Children and Youth;Education and Literacy
The Urban Youth Collaborative strives for social and economic justice throughout our communities -- overcoming obstacles to make sure youth voices are heard and youth empowerment is emphasized.
They are committed to building a strong youth voice, a voice that can ensure high schools prepare students to go to college, earn a living wage, and actively participate in our democracy.
In the subsequent pages is a set of proposals to ensure that high schools serving low-income youth of color meet the new Department of Education standards for college readiness. We offer multiple ways to pursue each goal, recommend that combinations of the aspects of models we present be considered.
The report is organized to share what we know about why items on our platform are important and to give information to help fellow students, education advocates, and the NYC DOE work toward implementing changes.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Northeastern) / New York / New York County / New York City
Computers and Technology, Education and Literacy
A major focus of the booming education technology sector is on products that aim to help teachers improve classroom practice. For their part, districts must figure out which of these resources will be most useful to schools. In New York City, the Department of Education developed its own Achievement Reporting and Innovation System (ARIS), which was rolled out in 2008. ARIS was an early effort at a system-wide data and teacher collaboration platform, and a major undertaking for the nation's largest school district.
In 2011, the Research Alliance received a grant from the Spencer Foundation to investigate how this ambitious initiative played out in schools. Our first report focused on overall use and perceptions of ARIS. In the current phase of our study, we honed our focus onto ARIS Connect -- a component designed specifically to help educators improve their practice by sharing resources, posting questions, and giving one another feedback, both within schools and across the district. Our investigation sought to understand what educators thought of Connect, and whether, as its designers intended, Connect supported their ability to communicate with other educators and improve classroom practice.
The study is based on two years of "clickstream" data, which tracks user visits to and navigation through ARIS. We also visited nine middle schools that recorded higher-than-average use of Connect, where we interviewed administrators and held focus groups with teachers.
This report presents our findings, including insights on why educators did or did not use Connect; what might have made Connect more useful; and what external tools educators use for similar purposes.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (Northeastern)-New York-New York County-New York City
Children and Youth;Education and Literacy;Race and Ethnicity
The Expanded Success Initiative (ESI) is working to boost college and career readiness and other key outcomes among Black and Latino male students in 40 NYC high schools. This report presents a rich picture of ESI's roll out and early implementation, drawing on more than 100 interviews and focus groups with educators in ESI schools and with members of the NYC Department of Education's ESI team. The report examines challenges schools experienced during Year 1 of the initiative, as well as changes in school practice that hold promise for reaching ESI's goals. Among the report's key findings:
- The NYC DOE provided a wide array of resources, including funding, workshops and professional development sessions, planning meetings, and information about potential partners, to help ESI schools develop and expand programs for their Black and Latino male students.
- ESI's theory of action called on schools to increase supports in three specific domains -- academics, youth development and school culture. Educators reported that, in fact, schools did enhance programming in these three areas. Specifically, they described:
- Raising academic standards and benchmarks and increasing opportunities for students to take more rigorous coursework;
- Improved relationships between students and their peers, as well as between students and teachers, as a result of a variety of youth development programs; and
- An expansion of college supports, not only in terms of adding programs, but also by shifting the school culture to be more explicitly college focused, beginning in the 9th grade.
- Culturally relevant education emerged as a central focus and organizing principle for individual ESI schools and the initiative as a whole. Staff in more than half of ESI schools reported that exposure to CRE had changed teachers' mindsets and beliefs, as well as school-wide practices, particularly around student discipline.
- Educators also identified cohesion between ESI programs -- and with the larger school culture -- as important for successful implementation. The level of cohesion varied across schools. While some schools largely operated as if ESI were an add-on program, others made great efforts to weave ESI into existing school norms, programs, and structures.
The report explores each of these findings in depth, and considers their implications for policy and practice. The authors offer a number of recommendations for schools and the district about strategies that might be used to strengthen and enrich ESI as it evolves over the next two years.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Northeastern) / New York / New York County / New York City
Education and Literacy;Race and Ethnicity
This report illustrates the successful college preparatory practices of Uncommon Schools, a network of 38 public charter schools in New York, New Jersey and Massachusettsthat serves nearly 10,000 low-income students and students of color. During the 2013 Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools review process, a panel of national education experts chose Uncommon Schools as the best among the nation's 27 largest urban charter management organizations in closing achievement gaps, graduating its students and preparing them for college. The policies and practices highlighted in this report were drawn from a week-long site visit to Uncommon Schools conducted by RMC Research Corporation in November 2013 and a review of Uncommon's quantitative student achievement data from 2008-09 through 2011-2012.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Northeastern) / New Jersey;North America / United States (Northeastern) / New York;North America / United States (Northeastern) / Massachusetts
This report highlights key lessons from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Community Partnerships portfolio evaluation. It assesses the communities' progress over the course of the investment, and describes their work in the areas of building public commitment, using data, building and sustaining partnerships, and aligning policies and practices. The OMG Center served as the national evaluator of this initiative and the report also discusses the steps these communities can take to sustain their programs.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Midwestern) / Ohio / Montgomery County / Dayton;North America / United States (Northeastern) / Massachusetts / Suffolk County / Boston;North America / United States (Southern) / Florida / Duval County / Jacksonville;North America / United States (Southern) / North Carolina / Mecklenburg County / Charlotte;North America / United States (Southwestern) / Arizona / Maricopa County / Phoenix;North America / United States (Western) / California / San Francisco County / San Francisco;North America / United States (Northwestern) / Oregon / Multnomah County / Portland;North America / United States (Northeastern) / New York / New York County / New York City;North America / United States (Northeastern) / Pennsylvania / Philadelphia County / Philadelphia;North America / United States (Southern) / North Carolina / Wake County / Raleigh;North America / United States (Southern) / Kentucky / Jefferson County / Louisville;North America / United States (Southwestern) / Arizona / Maricopa County / Mesa;North America / United States (Southwestern) / Texas / Cameron County / Brownsville;North America / United States (Southwestern) / Texas / Potter County / Amarillo;North America / United States (Western) / California / Riverside County / Riverside
This report highlights key lessons from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Community Partnerships portfolio evaluation. It assesses the communities' progress over the course of the investment, and describes their work in the areas of building public commitment, using data, building and sustaining partnerships, and aligning policies and practices. The OMG Center served as the national evaluator of this initiative and the report also discusses the steps these communities can take to sustain their programs.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Midwestern) / Ohio / Montgomery County / Dayton;North America / United States (Northeastern) / Massachusetts / Suffolk County / Boston;North America / United States (Southern) / Florida / Duval County / Jacksonville;North America / United States (Southern) / North Carolina / Mecklenburg County / Charlotte;North America / United States (Southwestern) / Arizona / Maricopa County / Phoenix;North America / United States (Western) / California / San Francisco County / San Francisco;North America / United States (Northwestern) / Oregon / Multnomah County / Portland;North America / United States (Northeastern) / New York / New York County / New York City;North America / United States (Northeastern) / Pennsylvania / Philadelphia County / Philadelphia;North America / United States (Southern) / North Carolina / Wake County / Raleigh;North America / United States (Southern) / Kentucky / Jefferson County / Louisville;North America / United States (Southwestern) / Arizona / Maricopa County / Mesa;North America / United States (Southwestern) / Texas / Cameron County / Brownsville;North America / United States (Southwestern) / Texas / Potter County / Amarillo;North America / United States (Western) / California / Riverside County / Riverside
Children and Youth;Education and Literacy;Race and Ethnicity
The Expanded Success Initiative (ESI) provides funding and technical support to 40 relatively successful New York City high schools to help them improve college and career readiness among black and Latino male students. This preliminary report describes key components and strategies of ESI and begins to look at factors that might influence the potential to apply ESI more broadly.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Northeastern) / New York / New York County / New York City;North America / United States (New York Metropolitan Area)
This report examines mathematics test data from the first year of implementation (2012-13) of the Teach to One: Math (TtO) approach in seven urban middle schools in Chicago, New York City, and Washington D.C. Researchers addressed the question: How did Tto students' growth on the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) mathematics assessment compare with national norms?
To answer this question, the researchers analyzed student performance on the MAP test, an established instrument developed by the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA). The researchers then compared these results to the national norms published by NWEA (2011). Please note that these analyses cannot attribute Tto student results to the TtO model: the data available did not permit the use of an experimental design, which would be necessary to establish a link between the implementation of the program and the student test results. While the TtO results are promising, its performance beyond one year should be analyzed using an experimental design, in order to remove unmeasured differences between TtO students and schools with an appropriate comparison sample.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Midwestern) / Illinois / Cook County / Chicago;North America / United States (Southern) / District of Columbia / Washington;North America / United States (Northeastern) / New York / New York County / New York City
