LEK Chicago: AUSL

The Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL) first engaged L.E.K. Chicago in spring 2011 to do an organizational assessment and refine its organizational development program. Additionally, AUSL engaged a second L.E.K. Chicago Inspire team to develop a growth strategy for its teacher residency recruiting program.

Client Mission

The Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL) will improve student achievement in Chicago’s high-poverty, chronically failing schools through its disciplined transformation process, built on a foundation of specially trained AUSL teachers.

Client History

AUSL is at the forefront of education reform in Chicago. Founded in 2001 by Martin J. Koldyke, venture capitalist and founder of the Golden Apple Foundation, AUSL has created a unique model of reform , to train teachers in a rigorous one year residency program and then place them in AUSL-managed turnaround schools to effect whole school transformation. The results are impressive. As of 2010, AUSL had taken on 12 turnaround schools. The number of graduates out of AUSL’s Chicago Teacher Residency teacher training and certification program has reached 368. The program hopes to grow rapidly over the next five years, training over 150 new teachers and turning around 4-8 schools per year. AUSL has been featured in a variety of local and national media outlets including The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The Economist, Education Week, and US News and World Report.

Case Objectives

Project 1: As the first of two projects completed by Inspire’s L.E.K. Chicago office, AUSL engaged the case team to assist the organization in two strategic objectives: develop a handbook for future principals of new turnaround schools detailing the tasks that a principal must accomplish beginning from their time of hire to the end of their first tenure year and assess current organizational structure and processes, growth imperatives, and areas for development.

Project 2: AUSL asked Inspire to evaluate current recruitment practices for its teacher residency and to develop a strategy for growth. Inspire was tasked to assess the following issues: Which recruiting strategies are most effective for encouraging application submissions, how peer organizations are recruiting candidates, if there is a way to streamline the application process and Whether or not there were any staffing needs that AUSL would have to handle in order to facilitate growth.

Inspire Project Milestones and Deliverables

Project 1:

AUSL Turnaround Handbook

  • The Inspire team initially developed a preliminary overview of and structure for the AUSL Turnaround Handbook based on information specific to AUSL and data related to peer education organizations
  • Based on this research, the team developed a draft version of the AUSL Turnaround handbook
  • The team refined and finalized the Turnaround Handbook and synthesized recommendations after conducting focus group with key AUSL directors and principals to gather feedback, anecdotes, and additional insight

AUSL Organizational Structure Diagnostic

  • Inspire depicted the future organizational structure of AUSL after discussing priorities and objectives with AUSL directors and principals and after fielding a survey of 56 AUSL staff members to further understand organizational growth imperatives and areas for development

Project 2:

Inspire assessed the current teacher residency program recruitment strategy through comprehensive and wide-ranging research:

  • Conducted Interviews with AUSL Managing Directors and key staff
  • Organized Selection Day focus group with applicants
  • Analyzed available application data (including geographic candidate mapping, application timing analysis, etc.)
  • Oversaw quantitative survey of current residents and teachers
  • Mapped and assessed cost/benefit analysis of current campus recruiting efforts
  • Benchmarked recruitment practices or relevant peer organization through secondary research and interviews

Inspire then developed a growth strategy for the organization, providing recommendations for AUSL to optimize its online and offline recruiting tools, application process, and campus recruiting.

Inspire Impact

Project 1:

AUSL has adopted the Turnaround Handbook created by the Inspire team for the use of all principals in its new turnaround. The handbook has provided AUSL with its first organized tool to provide a centralized structure for principals for running a new school. The tool ensures that each principal follows the same management and administrative processes, making it easier for the central organization to provide individual support. The handbook’s physical and electronic components provide the client with capabilities to make changes and additions as necessary. The handbook includes a checklist to support principals in ensuring that their new schools meet all the AUSL guidelines. Supplemental documents, including organization basics, promotional materials, strategic documents, budgeting plans, hiring strategies, and other best practices, are consolidated and organized in a zip file to allow new principals to source necessary resources from a single location. Anecdotes and quotes from former principals and current teachers provide new principals with expert guidance. Inspire’s Organizational Structure Diagnostic has provided AUSL with an understand of the strengths and weaknesses of the organization, as well as needs and priorities for future investment to continue succeeding in its mission of educating Chicago Students.

Project 2:

Inspire helped develop a teacher residency recruitment strategy for AUSL that the client plans to implement. Inspire delivered several pieces of analysis that the client plans to use in order to help self-evaluate its recruiting going forward. As the result of Inspire’s work, AUSL’s recruitment teams feels more confident about using social media. Inspire's customer research confirmed AUSL’s hypothesis regarding the need to accelerate the organization’s decision process , affecting a change in processes and strategy. AUSL has adopted Inspire's framework for cost/benefit analysis of campus recruiting and is using it to focus its efforts.

Key Quotes

Project 1:

“…The Inspire team was a great group to work with, and I am very impressed with their professionalism. Project meetings were well-organized and well-run, short and very focused. All staff were engaged, presentation materials were excellent, and the handbook they created was very professionally done… The development of the Turnaround Handbook is a huge starting point for AUSL. We are facing rapid growth, and, in order to bring on new talent, we need a tool to help them understand the process…” Director of Finance, AUSL

“…Working with Inspire has been an extremely rewarding experience as it has allowed me to utilize the business skills and strategic thinking that I have developed through my L.E.K. experience to assist non-profits in improving their impacts. Our work with AUSL will allow them to continue their mission of improving student achievement. Seeing the client’s gratitude at the end of the project was definitely a highlight…” Inspire Case Team Leader, L.E.K Chicago

“…I am extremely proud of my Inspire team's efforts on the AUSL case. Our work has already made a tangible impact, and it was obvious how much the client appreciated our efforts. I feel most excited about the fact that I was able to learn about and then work directly with an organization that has such a high impact on my own local community. I know AUSL has a bright future, and I feel so lucky to have contributed to it…” Inspire Case Team Member, L.E.K. Chicago

Project 2:

“…Inspire did a lot of new fact-gathering and analysis - surveys of staff, in-depth number-crunching and analysis of our data. The team worked with our messy data, cleaned it up, and made it useful. Because they brought new facts and not just re-hashes of what they heard in interviews with us, their work gave new insights and credibility to their recommendations. The work on our recruitment challenges was especially good. Inspire did a ton of work. This really exceeded my expectations… The team listened well and adapted to feedback from us at critical points. The work of both teams absolutely exceeded my expectations. I was formerly a consultant at McKinsey & Company, so I have pretty high expectations. I was especially impressed with how well integrated the different ‘modules’ of work done by different Inspire people were - the quality of the overall problem-solving was very high in light of the fact that these folks were doing this during their nights and weekends, and without much if any oversight from senior L.E.K. consultants…” Director of HR and Recruiting, AUSL

“…It was a great experience for me to lead a team; not many consultants have that opportunity pre-MBA. AUSL was a great client to work with, and I think we are all very proud of what we were able to accomplish…” Inspire Case Team Leader, L.E.K. Chicago

“…Honestly, I was surprised by how well all of our work came together at the end. The client was so open and receptive; it was really great to see how they valued our work and input, and it means a lot that they are actually going to put our recommendations into action…” Inspire Case Team Member, L.E.K. Chicago

“…Inspire gave me the opportunity to help a client to make a positive change and to improve our educational system.  Professionally, Inspire also gave me the opportunity to develop and to have more ownership of the final work product…” Inspire Case Team Member, L.E.K. Chicago

“…It was exciting to have the chance to develop a growth strategy for an educational non-profit and know that it will be implemented. Working on the Inspire case was a great opportunity to not only develop myself professionally, but also make a significant positive impact for a worthy cause…” Inspire Case Team Member, L.E.K. Chicago

Learn more

The Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL)