By Rebecca Zoglman
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is teaming up with CTA to help local communities improve student learning in California's most disadvantaged high schools. In an attempt by Gates to make it up to teachers for not seeking their expertise in previous initiatives, the foundation has made a $1.9 million grant to CTA's Institute for Teaching. It's the first time the Gates Foundation has made a grant to a teachers union.
CTA's Schools of Greatest Need Initiative works to build community investment and sustained reform in California's lowest-performing schools. The grant will fund a three-year high school outreach campaign to support teacher- and community-driven reforms in these schools.
"High schools in disadvantaged communities face so many challenges," says CTA President Barbara E. Kerr. "This partnership with the Gates Foundation is an incredible opportunity to put a spotlight on their needs and will go a long way toward our goal of bringing teachers, parents, administrators, community members and business leaders together to develop real solutions for improving learning in schools that need help the most."
"It is critical that teachers are an integral part of the transformation of our nation's high schools," says Tom Vander Ark, executive director of education for the Gates Foundation. "Every day, in classrooms across the country, educators are working to help all of their students succeed. By creating smaller, more personalized learning communities, teachers are taking the first steps toward preparing all of our young people for college, work and citizenship."
Up to eight high schools in Los Angeles and the Central Valley will be selected to participate in the school-based reform process in which teachers, parents, administrators, and community members decide together what's best for their schools and what their students need to succeed. The schools will be provided resources and support for organizing, planning and implementing a comprehensive strategy that emphasizes small, personalized teaching environments.
By offering increased personalization, rigorous coursework, positive adult-student relationships, and better preparation for college and work, small high schools with high-quality programs are able to help students pass more courses, graduate, and go on to college in greater numbers than large, comprehensive schools. Research shows these positive outcomes appear to be greatest for low-income and minority youth.
"We want to help develop a culture of high expectations and create teaching and learning environments where all students excel and where students and teachers want to be," says Carol Rava Treat, Senior Policy Officer in the foundation's education division.
As a result of this investment and more than $2.8 million that CTA has already raised, the CTA Institute for Teaching will be able to plan in-school briefings and provide coaching for teachers in an effort to share strategies and best practices for implementing smaller, more personalized learning environments.
The first high school programs will open in fall 2006.