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| Literacy in Chicago Public Schools |
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Last spring, America's Choice literacy staff members made presentations to high school principals and English teachers in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to encourage them to join the first cohort of schools that will implement new instructional approaches in core subject areas during this school year. In English language arts, schools will choose between implementing the America's Choice Readers and Writers Workshop in their 9th, 10th, and 11th grade classrooms or another program. AC was selected as one of two approved Instructional Delivery Systems (IDS) in English language arts for this CPS initiative. As part of this multi-year project, America's Choice will begin working with four public high schools: one large comprehensive high school, two small schools, and the largest public school military academy in the United States. |
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CPS selected 14 schools from the 28 that had applied to be in the first cohort of the High School Transformation project and hopes that 50 will be participating in three years. Each school will implement a new science and a new math program, as well as a new English language arts program.
America's Choice has been tasked with helping schools that select Readers and Writers Workshop to implement the structures in 9th, 10th, and 11th grade English classrooms, along with use of AC's Author and Genre Studies. Teachers will participate in a five-day summer institute and five days of follow-up training during the school year. AC will also offer coaching training and support on a regular basis, with 15 teachers assigned to each coach. America's Choice is providing the schools that select Readers and Writers Workshop with its Ramp-Up Literacy program to help accelerate the academic performance of students below grade level when entering 9th grade.
This is a multi-year initiative that will involve additional high schools joining new cohorts of schools over the next five years. Each school that joins the initiative commits to a five-year involvement that will engage 9th, 10th, and 11th grade teachers in three years of professional development following a pre-determined training cycle. Throughout the initiative, the America's Choice staff will work closely with the CPS staff to ensure that all curricula and instruction are aligned with Illinois state standards and assessments.
A team from the American Institute of Research will evaluate the work in Chicago with formative and summative assessments to establish the effectiveness of each IDS in the project.
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| Math Professional Development Impact Study: |
| After a highly competitive bidding process, the American Institute for Research has chosen America's Choice as part of a groundbreaking, large-scale study of the impact of professional development on the teaching of rational numbers, fractions, decimals, percents, and proportions to 7th grade students. |
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The National Center for Education Evaluation, part of the U.S. Department of Education's Institute for Education Sciences, has commissioned the study.
During the 2007 pilot phase, America's Choice will provide teacher professional development and coaching in eight schools across two districts, and then in eight districts for the full study in 2008. America's Choice professional development will support the use of the Glencoe-McGraw Hill and Connected Mathematics textbooks and will be customized to fit the current curriculum practices of the teachers in the study, with the goal of building their understanding of both mathematical concepts and pedagogical approaches. Each teacher in the full study must commit to attending a three-day summer institute, followed by five day-long seminars offered during the school year, and 10 days of coaching support at each school after each of the five seminars.
This study will be one of the first of its kind to measure the impact of professional development and coaching on student achievement by examining outcome data to see if teacher knowledge and instructional practices have strengthened, and to gauge how their practices have affected student test scores. In addition to providing rigorous, scientifically based research on the impact of professional development, this study will allow America's Choice to develop relationships with the participating districts and receive valuable feedback on America's Choice materials, as well as its professional development and coaching methods.
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