received his B.A. from Harvard, an M.A. from Columbia, a law degree from Yale and a doctorate in education from Columbia. John co-founded Roxbury Prep Charter School in Boston, which was recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as one of eight top charter schools in the country. Later, John was enticed by Evan Rudall, his former partner at Roxbury, to come back to New York City and serve as the managing director of Uncommon Schools first Brooklyn site—Excellence Charter School of Bedford-Stuyvesant, an all-boys school.

John always knew his father had been an educator, but it wasn’t until he chanced upon a tattered book entitled Negroes of Achievement that he learned of the legacy he had inherited. The book listed his father’s positions in the school system, including principal of P.S. 70 in Bedford-Stuyvesant. It had been a good school, but over the years it had become a burned-out shell where crack addicts got high and staged dog-fights. In 2004, this same building was rebuilt into Excellence Academy.

This year at Excellence, where 98 percent of the boys are African-American, 100 percent of the third and fourth graders scored at grade level in math. In reading, 97 percent of fourth graders and 90 percent of third graders scored at grade level.

Uncommon Schools began in 1997 in Newark, New Jersey, where its first middle school, North Star Academy, has become the highest performing in the city. One hundred percent of its high school graduates have been accepted to four-year colleges. Today, Uncommon Schools educate 2,000 students at 11 schools in New York City, upstate New York and Newark. Their plan to reach capacity is beyond ambitious: 33 schools by 2014-15 and serving over 11,000 students by 2022-23.