FYI from BSF, 11.18.22
We made a big announcement this week in partnership with Boston's education leaders.
PEAK, Partnering with Educators to Accelerate Knowledge, is about investing in what we know matters most for moving the needle on student outcomes: great instructional practice. As one of our PEAK grant recipients, Hernandez Principal Carolina Brito, reminded everyone at our Wednesday launch event that while “it may not be the sexiest work in education,” it is really important.
This $2.3 M investment will go to 4 schools initially – the Hernandez Dual Language School, Conservatory Lab Charter School, Samuel Adams Elementary, and the Charles Sumner Elementary – and 8 more over the next 3 years. PEAK builds on what we’ve witnessed across the 38 schools in the BSF portfolio: schools that focus deeply on implementing high-quality curriculum and on job-embedded and curriculum-aligned teacher development improve student academic outcomes.
Last year, knowing the impact of the pandemic would be potentially devastating for students, we dug into the research and decided to sharpen our grantmaking focus to the highest-leverage investment in what will improve the efficacy of the daily instruction that students receive. There are so many supports, programs and resources that go into providing a robust educational experience. As we’ve discussed elsewhere, Boston should do more to make sure those things are available no matter where you go to school. But little matters more, and encompasses more of a student’s time, than daily core instruction.
We started zeroing in on core instruction in our most recent Re-Centering Grants related to pandemic recovery. We saw 100% of grantee schools making strong progress in math and half of the schools making strong progress in reading, during a very disrupted year of schooling. This confirmed that we needed to stay the course.
Over the next 3 years, we plan to track progress closely, so stay tuned. We will learn alongside school and system leaders to see how this laser focus on instruction could be scaled across our city, not just in our 12 partner schools.
Every school in Boston deserves a champion and supporter of high-quality instruction; there is no path to equity in student outcomes without this foundation.
Notes in the Margin
Boston School Committee met this Wednesday. A passing look at the agenda may have overlooked a very important report. As required by the agreement to avert state receivership, an initial report was completed reviewing the state of special education in Boston Public Schools. It is not a pretty picture.
More than half of the children identified as having disabilities are a Black or Latino male.
Boston is much more likely to place students with disabilities in separate environments or place them outside of the district.
Fewer than 1 in 4 students with disabilities are proficient on national assessments.
A long list of recommendations start on page 9 here. With state oversight and reforms ensconced in the Boston Teachers Union contract, there is real accountability to deliver on these reforms.
The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education also met this week (agenda). The big topic of review was a new employment and wages report. As previewed in our own writing and discussed at the meeting, the dataset is new and incomplete, but has real public policy potential.
College enrollment has declined across Massachusetts; here is how some Boston charter schools have responded.
Cities and states spending federal dollars on tutoring should be reading the fine print. The tutoring service questioned in the article, Paper, was also hired by Boston.
Nationalized education politics issues around curriculum and athletics are popping up in Massachusetts.
Other Matters
Tomorrow, East Boston High School will be one of many locations for the United Way's annual Thanksgiving Project. Click here to learn more or support the effort.
