Initiatives

Rigorous & Aligned Curricula

From the earliest days of the Collaborative, among our greatest concerns has been what students are expected to learn, what and how much they are taught, and how it’s determined that they’ve learned or not. Second only to the quality of teaching received by students, student learning is determined by the standards set for their learning and by what and how much they are actually taught, that is, the level of rigor and implementation of the curriculum taught.

For those reasons, the Collaborative has invested significant resources in the following work:

• The development and adoption of local academic standards, for what all students should know and be able to do, to inform what students are taught;
• The adoption and use of rigorous curricular programs and textbooks, that are linked and aligned—from year to year and course to course—such that the content of each course or at each grade fully prepares students for subsequent content and all students are prepared for college admission and success;
• The use of tests and examinations that assess whether students have learned what they’re supposed to learn and the depth at which they’ve learned it.

Teacher & Leader Development

The centerpiece of the Collaborative’s action agenda is teacher and administrator professional development. The Collaborative’s largest and most significant investment is aimed at building the capacity of teachers to teach high-level content to all students and of leaders to create and sustain effective schools that ensure high achievement among all students.

The Collaborative’s professional development program is intensive, long-term, and coordinated. Training is provided in a variety of formats, ranging from small workshops to large group institutes.

The program begins by creating an urgency for change in teaching and learning school-wide, and uses student achievement data to raise issues of equity. In order to create more active and sustained learning, the Collaborative requires that teachers attend in teams accompanied by their principal or assistant principal. Many training sessions examine student work against state and national standards to make clear the need for change and to inform decisions about instructional improvement. Instructional coaches, certified in mathematics and science, are also utilized to deliver professional development during content institutes and at school sites. In schools and classrooms, coaches model best practices in teaching specific content and address the engagement of students in learning at deeper and more meaningful levels.

Strengthening the skills and knowledge of school leaders is central to improving student achievement, raising content standards and the quality of curricular programs, and improving teacher quality. Toward this end, the Collaborative offers leadership development seminars and workshops to assist campus and district leaders in identifying effective teaching and content delivery in classrooms, in developing and implementing plans for improving classroom teaching school-wide, implementing rigorous curricula to accelerate learning for all students, recruiting and selecting effective teachers, supporting the development of all teachers, and establishing data-tracking and other systems that promote quality learning.

Parent engagement is also critical to the Collaborative’s reform agenda. Professional development for parents is offered on a regular basis to help parents understand the important role they must play in school improvement and to assist them in developing strategies for working with teachers and school leaders toward improving teaching and learning for all students.

College Readiness & Completion

College attendance and completion are among the most powerful indicators of improved economic, health, and civic well-being of individuals and communities. As college completion increases, individuals and their families become more economically stable, experience less unemployment, vote and participate in civic life to a greater degree, and are physically healthier than those with less education.

As the US has shifted from a manufacturing to a technology and information-based economy, obtaining and keeping a good-paying job increasingly require at least a four-year college degree.

Yet, the US is one of the few developed nations in the world in which college attendance is on the decline, with implications for our welfare, security and global competitiveness. Not only must we increase the number of Americans who earn college degrees, but we must focus in particular on groups, such as Latinos, that make-up an ever-increasing share of our population and yet earn degrees at a far lower rate.

The Collaborative has worked intensively to call attention to the need to increase college preparation, access and success, as well as to make sure that all students are fully prepared for entrance into and completion of a four-year college degree. Much of our work has focused on ensuring that all students are enrolled in a college preparatory course of study in high school, supporting teachers to help all students meet college prep standards, and providing information to middle and high school students and their parents about the need to prepare for, attend and complete college.

K-16 Partnerships

The Collaborative is driven by a central belief that the entire community – parents, students, district and school administrators, teachers, civic and business leaders, and post-secondary education leaders – must come together to work in partnership toward ensuring student success and that our collective futures are inextricably linked.Rather than blaming one another, all stakeholders must take ownership and commit to jointly working to improve educational achievement at all levels.

The work of the Collaborative has been shaped and informed by all partners coming to the table—at Collaborative board meetings, program planning meetings and retreats, K-16 faculty working group sessions—to set priorities, guide program development, raise implementation issues, and ensure that programs are designed for success. In addition, an even wider set of stakeholders representing the full community—from elected and appointed officials to organizational representatives to religious leaders—have joined the partnership at special meetings, such as the Collaborative-sponsored El Paso Education Summit. All partners are deeply engaged in the effort at both the institutional and individual levels, and share goals, responsibilities and accountability for the work.