Through an innovative grant program created by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, educators from traditional public and charter schools across seven U.S. cities were able to share best practices in areas such as teaching English-language skills and working with students with disabilities. Educators cited their collaborative work on tasks such as classroom observation, operations alignment, and curriculum development as particularly helpful, according to a new issue brief and report released by Mathematica Policy Research.
Grantees did report some barriers to participation—not enough time in the day, for example. But more than two-thirds of participating teachers and principals reported growth in the number of contacts within their own cross-sector professional networks, which was a main goal of the grant program.
Among other programs launched under the grant, educators consistently singled out the cross-sector leadership programs as particularly successful. These included two residency programs for prospective principals and a professional development program for aspiring leaders. Special sessions on leadership development, coaching, and small-group activities led to more than two-thirds of residency program participants serving as principals or assistant principals by spring 2016.
Although findings show that traditional public and charter schools were able to share effective classroom practices, the short grant period made it difficult to measure the grant’s direct impact on longer-term outcomes like student achievement. Even so, the results from the cross-city findings can inform future decisions about funding similar grant programs. Program administrators, however, will need to consider whether the activities are working in ways that can plausibly improve student outcomes.
The Gates Foundation provided three-year grants for district-charter collaborations in Boston, Massachusetts; Hartford, Connecticut; New York City, New York; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; New Orleans, Louisiana; Denver, Colorado; and Spring Branch, Texas. The foundation commissioned Mathematica to conduct an evaluation of the grant program’s implementation and effectiveness.
Read the issue brief and full report.
