March 9, 2011 | Education Funders Affinity Group Meeting
An Innovative Model for Education Reform
The Ellis Center for Educational Excellence is focused on comprehensive, district-wide, long-term K-12 education reform in Arizona. Its approach is holistic and integrative, emphasizing both internal structural change at the classroom and administrative level as well as linkages with early education and high school.
Currently it is engaged in a partnership with Phoenix-based Creighton School District and WestEd (a noted policy research, training and technical assistance organization) to enhance both student achievement and district capacity for sustainable improvement in all phases of district operations. Already data show significant improvement in school labeling under Arizona Learns. Students' gains in reading proficiency, for example, suggest the real potential for applying new classroom-level teaching strategies and techniques in addition to stimulating leadership among principals and district-level management. In the future an experimental evaluation design will help determine whether the Creighton intervention has lasting effect on high school performance, graduation and post-secondary success.
Special thanks to Chase for sponsoring the Education Funders affinity group!
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