Bank Street College of Education
Project Title
As a final core support for the Bank Street Education Center
Date
Jun. 06, 2024
Duration
18 months
Description
Bank Street College of Education is committed to improving the education of children and their teachers by applying knowledge about learning and growth to the education process, and by connecting teaching and learning meaningfully to the outside world. Prior support from the Corporation established Bank Street’s Education Center, which provides technical assistance to school districts to improve academic outcomes for students.The Education Center creates customized approaches that support strengths-based, learner-centered, and equitable educational practices to help all students and educators thrive in school settings. Continued support will allow the Education Center to expand its work in three strategic areas: increasing equitable access to high-quality math instruction in Harlem, NY; building the capacity of secondary school leaders in New York City through their Principal Innovation Fellowship; and piloting a civics education fellowship that connects teenagers who have different life experiences and perspectives.
Website
Project Title
For a strategic plan for Bank Street of Education
Date
Mar. 09, 2023
Duration
6 months
Description
Bank Street College of Education has been a leader in progressive education, a pioneer in improving the quality of classroom practice, and a national advocate for children and their families since 1916. For over one-hundredyears, Bank Street’s child-centered approach to education has helped public schools and districts to support students’ social-emotional health while pursuing rich and vigorous learning environments. Bank Street now endeavors to scale the support they offer to districts by intentionally partnering with school districts nationwide that do not have access to high-quality schools of education partners. By doing so, Bank Street will improve the quality of pre-service and in-service teacher training, ultimately improving the quality of education that students receive. Support from the Corporation will allow Bank Street to engage in a strategic planning process to leverage existing strengths and relationships, and identify and pursue the additional capacity needed to establish Bank Street as a core teacher-education partner in these new markets.
Website
Project Title
For continued support to improve access and quality of early childhood education
Date
Mar. 04, 2021
Duration
18 months
Description
The impact of high-quality early experiences on children’s long-term brain development and overall health and life outcomes has long been documented. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the broad societal awakening to the persistence of systemic racism, it has become more urgent than ever to ensure every child experiences consistent, high-quality, developmentally meaningful learning experiences from birth. Bank Street College of Education, with current Corporation support, has brought its expertise in policy and systems change to focus on the early childhood educator workforce. Building on their foundational white paper, Investing in the Birth-to-Three Workforce: A New Vision to Strengthen the Foundation of All Learning, continued support will allow Bank Street to begin implementation of the four core strategy and policy recommendations in the white paper.
Website
Project Title
For the Education Center's district-focused racial equity project
Date
Dec. 02, 2021
Duration
30 months
Description
Over the past five years, many schools and districts have recognized and sought to address the profound role of systemic racism in creating and sustaining policies and practices that disenfranchise students of color from their right to quality education. While necessary, these efforts alone do not address the many entrenched ways schools and districts perpetuate institutionalized forms of racial discrimination that limit opportunities for students of color. Bank Street College of Education proposes partnering with a school district to test out a more comprehensive, iterative and stakeholder-driven process to auditing and improving the policies and practices that act as barriers to racial equity. Bank Street proposes applying their “Throughline” approach to instructional improvement, developed with Corporation support, which is a conceptual model that articulates the baseline adult learning system that underlies system-level improvements in instructional practice. This approach recognizes that a school functions best when there is coherence among its culture, structures, and instructional model.
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Project Title
As a final grant to select sustainable residency-based teacher preparation programs in New York State
Date
Mar. 05, 2020
Duration
17 months
Description
All teachers need hands-on instructional practice and pedagogical knowledge before entering the classroom to have a positive impact on student outcomes. Prepared To Teach, a program at the Bank Street College of Education, partners with teacher preparation programs and school districts to develop sustainably funded teacher residencies. The mission of Prepared To Teach is to tightly align teacher preparation and district human resources systems to create high-quality teacher residency pathways that are accessible to all aspiring teachers. Through this final grant, Prepared to Teach will continue their work in New York state through: (a) selection of four partnership sites; (b) creation of partnership advisory groups; (c) development of online communities of practice for partners; and (d) promotion of investments in teacher residencies by supporting the New York P-20, a formal state-wide coalition of committed higher education and district leaders.
Website
Project Title
For continued support of sustainable residency-based teacher preparation programs and coherent improvement strategies in school districts.
Date
Mar. 07, 2019
Duration
12 months
Description
Over the past century, the Bank Street College of Education has earned a reputation for effective educator development. With this renewal grant, their Education Center will continue to implement two projects that tackle human capital challenges: the absence of coherent supports for district-wide instructional improvement, and the lack of sustainable funding for clinical teacher preparation programs. The School System Partnerships Program (SSPP) will design a plan for financial sustainability that diversifies funding sources for its intervention model work with school districts. Prepared to Teach will support six district/teacher preparation partnerships in New York State to continue to plan for long-term sustainability of residencies and will grow the movement by identifying sites that will host workshops to grow interest in sustainable funding of residencies in New York State.
Website
Project Title
For field-building to improve access and quality of early childhood education in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Starting Points report
Date
Dec. 05, 2019
Duration
15 months
Description
Twenty-five years ago, the Corporation released Starting Points, a report that described the lack of child care for infants, toddlers, and their families as a “quiet crisis.” Unfortunately, despite the clear research that the first 1,000 days of a child’s life are a critical time in cognitive development, that crisis remains, with families continuing to face major barriers in accessing high-quality, affordable early education. Ensuring that children have access to developmentally-meaningful experiences during the first three years of life is critical to avoid the cycle of remediation that often characterizes students’ experience in K-12. Bank Street College of Education has begun to bring their expertise in early childhood education together with their experience in policy and systems change to focus on the educator workforce in the early childhood field (birth to age three). With Corporation support, Bank Street conducted extensive research into the main issues in the field over the past year, and wrote a white paper with recommendations for strategies and policy solutions to address them. With this grant, they propose undertaking communications, policy and advocacy activities to promote the advancement of those recommendations, with a focus on reaching policymakers and funders.
Website
Project Title
For support of a new school design process
Date
Dec. 05, 2019
Duration
11 months
Description
There is an emerging consensus that school designs that incorporate personalization, mastery, and positive youth development offer the kind of learning experiences necessary to prepare students for postsecondary success, in turn bridging persistent opportunity and achievement gaps. Bank Street College of Education has a long track record of providing this type of learner-centered experience to students in both its teacher preparation and elementary and middle school programs. Bank Street is poised to expand its model and reach in New York City by designing a new high school in partnership with the Pratt Institute, incorporating key design elements shared by both institutions and bridging the gap between high school and higher education. With Corporation support, Bank Street will collaborate with the Pratt Institute to design a school that offers project-based, experiential learning and equips students with the problem-solving and technical skills needed for postsecondary success.
Website
Project Title
For sustainable residency-based teacher preparation programs
Date
Mar. 08, 2018
Duration
12 months
Description
Since its beginnings Bank Street has been at the forefront of understanding how children learn. Now Bank Street College is addressing two crucial human capital and system challenges that enable district-wide scale-up of professional learning focused on instructional improvement and effective teaching. The first challenge is the lack of sustainable funding for clinically rich teacher preparation programs. The second challenge is the lack of coherent supports for district wide improvement. Through this renewal grant, Bank Street’s Sustainable Funding Project will bring districts and teacher preparation partners in New York state together into partnerships to enact a shift toward sustainably funded, district-aligned, high-quality teacher preparation. Through the Education Center, Bank Street will strengthen its organizational capacities to support districts in designing and implementing coherent professional learning systems for district-wide instructional improvement and effective teaching that include all roles in districts (school leaders, coaches, teachers, district officers and district leaders).
Website
Project Title
For developing a national strategy for early child care and education (ages 0-3)
Date
Sep. 13, 2018
Duration
15 months
Description
Studies show that early education is critical to ameliorating the stark achievement race- and class-based gaps in cognitive ability that are present at kindergarten entry and that are rarely closed after second grade. However, multiple funding streams, federal and state mandates, and accreditation/licensing requirements have led to a lack of coherence and accountability in early childhood education. Bank Street College of Education plans to engage thought leaders, policymakers, researchers, practitioners, educators, and families in a process of design-thinking around young children’s development, in order to begin to identify locally sourced solutions that pull communities together to support sustainable approaches. The process will culminate in the identification of a national goal for 0-3 care and education and the formulation of a national strategy.
Website
Project Title
For projects advancing system leadership development, sustainable teacher preparation programs, and learning and continuous improvement
Date
Mar. 03, 2016
Duration
24 months
Description
Over the past few years, school systems have been asked to implement a number of reform initiatives intended to advance student achievement, including instituting higher academic standards, elevating students’ socio-emotional needs, and developing new evaluation and accountability systems. In an effort to assist district leaders to implement a multitude of distinct and sometimes competing initiatives, Bank Street College of Education proposes to undertake three strands of work aimed at orchestrating change from the systems-level to the classroom: 1) Through the Bank Street Education Center, partner with school districts to build leadership capacity to engage in thoughtful strategy creation and execution, project management, and change management; 2) Through the Sustainable Funding Project, identify and promote substantial and sustainable public funding streams for high-quality teacher preparation, specifically teacher residency programs; and 3) Form a learning agenda in collaboration with the Corporation based on the products and tools developed in the first two projects.