In this edition of Eye on the Prize: The Road to Broad, brought to you by The Broad Foundation and the National Center for Educational Accountability (NCEA):

The following excerpt from our just-published brochure illustrates a few reasons why Boston Public Schools took home the Prize this year.

Boston Public Schools

What do Boston high schools and the television show "Cheers" have in common? Boston high schools believe that students, like Cheers clientele, want to go to school where "everybody knows your name."

In recent years, the district has reconfigured Boston high schools in two ways: into smaller schools and into small learning communities called "houses." At East Boston High, where nearly all of the 1,400 students live below the poverty line and some in foster homes, teachers explain that "houses" are like "families."

"We make the kids feel as if they are part of a family and provide structure they may not get at home," says Philomena Rago, a teacher at East Boston.

The 350 students in each "house" have most of the same teachers and counselors for all four years of high school and can seek academic and emotional help from many adults.

Once a week the team of "house" teachers meets to discuss how to improve student learning, sometimes bringing together students and parents to talk through behavioral or academic issues. Principals and teachers credit this "house" team planning and discussion about improving student performance with creating a professional culture that allows teachers to raise the level of their own individual practices.

The small learning communities approach is one of the most recent additions to the arsenal of strategies Boston has deployed to raise student achievement in high schools across the city. Between 2002 and 2005, high school achievement gaps for African-American students and low-income students have closed faster than the state average. Clearly, for the notable and sustained progress this five-time Broad Prize finalist district has shown, everybody does know its name.

Data-driven teaching is a group sport
In the last decade, Boston has aligned its curriculum with state standards — among the toughest in the country — and introduced assessments, pacing guides and professional development aligned with that curriculum.

In recent years, teaching in Boston has increasingly become a group sport. Teachers, with the benefit of data, coaches, model lessons and research-based best practices, now collaborate across classrooms, across grades and across disciplines.

"It's like having a miner's light, going across all levels and looking for opportunities to collaborate," says Kathi Mullin, who works as special assistant to the superintendent on high school reform.

To support teachers, the district makes student achievement data available online, providing interactive graphs linked to test questions on the district's website, www.mybps.org.

Teachers report that data allows them to accurately assess student progress, determine problem areas and develop strategies to take those students to higher levels of achievement.

"Now my kids cheer when we do math assessments," says Costello. "I explain: 'This is your chance to show me what you know.'"

One winner, five powerful stories

One hundred large urban school districts serving more than 9 million students nationwide are eligible. Five standouts are selected each year as finalists. But only one district takes home The Broad Prize.

Boston took the honor this year, yet all of the finalist districts are winners and all have powerful stories to tell.

Following are additional excerpts from this year's Broad Prize brochure. They illustrate each Broad Prize finalist district's unique approach to improving student performance and closing achievement gaps.

Bridgeport Public Schools

Expect Great Things.
Three simple words — the slogan of Bridgeport Public Schools — have become symbolic of the academic turnaround in this small coastal Connecticut city.

An industrial town during World War II, Bridgeport lost much of its manufacturing base after the war, and along with it, a significant amount of school district revenue. Today, some 96 percent of Bridgeport students qualify for free and reduced price student lunch. Yet amidst great economic challenges, Bridgeport Public Schools is reinvigorating the city.

The change in philosophy and school district culture — to expect great things from students — is the cornerstone of the district's success, says Superintendent John J. Ramos, Sr., who grew up in Bridgeport and previously led Connecticut's state department of education efforts to turn around low-performing schools before returning to Bridgeport in April 2005.

"It is amazing to work with the students who walk the same neighborhoods that I did," says Ramos.

Data-driven instruction
In Bridgeport, student achievement data is in demand by Bridgeport teachers, and more and more of them rely on it to drive their instruction. For example, teachers are using data to tell whether certain teaching strategies, like lessons built on inference questions, are better for developing comprehension skills than more traditional approaches, such as completing fill-in-the-blank exercises.

At one Central High School ninth grade physical science class, students rub balloons together, creating electric fields.

One student holds her balloon over a pile of paper clips, to see if the metal will cling to the surface, while her teacher asks the class what the properties of electric fields might be, based on their observations.

"I like this better than just listening in class," says the student, as others nod their heads. Different teaching approaches are being used more and more now that student achievement data, made accessible by the district, allows teachers to analyze whether their original teaching approaches worked, and if not, to brainstorm other approaches that might be more effective.

Each quarter, the district gives teachers access to online assessments for grades 3 through 7. In the past, results from state tests weren't received until the end of the year, allowing teachers only to adjust teaching for the next year's class. But today, Bridgeport teachers can use the supplemental quarterly online results, which are available immediately from any computer in the district, to regularly shape their instruction.

"Online assessments have been fantastic — the results are almost instantaneous," says Charles Framularo, Hall Elementary's numeracy coach. "I was able to see how other schools did on the items we struggled with. We learned we were not alone, so we knew what we had to do and where to address it."

Of course, data also shows what is working. And here in Bridgeport, as ethnic achievement gaps shrink and the district outperforms its peers, it is clear that this city is on the right track.

Although Bridgeport serves the highest percentage of low-income students in Connecticut, Bridgeport students in 2005 outperformed in six out of six areas (elementary, middle and high school, reading and math) using The Broad Prize methodology. In addition, Bridgeport's low-income, African-American and Hispanic students also outperformed their peers in other Connecticut districts in six out of six areas. Between 2002 and 2005, African-American students also showed greater improvement than their peers in other Connecticut districts in all six areas.

Jersey City Public Schools

Jersey City residents will tell you they live in "Little New York."

Home to many first-generation immigrants, the city even claims legal ownership of the Statute of Liberty. But while it sits just a stone's throw across the river from New York's tallest buildings, when it comes to education, Jersey City has no plans to sit in the shadow of its neighbor.

In 2005, Jersey City Public Schools outperformed other New Jersey districts serving student populations with similar income levels in six out of six areas (elementary, middle and high school, reading and math), using The Broad Prize methodology. In addition, the district narrowed ethnic achievement gaps in reading and math: between 2002 and 2005, the African-American achievement gap closed 15 percentage points in math at the elementary level and 8 percentage points in reading at the middle school level. Similarly, the Hispanic achievement gap closed 14 percentage points in math at the elementary school level and 7 percentage points in reading at the middle school level.

These achievements are particularly noteworthy, says Dr. Charles T. Epps, Jr., Jersey City's six-year superintendent, in one of the country's most diverse districts, where more than 109 languages are spoken. Abbott v. Burke, a 1990 state court ruling, awarded extra money to poorer districts, and Jersey City is among those that receive additional funds for each student. This has allowed the district to provide extra social services for its diverse student body, hire more teachers, reduce class size and — to make learning more relevant to students — bolster professional development, instructional programs, and state-of-the-art technology.

Real-world learning
It's not your ordinary math or science lesson.

On a spring morning, Dickinson High School students are building boats that can run without using electrical parts. They excitedly discuss math equations and physics principles that might allow the boats to sink or swim. But they remain sublimely oblivious to the main force that's in motion. They are learning.

Jersey City hasn't quite thrown out the textbook when it comes to learning, but under Epps' leadership, teachers in every school are using problem-based learning to engage more students in the curriculum.

"Textbooks are leaving. I never thought I would see that in my lifetime," says Ismael Aponte, eight-year principal of Webb Elementary

Every morning in every Jersey City school, teachers can be found collaborating across subjects — even across grades — to develop real-world projects like "stock market fairs," which engage students in learning about economics through creating their own stock companies and "selling" stocks to teachers.

Teachers report that inquiry-based learning has allowed more students to feel successful at academics, resulting in better grades and attendance. And district officials note that the level of conversation children have in small groups as they work on projects is so much richer than when students simply sat with a textbook and answered teacher-directed questions.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools

If there's any question about how critical a strong superintendent is to the success of an urban school district, look no farther than Miami-Dade County Public Schools.

"Rudy Crew is the best news this community has seen in a long time," says David Lawrence, Jr., retired publisher of The Miami Herald, and now president of The Early Childhood Initiative Foundation.

In just two years, say educators and non-educators alike, Dr. Rudy Crew, former New York City schools chancellor, has had a profound impact on the country's fourth-largest district.

Through public speeches, town hall meetings and regular recorded phone calls to every parent in the district, Crew has asked a community long plagued with achievement gaps to change its paradigm — away from talk, he says, and instead toward finding and funding answers. Those answers include efforts like advanced classes to raise student expectations and a comprehensive literacy focus in low-performing schools.

"If you are going to be a leader," said Crew, in his first meeting with principals and other administrators in August 2004, "I am not asking you to lead what is... I am asking you to lead what has not even happened yet."

Crew has accelerated the district's success. Between 2002 and 2005, Miami-Dade County Public Schools showed greater improvement than other Florida districts serving similar income levels in six out of six areas (elementary, middle and high school, reading and math), using The Broad Prize methodology. In addition, Miami-Dade's low-income students showed greater improvement in all six areas. And in 2005, the district's African-American and Hispanic students outperformed their peers in similar districts in at least five out of six areas.

Higher expectations lower achievement gaps
If you set high expectations, students will rise to meet them.

In 2005, Crew's administration began a major effort to bump up the number of advanced courses, such as Advanced Placement (AP), International Baccalaureate (IB) and Cambridge Academy classes offered in the district, believing that when schools raise the bar, students will come to expect more of themselves, and persistent achievement gaps will decrease.

And in one eleventh grade IB English class at Ferguson High School, the students are the proof.

"I have come so far this year," says one student, sitting in a circle of her classmates as she reads a self-evaluation of her progress over the year. "And I am so proud of myself." Across the circle, her teacher beams with shared pride.

The district funded at least ten AP courses in every high school, in addition to IB and Cambridge programs in some schools. Middle and high schools started offering necessary AP prerequisites in lower grades, so students can now, for example, take biology in the ninth grade.

Since 2002, the district has seen a 59 percent increase in the number of Advanced Placement exams taken by African-American and Hispanic students. And teachers note that offering AP, IB and gifted classes establishes an attitude that raises the quality of the whole school.

"Students not in AP are seeing others take AP classes, and they start to change their attitude," says Bill Cobb, a 47-year veteran teacher, whose low-performing school recently began offering AP classes. "They think, 'why am I not there, and what do I need to do to get there?'"

New York City Department of Education

As a loud train rumbles past the Florence Nightingale School in downtown Manhattan, first-grade students stretch their hands high into the air, apparently unfazed by the ruckus outside.

Teacher Ellen Gentilviso raises her voice to be heard. "We want to read as fast as we talk," she booms to a sea of young, eager faces of all colors. In a city where talking fast is a way of life, reading fast has become one too.

Since 2002, student achievement has been on the rise in New York City, particularly by African-American and Hispanic students, making the New York City Department of Education a Broad Prize finalist for the second year in a row. Specifically, between 2002 and 2005, the achievement gap between African-American students and their white counterparts closed seven percentage points in elementary reading, and the Hispanic achievement gap closed nine percentage points in elementary reading.

New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, a former assistant U.S. attorney general, leads the system of more than 1 million students — twice as many as all other 2006 Broad Prize finalists combined. Many within the district credit Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who appointed Klein in 2002, for providing the city with the consistent leadership needed for reform to take root.

"If not for mayoral control," Klein says, "we could not have done the good work we have here."

Under Klein's direction, New York City schools have put a rigorous, standards-based math and reading curriculum in place across schools and have bolstered professional development, support from coaches and robust intervention strategies and assessments. Jumps in math scores followed across all grade levels.

"Now we identify students early and provide them with individual and differentiated academic interventions," Klein says.

Students also reap the fruits of the Chancellor's decision three years ago to adopt a balanced literacy program, where whole-group lessons are followed by independent reading at each student's individual level.

"Now classroom libraries are leveled," says Daria Rigney, a local instructional superintendent. "Children are becoming better writers, thinkers and more independent learners. Never have I seen children so excited about learning."

* * *

For more information

To learn more about the 2006 Broad Prize winner and finalist districts and to read a retrospective on past winners of The Broad Prize for Urban Education, please visit http://www.broadprize.org/publications.shtml.

For more information on the districts featured in this edition of Eye on the Prize, please contact:

Boston Public Schools
Christopher Horan, 617-635-9265

Bridgeport Public Schools
Cynthia Fernandes, 203-332-2832

Jersey City Public Schools
Sharon Bartley, 201-915-6227

Miami-Dade County Public Schools
Office of Public Relations, 305-995-1126

New York City Department of Education
David Cantor, 212-374-4341