Friday, May 25, 2012
The NEA Foundation Expands Work on Education Reform Through Union-District Collaboration
New Grant Helps Build on Success
WASHINGTON,
DC
(May 25, 2012) -- The NEA
Foundation today announced that it will expand its ongoing work to document and
share successful
strategies being used by collaborative union-district teams to contribute to
improved student performance, thanks to a $550,000
grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The announcement comes on the heels of the US Department of Education’s Labor-Management
conference, “Collaborating to Transform the Teaching Profession,” that brought
together hundreds of leaders in the national education reform movement to
discuss ways for unions and districts to better work together to improve
student learning.
“For
many years, the NEA Foundation has provided philanthropic and technical
assistance to support the critical joint work of union district teams to make
their districts and schools better places for students to learn and teachers to
teach,” said Harriet Sanford, President and CEO of the NEA Foundation. “Support
from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will help us
accelerate the sea change underway in the way unions and districts work
together to ensure high quality teaching and seed change by leveraging
resources and widely disseminating knowledge.”
“The only way for meaningful reform to take root is with teachers and
their unions fully engaged as partners. We appreciate that the Gates
Foundation understands that, and supports this effort,” said Dennis Van Roekel,
President of the National Education Association. “It is exactly this type of
collaboration that allows all of us to look our students in the eyes and assure
them that they’re at the center of our reform efforts.”
The work
will leverage the expertise developed from the NEA Foundation’s Closing the
Achievement Gaps Initiative (beginning in 2004) and Institute for Innovation in
Teaching and Learning (funded by a $358,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation in 2009), across 10 school districts.
Together,
these teams of union, district, and community leaders are building enduring
infrastructures and systems that are tackling head-on issues of increased
teaching effectiveness through school-based collaborative leadership teams
focused on issues of teaching and learning and teacher evaluation systems and
professional growth models.
The new
grant will fund the development of case studies that illustrate successful
union-district collaborative practices, identify lessons learned, and provide
operational tools that will help other communities begin this work. Funding will
also help accelerate the development of the NEA Foundation’s collaborative,
skill-based curriculum to build the capacity of local leaders to engage in jointly
designed reform. This online curriculum is slated for a Fall 2012 launch.
Learn more
about the NEA Foundation’s Closing
the Achievement Gaps Initiative and its Institute
for Innovation in Teaching and Learning.
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About The NEA Foundation
The NEA Foundation is a public charity supported by contributions from educators' dues, corporate sponsors, and others who support public education initiatives.We partner with education unions, districts, and communities to create powerful, sustainable improvements in teaching and learning. Visit www.neafoundation.org for more information. Find us on Facebook and Twitter, and visit our blog.