CLEVELAND, Ohio - Cleveland Browns owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam are giving $10 million to the Breakthrough charter schools to add more schools in the city.

The donation is the largest in the history of the 11-school partnership that is widely considered to be the strongest charter school network in the state.

It's also among the largest donations ever to any charter school in the nation, said Nina Rees, head of the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools. Though some schools have received much more over time, the single grant is at or near the top.

With the one donation, Breakthrough is already halfway to its fundraising goal of $20 million to meet its aim of having 20 schools in the city by 2020. The network has 11 schools in the city today and is planning a 12th for the West Side in the fall of 2016.

Breakthrough will need a total of $40 million to update and maintain all of its buildings between now and 2020, said John Zitzner, president of Friends of Breakthrough Schools, the network's fundraising organization.

"The Haslams' contribution is a powerful first step in our ability to open nine more high-performing schools," Zitzner said.

Zitzner said that the donation will help "fundamentally transform the educational landscape in Cleveland."

Dee Haslam and the Haslam 3 Foundation have become increasing supporters of Breakthrough over the last few years, since she first visited one of the network's schools in 2013.

The Haslams gave Breakthrough $1 million for expansion in March. They also looked to Breakthrough's Village Prep elementary schools and E Prep middle schools as models for a new charter school in Knoxville, Tenn., where they come from.

Emerald Academy opened there this summer as the first charter school in the city.

Dee Haslam said that she and her husband believe that every child deserves a great education and Breakthrough's schools have brought good opportunities for kids in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

"We feel like excellent charter schools and especially Breakthrough can make a big difference," Haslam said. "It allows for kids wherever they live to go to a school that is excellent."

Haslam said he wants Breakthrough's 20 schools by 2020 plan to succeed.

"We want to make sure we get these schools in place so kids have access to great education," Haslam said. "It will transform lives. We really believe that this is transformational to these kids' lives."

"It's important to us and it's important to the community," she said.

Breakthrough is a one of the highest performing charter school operators in the country, according to Stanford University's Center for Research of Educational Outcomes (CREDO).

It's Citizens Academy, Intergenerational Schools and E-Prep and Village Prep models are routinely cited by state officials and charter school supporters as examples of how charter schools can outperform the urban school districts around them.

Rees said that Breakthrough is more "decentralized" than most of the better charter networks in the country, but is "highly effective" and one of the strongest.

Breakthrough has a strong partnership with the Cleveland school district and receives money from the 2012 school levy that voters passed. Breakthrough also leases some old schools from the district for its schools.

Zitzner was unable to announce the location of the new Breakthrough school coming in 2016 because the network is still negotiating for the property. But he said it will be on the West Side in a former Cleveland school district building that has a different owner now.

The school will follow the E Prep and Village Prep model. Zitzner said it will probably start as a Village Prep elementary school with just kindergarten and first grade, then add an additional grade each year

. It might also open with a fifth grade, too, and add 6th grade and up in successive years.

Breakthrough has been almost entirely on the East Side so far, with the only school to break that pattern being the Near West Intergenerational School in Ohio City.

Zitzner said he believes a majority of the new nine schools will go on the West Side.

"There are so many underserved kids over there and we don't have a presence," he said.