California Teachers and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Team Up to Help Local Communities Improve Student Learning in California’s Most Disadvantaged High Schools

The California Teachers Association and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation today announced a $1.9 million investment from the Gates Foundation to CTA’s Institute for Teaching to help local communities improve student achievement in California’s most disadvantaged high schools.

The grant is part of the CTA Institute’s Schools of Greatest Need Initiative, which 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,” said CTA President Barbara E. Kerr, who also serves as president of the Institute. “This partnership with the Gates Foundation is an incredible opportunity to really put a spotlight on their needs, and it 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 student learning in those schools that need help the most.”

In 2004, The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University found that 69 percent of California’s public high school students graduate. The statistics are even bleaker for students of color – only 55 percent of African American and only 57 percent of Hispanic students complete high school.

“It is critical that teachers are an integral part of the transformation of our nation’s high schools,” said Tom Vander Ark, executive director of education for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “Everyday, 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 areas 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 to help students learn.

Evidence shows that high-quality small high schools offer increased personalization, provide rigorous coursework, cultivate positive adult-student relationships, and better prepare students for college and work. According to multiple studies, students in good, small high schools pass more courses, graduate, and go on to college in greater numbers than those in large, comprehensive schools. 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,” said Carol Rava Treat, Senior Policy Officer in the foundation’s education division.

Through this investment, the CTA Institute for Teaching will plan in-school briefings and provide coaching for teachers to share strategies and best practices for implementing smaller, more personalized learning environments. The first set of these smaller high school programs will open in fall 2006. With the help of an independent evaluation team, the CTA Institute will monitor administrative and student progress in these new programs. Researchers will collect data from the programs and share this information with other schools as they move toward implementing reforms.

Nearly half of the nation’s 60 largest urban school districts and their communities are engaged in high school reform. This fall, more than 250 new, small, focused high schools that combine challenging classes with supportive adult relationships opened across the nation.  To date, the foundation has invested $745 million to support the creation of more than 1,900 high-quality schools in 41 states and the District of Columbia.

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The CTA Institute for Teaching was founded in 1967 as an independent nonprofit organization to enhance, support, and sustain high quality teaching and high quality public schools for all California students. Through mobilizing teachers, special programs, research, conferences, networking, and community-based coalitions, the CTA Institute for Teaching seeks to advance public education and promote the common good of our students and communities.

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The California Teachers Association (www.cta.org) works to improve the conditions of teaching and learning, to advance the cause of free public education and to promote the well-being of its members. CTA is the largest professional employee organizations in the state, representing more than 335,000 educators in schools and colleges. CTA is affiliated with the 2.7 million-member National Education Association.