Worcester Education Partnership
Proposal Executive Summary

The overall goals of the Worcester Education Partnership (WEP) are to provide full opportunity for learning; to build student resilience, motivation and aspiration; to ensure academic growth and high levels of academic achievement for all students; and to prepare all students for post-secondary education and participation in a "new society."

Four main themes frame the WEP vision of effective high schools: 1. small, personalized learning communities; 2. academic opportunity, support, challenge, growth and achievement; 3. youth development; and 4. school-community integration and partnership. In the Worcester district-community action plan, high schools that are now management-driven and compartmentalized, struggling against their own size and bureaucracy in the effort to meet students' needs, will transform into small open, learning-centered communities committed to academic achievement and youth development, and fortified and connected to the larger community through partnership. Worcester high schools will scale down in size, yet, as a result of increased personalization and collaboration, grow in their capacity to enable all students to achieve at high levels, and to provide the intellectual and developmental experiences that students need in order to succeed in higher education and to participate fully and responsibly in a multicultural world.

In order to realize its vision of effective high schools, the Partnership has identified ten critical dimensions of change. Each dimension has specific objectives and strategies, and each has specific "participation," "practice," and "performance" benchmarks. Worcester high schools will undergo changes in the areas of structure and organization, academic curriculum and instruction, professional culture, assessment, and youth development. In addition, each school will deepen connection to the community through partnerships with local higher education institutions, through an expanded application of cultural resources to curriculum, through collaborative efforts to promote youth development and family involvement, and, as a result of a new level of community engagement, through the focused action of the ethnic minority groups with the greatest stake in the change process-the African-American, Asian-American and Latino communities.

Briefly summarized, the specific objectives and strategies in this comprehensive approach to change are:

• To develop small learning communities in which there is sustained and personalized adult attention for each student, by developing small schools with separate identities, and/or interdisciplinary teams and academies within large school settings. Three of the district's five largest high schools will convert completely to small school complexes. Another will house one small school and introduce interdisciplinary teaming. The fifth will introduce interdisciplinary teams and academies spanning grades 9-12.
• To shift the academic program from a time-based to a learning-centered and performance-based approach. An enhanced system of support will include a new emphasis on literacy and numeracy across the curriculum, particularly at the 9th and 10th grade levels, and the institution of "preparation academies," with summer and academic year components, for students who are entering the 9th grade in the lowest quartile. We will enrich core academic courses through a program of professional development that emphasizes ways to engage all students in challenging and meaningful learning. We will expand the opportunity for advanced course work through the process of "dual enrollment" at local colleges as well as a developing program to promote participation in advanced placement courses in collaboration with the College Board.
• To develop a professional learning culture at each school and in the district as a whole that emphasizes common time for interdisciplinary planning, developing and sharing best practice, jointly analyzing student work and performance data, and adjusting teaching practice responsively. School-based literacy coaches and action plan facilitators, guided by district curriculum liaisons, a new district-wide literacy coach and staff from the Hiatt Center at Clark University will help introduce these elements of the professional culture.
• To develop a system of assessment that integrates existing measures of performance using test score data with actual student work samples in language arts and mathematics. Teachers, students and parents will judge work against benchmarks and exemplars and chart progress towards academic mastery accordingly.
• To increase student responsibility in the academic, social and service realms of school life by increasing participation on leadership and curriculum teams, as part of the effort to promote youth development.

Changes at the school level in these five areas will be aligned, integrated and reinforced through partnership and community involvement, as follows:

• Higher education partners will pair with small schools and provide support in curriculum development, professional learning, and student academic learning, with assistance from the local teachers' union and the New England Small Schools Network, the district's small schools development partner.
• Cultural institutions, focusing initially on the 9th grade curriculum, will join with school partners to implement new curriculum models that integrate school and community expertise in science, history and the arts.
• Aiming to establish a "seamless" school-community environment for youth development, youth service agencies will align and integrate youth development activities with the schools in the areas of health, personal, social and emotional growth, vocational preparation and intellectual and civic involvement. A cadre of "community resource facilitators" will coordinate this effort.
• A new family involvement initiative will join the schools, district, business and ethnic minority communities in a common effort based on the framework developed by Joyce Epstein of Johns Hopkins University.
• Ethnic minority groups will be represented on school councils and, together with members of the combined district-community partnership, will take part in an annual critical review process that analyzes progress in achieving benchmarks.

We aim to increase the achievement levels of minority and low-income students across the district, outside of current pockets of effectiveness, as a critical outcome of our district-community action plan. Our planned changes will lead in particular to increased participation of minority and low-income students in advanced courses, a higher 9th grade pass rate, and an increase in the percentage of English language learners and minority and/or low income students who pass the statewide MCAS test, who complete four years of high school and who pursue a four year post-secondary education.

Our district-community plan has been developed with a full range of community stakeholders and institutions and will be implemented with the same breadth of involvement and commitment. The WEP Steering Committee will assume responsibility for ensuring implementation of the overall plan. At the district level, a new "Secondary Restructuring Facilitator," closely allied with the Superintendent and district management team, will work in collaboration with school-based action plan facilitators, literacy coaches and staff from the Hiatt Center for Urban Education, including the Project Director and Project Coordinator. A community resources facilitator will continue the process of integrating youth development resources in the community, and a community involvement facilitator will support the continued organization and mobilization of ethnic group commitments in support of change.