A University of Virginia program is helping educators in school districts across the country create plans that benefit their most vulnerable students.
The Partnership for Leaders in Education program has been around for over two decades, bringing teachers and other school staff together to problem solve and establish action plans.
It’s a partnership between the university’s business and education schools and is producing promising results, Executive Director William Robinson said.
“The school systems we’re facing have stretched and overwhelmed educators trying to be responsive to the needs of students who are increasingly underprepared for their grade levels and facing well-being challenges,” Robinson said. “So, the change can overwhelm educators.”
To address that, Robinson said the program emphasizes creating plans based on things known to be essential for student success — particularly data-driven teaching and strong reading and math learning practices.
Through the work with nationwide school districts, which Robinson said typically lasts at least two and a half years, educators create a vision and do “causal analysis and other ways of looking at their data to understand what’s at the root of their challenges together.”
But, he said, 80% of districts extend the partnership to ensure they’re creating meaningful and lasting changes.
Often, Robinson said, schools and educators “work in silos to solve their challenges.” But regardless of whether the challenge is chronic absenteeism, early literacy or another topic, “if they’re swimming in the same direction, doing it together, then they can innovate, learn and adapt together.”
There’s a focus on reading, math and science data, Robinson said, because “we want students to have the skills, the confidence and the pathways to have choices in life, on what happens after K-12.”
The initiative is usually paid for using Title I, district or state funding.
The approach has proven effective. In Danville, Virginia, Robinson said the approach helped each of its partner schools reach at least 15-point improvements in math and language arts in one year.
This summer, Robinson said the program will host 250 educators in its latest cohort.
“The jobs in these most vulnerable communities are incredibly challenging, and we’re excited to invest in the leaders doing some of the most important work imaginable, and bringing out the leadership and the potential in their teachers and their students,” he said.
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