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New Directions in Christina - demonstrates significant improvement in student learning is possible when system-wide reform is the focus. The Christina School District undertook system-wide reforms to address a persistent pattern of underachievement and to tighten the achievement gap among groups of students within the district. The report reveals an unusually high level of education progress and highlights the successes gained by the District after a two-year intensive effort to improve education in their public schools. A comprehensive approach was designed to build the capacity of the district to make and sustain improvements in student achievement, strategic management and policy, leadership, human resource development and management, and stakeholder satisfaction and ownership. This report details changes in the way the district and schools aligned instruction with standards, assessed students, managed data, conducted school planning, and involved stakeholders, particularly parents, in school improvement.
Parents as Partners - CTAC has launched a project with the Seattle Public Schools to strengthen the collaboration of parents, school staff and community organizations in support of student achievement and school improvement. This initiative focuses on results for children of families living in poverty, and non-native English speaking and ethnic minority families. Using surveys in eight different languages, CTAC assessed awareness and involvement among a representative sample of parents in the 47,000-student district as well as school and district staff. CTAC also interviewed teachers, school administrators, parents and representatives of local community-based organizations. Based on the results, CTAC is guiding a train the trainers process to prepare a corps of culturally and linguistically diverse school staff, community organization representatives and parent instructors who will train others across the district and community to better understand and assume their roles as partners in school improvement. The project builds capacity to use the accountability provisions and reporting requirements of No Child Left Behind for concrete improvements in student learning and school/community collaboration.
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Catalyst
for Change: Pay for Performance in Denver -
A groundbreaking longitudinal study of Pay-for-Performance impact on student achievement, teacher quality, and systemic change. Denver introduced Pay-for-Performance as a new element in a large urban district. The pilot was a catalyst for changing the district so that it could become focused on student achievement in a more coordinated and consolidated way. A key part of Denver’s story is how a pilot, with key internal and external supporters, engendered positive systemic change in a larger institution. Catalyst for Change is the final summative report for the Denver Pay-for-Performance Pilot that focused on developing a link between student achievement and teacher compensation. The four year pilot study, jointly sponsored by The Denver Public Schools and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, was comprised of four core components. The study: (1) examined the impact of the pilot on student achievement based on two independent assessments (2) examined teacher objectives: their substance, quality and relationship to student achievement (3) considered the effect of a range of student, teacher and school factors on the results of the pilot and (4) identified the broader institutional factors that have affected implementation.
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Informed Decision-Making: An Introduction to Student Achievement
and Teacher Data Comparisons - Many accountability systems are exploring the viability of using student achievement results at the classroom level as part of a new teacher compensation system. For any school district, this is a considerable undertaking with significant challenges. By addressing these challenges, a district develops the ability to achieve a better understanding of current performance and is far more able to make instructional improvements which demonstrably benefit students. This report presents student achievement and classroom performance data from the Denver Pay-for Performance study in several different comparisons and discusses the value and applications of each comparison toward the advancement of the district’s efforts to analyze and use student achievement data. As interest in accountability continues to grow, any performance system which attempts to link teacher compensation with student achievement, and with any other accountability system that is based on student achievement, will require reliable ways to examine student achievement at the classroom level.
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Pathway to Results: Pay for Performance
in Denver - This report presents findings based on the halfway point of the Pay for Performance pilot program with the Denver Public Schools. At the mid-point of this program, the Pilot was very much in the critical phase of seeking to fully and fairly test the powerful concept – is Pay-for-Performance a viable and effective strategy for the Board of Education and the Association to use to accomplish their goals? This report contains CTAC’s analyses, findings, and mid-point recommendations, and provides the necessary foundation for the mid-course adjustments made to the pilot.
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Myths
and Realities: The Impact of the State Takeover on Students and Schools
in Newark - After several years of state intervention and at a time of transition of district leadership, the Community Training and Assistance Center conducted a comprehensive study of the impact of the state take over on students and schools. This report presents CTAC’s findings, analyses and recommendations based upon that study.
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Winning: How to Advocate for Public
Education (and Get What Your District Needs) - offers field-tested strategies by drawing from the insights and experiences of those who have led their districts step by step, to victory. This
124-page manual provides a detailed look at the requirements for building
advocacy capacity within a school district. It is intended for use
by school leaders and board members as well as others who want to
organize and build community coalitions that will win public and political
victories for education. Each chapter provides practical steps for
developing a focused advocacy campaign and for building a constituency
for reform efforts over time.
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Advise and Consent: A Study of Collaborative
Decision-Making in Denver - The Community Training and Assistance Center was contracted by the Denver Public Schools to study the effectiveness of Collaborative Decision-Making, Denver’s strategy for site-based management and community involvement. This report reveals survey and interview results and presents recommendations in five areas of CDM involvement that are designed to increase the satisfaction of participants by clarifying and aligning expectations roles, responsibilities, and lines of authority.
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Best Practices in School to Work: Lessons
Learned- presents findings and recommendations from leading School-to-Work initiatives throughout the country. This report serves as a critical starting point, presenting the directions and strategies for educational and corporate leaders to consider as they design and launch a School-to-work system that responds to the unique needs of their communities and regions.
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The Challenges of School to Work: A
Regional Assessment- evaluates the efforts of a regional strategy for developing and coordinating school to work efforts. This study identified and examined existing practices, assessed the prospects for success of the regional School-to-work system and suggests strategies for developing and implementing such a system.
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Core Concepts of Reform -
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Guiding Improvement -
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Community Development
Planning:
A Manual for Refugee Organizations (Bi-lingual manual in English and
Vietnamese) - This practical manual on organizational
planning grew out of CTAC's four-year project to help refugees create
and manage organizations to help their communities. 51 pages in English
plus 62 pages in Vietnamese.
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Elder Power: How to Set Up and Run an
Advocacy Group (Bi-lingual in English and Spanish)
- This practical manual on how to set up and run an advocacy group
grew out of CTAC's three-year Elder Leadership and Advocacy Project.
This project demonstrated that elders from different racial, cultural,
and language backgrounds, primarily low income, can get together and
makes their lives better. In some societies, elders are treasured
for their wisdom and leadership. In our society that emphasizes youth,
elders are often portrayed as weak and feeble, with the result that
elders - especially low-income elders - may lose confidence and let
others do for them what they should be doing for themselves. While
isolation makes people feel powerless, organizing helps elders to
be strong and genuinely capable. 44 pages in English plus 44 pages
in Spanish.
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Organizing for Better Schools: A Primer for Parents - This manual is designed to help parents work together to improve the schools their children attend, through influencing educational policy decisions. 28 pages.
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What You Need to Know: A Manual on Developing
Youth Leadership - This manual is an outgrowth of
CTAC's multi-cultural leadership training project for urban youth
from Asian, African-American, Creole, Haitan, Hispanic, Portugese,
and White cultures. The training program developed skills needed for
youth leadership on both school and community issues. 79 pages.
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Health
These reports resulted from
CTAC's project to help build the capacity of the Houston community
as a whole to meet the challenges of the HIV epidemic. The project
focused on replacing funding-driven fragmentation and territoriality
with collaborative planning and service delivery that focus on the
needs of affected populations, and on the community's programmatic
and administrative ability to meet those needs. Based on intensive
technical support and assistance to the Houston, Texas HIV/AIDS community,
CTAC developed these two publications as a resource for policy makers,
government administrators, community-based providers, funders and
consumers interested in developing effective collaborative partnerships
to address HIV/AIDS:
HIV/AIDS
Funding Streams and Planning Groups - is a comparative
view of programs, structures and decision-making processes that can
be used as a base for guiding future HIV/AIDS collaborative partnerships.
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Strengthening Houston's Response to HIV/AIDS - provides analyses and makes recommendations for creating a more responsive and collaborative HIV/AIDS care and prevention system.
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