Current Initiatives
Closing the Achievement Gaps Initiative Duration: 11:20
The NEA Foundation piloted the Closing the Achievement Gaps Initiative by investing $6 million for five-year efforts in three districts with a high number of under-achieving low income and minority students in Hamilton County (Chattanooga), Tenn; Milwaukee, Wis; and Seattle, Wash. to close the achievement gaps. These efforts began in 2004 in Hamilton County, with Milwaukee and Seattle added in 2005 and 2006 respectively. Early results from local evaluative efforts are showing significant and positive changes in teaching and learning. The Foundation expanded the initiative to three new sites in February 2010: Columbus, Ohio; Springfield, Mass.; and Durham, N.C.
Read more below about the individual efforts of each community.
Hamilton County, Tennessee
The Hamilton County initiative, named Middle Schools for
a New Society, initially focused on strategies to improve student achievement
in five of the county’s schools, but it was expanded to all of the district’s
21 middle schools with an additional $6 million in support from the Hamilton
County-based Lyndhurst Foundation.
The hallmark of the initiative has been the collaboration and creation of networks of teachers and principals from within and across the middle schools in the district to share strategies and practices to improve what students are learning in the classroom.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
In Milwaukee, the initiative focuses on intensive professional development for teachers in 20 low performing schools. The schools have formed Learning Teams, who meet weekly to analyze data, develop the school’s Closing the Gap Action Plan and lead professional development within the school. As a result of this program, a comprehensive literacy and mathematics initiative was developed and is being implemented.
Seattle, Washington
In Seattle, the initiative, known as
the Flight School Initiative, is implemented in two flights, each consisting of
elementary, middle and high schools that form a feeder pattern. Altogether, 16
schools are part of the initiative. The initiative has three key strategies:
the alignment of curriculum and instruction, the development of professional
learning communities and the engagement of families and community members.
Durham, North Carolina
The Redefining Futures for African-American Males initiative is a
partnership between the Durham Association of Educators (DAE) and Durham Public
Schools (DPS), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Central University, and local business leaders to close the achievement gap
between African-American males and their peers.
Columbus, Ohio
The 100% Project is a collaborative effort of the
Columbus Education Association (CEA), Columbus City Schools (CCS), and United
Way of Central Ohio to close the achievement gaps in two high poverty, high
minority, and underachieving feeder patterns.
The initiative plan includes
programmatic interventions that target teaching quality; parent engagement and
home visits; and student achievement data that can be used to drive instruction
and determine school-level instructional priorities.
Springfield, Massachusetts
Co-created by the Springfield Education Association (SEA)
and Springfield Public Schools, the initiative in Springfield seeks to deepen
collaboration at the district and school levels by expanding joint
decision-making, especially around professional development, data acquisition
and analysis, and instructional practice and curriculum delivery.
In the first year of funding from the NEA
Foundation, the partnership will focus on six schools to be selected
competitively based on need and readiness
to undertake improvement measures. The
initiative’s strategies will focus on professional development, parent and
community engagement, and collaboration.
Related Initiatives
Connecticut
NEA Foundation is partnering with the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education to fund and run the research component of the Connecticut Alliance for CommPACT Schools, a collaboration of six state educational organizations to help the state’s most challenged public schools close the achievement gaps by placing educators at the center of reform.
The NEA Foundation, the Neag team, and their local and state partners have been providing extensive support within and across the CommPACT network through research, assessments, and professional development for teachers.
Website : http://www.education.uconn.edu/research/commpact/
Ohio
Over the past three years, the Foundation has awarded $175,000 in grants to support the OAEI (The Ohio Appalachian Educators Institute) efforts to develop professional learning communities, promote student learning, and to build deeper partnerships with statewide policy and advocacy as well as potential funding partners to support two of the state’s poorest and lowest performing rural districts.
At least 75 percent of students in these districts are now meeting Ohio standards in reading and math and they have established a system of data collection and analysis to help them monitor their progress.