Research and Policy

The portfolio district model adopted by Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York City is often held up as a national model for high school "choice," touted as the best way to reduce pernicious race- and income-based achievement gaps. According to this model, student demographics are “no excuse” for poor performance: teacher quality is the single most important determinant of student success.

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THE IMPACT OF COMMUNITY AND YOUTH ORGANIZING ON PUBLIC SCHOOL REFORM

This study, a collaboration of the Annenberg Institute and the Rhode Island Children's Crusade, looks at community attitudes about high school graduation requirements as part of Providence's high school redesign initiative. The report describes the views of community members, elicited in focus groups and interviews. The results of the study helped inform the planning for proposed new graduation requirements for the city's schools, which are now under consideration by the school board.

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This paper offers a descriptive analysis of the education work of eight highly developed community organizing groups, and develops and articulates a dynamic, mixed method research design to specify the relationships that link organizing efforts to changes in schooling outcomes. 

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This report offers district leaders practical information about data warehousing from eight districts that have successfully used this approach. The report discusses what a data warehouse is, technology and culture issues that data warehousing has the potential to address, key development and operational issues, lessons from the eight districts, and resources.

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Published by Teachers College PressUrban Schools, Public Will by the Annenberg Institute's Norm Fruchter draws on a rich array of research and personal experience to examine why, fifty years beyond Brown v. Board, urban districts have failed poor students of color and what must be done to transform our city schools.

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The Annenberg Institute prepared this report to assist New York State in improving the accuracy and efficiency of its data collection on homeless students, required by both the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act and New York State law as a first step to ensuring that these students do not encounter barriers to school attendance and educational success. The report offers specific recommendations to strengthen New York State's data-collection system to provide a more accurate understanding of student homelessness and to better serve homeless students across New York. Fun

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This report is a collection of essays about the intentions and achievements of a cross-section of Annenberg Challenge projects. Written by project directors and local evaluators at seven of the project sites, the volume offers a unique, inside view of what the projects set out to do and how the partnerships between Challenge research and program staffs at the sites helped clarify and refocus the work over time.  

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Chapter 1: Revolution in Tandem Development and Research in an Arts Education Program

Chapter 2: Building Constructive Partnerships in Urban School Reform

Chapter 3: Transforming events: A Local Education Fund's Efforts to Promote Larges-scale Urban School Reform

Chapter 4: Balancing Summative and Formative Evalluations: New Partnerships, New Evaluation Models

Chapter 5: Establishing Connections Between Evaluation and Program Improvement

Chapter 6: The Promise and Challenge of Evaluating Systemic Reform in an Urban District

Chapter 7: Beyond Standardized-test Scores: Using Case Studies to evaluate a Reform Strategy

On June 12th, 2002, the Annenberg Foundation released the final report on its historic school reform effort. The report, entitled, "The Annenberg Challenge: Lessons & Reflections on Public School Reform," describes the Challenge's achievements in improving urban, rural and arts education. The report was released to the press and an audience of education leaders and policymakers at an event held in Washington, D.C. Warren Simmons, executive director of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, described the report, and U.S.

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This report was written for the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice (CEJ) by the Community Involvement Program of the Annenberg Institute. It calls on Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein to take bold action by implementing recommendations of the New York City Council Middle School Task Force.

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