Launched in January 2020, the Charter Students with Disabilities Pilot Community Initiative supports a networked improvement community (NIC) of 10 charter management organizations (CMOs) aiming to improve outcomes for their students with disabilities. Race and class have a compounding effect on students in special education that creates an experience gap between these students and their peers. This is why the initiative prioritizes CMOs serving a high proportion of students who are Black, Latinx, or experiencing poverty.

In honor of the final week of Learning Disabilities Awareness Month, this series spotlights early improvement stories from the field, in partnership with technical assistance provider Marshall Street Initiatives. The pilot community’s goal is to systematically improve the way we serve students with disabilities and bring these solutions back to school systems everywhere.

I fell in love with teaching partly because it was more difficult than anything I had ever done before. Early on, I realized the only way to become the teacher I wanted to be was to pay close attention to what was working, for whom, under what conditions, and then commit to a process of ongoing reflection and iteration of my practice. Years before I discovered the formal tools and principles of improvement science, I had already internalized one of its core tenets: the belief in acting, reflecting, and then acting again. I had begun my “improvement journey” without even knowing it.

Because the process of continual iteration was in service of my driving goal—to become a better teacher more capable of reliably serving the full range of my students’ needs—continuous improvement wasn’t ‘extra’; it was a non-negotiable. Once I articulated this goal for my professional development as an educator, my improvement in the classroom was no longer dependent on permission-seeking or other external factors. As educators in charge of our own classrooms (or schools), we often erect barriers to change because we do not recognize all the resources within our direct locus of control…

Read the piece here.

Turning unexpected obstacles into improvement opportunities. How STRIVE Prep is using the PDSA structure to improve co-teaching observations in the virtual classroom this Fall.

Launched in January 2020, the Charter Students with Disabilities Pilot Community Initiative supports a networked improvement community (NIC) of 10 charter management organizations (CMOs) aiming to improve outcomes for their students with disabilities. Race and class have a compounding effect on students in special education that creates an experience gap between these students and their peers. This is why the initiative prioritizes CMOs serving a high proportion of students who are Black, Latinx, or experiencing poverty.

In honor of the final week of Learning Disabilities Awareness Month, this series spotlights early improvement stories from the field, in partnership with technical assistance provider Marshall Street Initiatives. The pilot community’s goal is to systematically improve the way we serve students with disabilities and bring these solutions back to school systems everywhere.

Read the piece here.

In an unprecedented year, introducing a new project is no easy feat. How STEM Prep ensured the right conditions for a multi-year continuous improvement effort.

Launched in January 2020, the Charter Students with Disabilities Pilot Community Initiative supports a networked improvement community (NIC) of 10 charter management organizations (CMOs) aiming to improve outcomes for their students with disabilities. Race and class have a compounding effect on students in special education that creates an experience gap between these students and their peers. This is why the initiative prioritizes CMOs serving a high proportion of students who are Black, Latinx, or experiencing poverty.

In honor of the final week of Learning Disabilities Awareness Month, this series spotlights early improvement stories from the field, in partnership with technical assistance provider Marshall Street Initiatives. The pilot community’s goal is to systematically improve the way we serve students with disabilities and bring these solutions back to school systems everywhere.

Read the piece here.

COVID school closures did not stop Collegiate Academies from hosting a site visit in the Spring. How the team pulled it off — and why it pays to build team commitment early and often.

Launched in January 2020, the Charter Students with Disabilities Pilot Community Initiative supports a networked improvement community (NIC) of 10 charter management organizations (CMOs) aiming to improve outcomes for their students with disabilities. Race and class have a compounding effect on students in special education that creates an experience gap between these students and their peers. This is why the initiative prioritizes CMOs serving a high proportion of students who are Black, Latinx, or experiencing poverty.

In honor of the final week of Learning Disabilities Awareness Month, this series spotlights early improvement stories from the field, in partnership with technical assistance provider Marshall Street Initiatives. The pilot community’s goal is to systematically improve the way we serve students with disabilities and bring these solutions back to school systems everywhere.

Read the piece here.

Marshall Street Initiatives is a coalition of educators working to systematically improve opportunities for students across the country. We invite you to read the 2019-20 Marshall Street Impact Report and companion Marshall Street 1-Pager for an overview of our work, learnings, and impact in Year 1.

As Marshall Street closes our first year amidst unprecedented uncertainty in our beloved field of public education, we look back with deep gratitude and we look forward with great hope.

We’re thankful for the many people who believed in us when we were only an idea: the idea that sustaining and improving great schools requires dedicated knowledge, skill, and expertise. We’re thankful for those who encouraged and supported us when we were— and as we are—a growing but imperfect substantiation of that original idea. Thank you to our research partners, our funders, our thought partners from far and wide, our collaborators, our colleagues in higher education, in business, and in education nonprofits. We have learned so much from you. Thank you.

Read our Year 1 Impact Report here.

As a teacher, I always prided myself on my first-day-of-school lesson plans. Instead of reading aloud yet another syllabus, my 9th grade students spent the first day in conversation with one another, building connections with each other, with me, and with English Language Arts.

I take the same approach each July with the new cohort of teacher residents, who begin their year-long apprenticeship with a summer intensive. We carve out time getting to know each other as humans and as educators. We share our stories. We reflect on our identities. We engage in hard conversations about equity. We envision the future of education together.

This summer, the COVID-19 pandemic meant that we could not do any of these activities as usual. We would not hold our full-day sessions in person. We would not sit around the same table for lunch. We would not catch each other in the hallway for an informal conversation, where friendships blossomed and lifelong professional connections were formed.

Instead, we were 28 future teachers and 4 faculty, spread across 5 states and 3 time zones, gathered together in one Zoom room to build the foundation for our year together…

Read the story

Launch our Career Maps Tool ▸