Excerpts from Approved School Improvement Grant Applications

From the website of The Center on Innovation & Improvement:
http://www.centerii.org/excerpts/index.html

High Poverty Students Hit Hardest by Layoffs, Cuts

Worth Another Look:
A January study by UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education and Access entitled Educational Opportunities in Hard Times makes the case that budget cuts and educator layoffs disproportionately hit high poverty schools and students.

From the research involving 87 principals across the state:
“Overall, several core findings emerge from the set of principal interviews: [...]

SIG Handbook Released

The Department of Education has posted its “Handbook on Effective Implementation of School Improvement Grants.” You can find it here: http://www.centerii.org/handbook/.

SIG News and Views: April 26, 2010

Compiled by Steve Snider 
There are now 26 states with School Improvement Grants (SIG)  applications approved by the U.S. Department of Education. Here are some of the latest news clips about SIG:
In Tennessee,  “Maury County School Board members have agreed to make sweeping education reforms at Mt. Pleasant High School, despite expressing great reluctance to change personnel at struggling [...]

Chasing Experienced Teachers From the Classroom

By Kevin Hart
Every public school student deserves access to a highly-qualified, experienced educator. But experience may matter more at lower-performing priority schools, where students often enter classrooms suffering from significant skills gaps and a variety of social issues that interfere with learning. That’s why many educators are so baffled by a federal plan that they [...]

Union-Led Conference Targets Family Engagement in Schools

By Stacey Grissom
The Tennessee Education Association in partnership with the National Education Association and 22 other organizations in the state, hosted the Tennessee Family/School/Community Engagement Summit this month,  a dialogue on policy and practice for improving family engagement in schools.  
A former Nashville elementary school converted to a professional development center was the site of the [...]

Video: Tennessee Union Focuses on Teacher Quality

Teacher quality plays a critical role in influencing student outcomes. At priority schools, where achievement gaps may exist and where students may need to overcome significant skills gaps, it is imperative that all classrooms are lead by highly qualifed teachers. In this video, produced by the Tennessee Education Association, an NEA affiliate, teachers discuss the importance of [...]

Case Study: Union-District Collaboration Nets Results in Chattanooga

By The NEA Foundation
Five years ago the NEA Foundation, the Hamilton County Department of Education (HCDE), Hamilton County Education Association (HCEA), and the Public Education Foundation (PEF) began working with a handful of middle schools in Hamilton County.
Within a year of the $2.5 million grant from the NEA Foundation that funded this work, the Chattanooga-based [...]

Union Champions Equity Schools for Neediest Students

By Barbara Moldauer
Smack in the middle of America’s heartland, a mid-sized Midwestern city is turning conventional wisdom on its head. Union leaders and district administrators in Evansville, Indiana, are confronting challenges as partners, not adversaries. In 2009, they developed — and are now implementing — a groundbreaking strategy, called Equity Schools, that aims to transform [...]

Department of Ed to Host Community Forums on NJ Priority Schools

The U.S. Department of Education’s Director of Community Outreach Alberto Retana will visit Newark April 13-14 to meet with educators, students, parents and other stakeholders to discuss improving the state’s lowest-performing schools.  
Retana will host a Youth Forum, consisting of high school students from various schools in Newark on April 13, and a meeting of the New Jersey Board of [...]

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