Programs

The Center currently coordinates school reform networks, principal and teacher preparation programs, research, and other initiatives. Within each network and initiative, the Center provides coaching, technical assistance, professional development, political advocacy, and networking opportunities.

• Boston Pilot, Horace Mann, and Innovation Schools Network: These 27 schools, while members of the Boston Public Schools, have freedom over budget, staffing, governance, curriculum/assessment, and the school calendar. Models for the future of urban public schools, the Pilot, Horace Mann Charter, and Innovation schools are all small, personalized, and democratic. The Center serves as the coordinating organization for these autonomous Boston public schools.
  
  
• School Redesign: CCE works with Innovation Schools to help them design and implement programs that will inspire students and teachers and lead to successful learning for all students. It also helps struggling schools in Massachusetts and elsewhere to guide them in turning around the education of their students. CCE coaches help schools use data and collaborative school structures to bring out the potential of all their students, with the goal of preparation for college.
  
  
• Building Quality Performance Assessments Initiative (QPA—formerly abbreviated as BQ) . Since fall 2008, CCE has partnered with the Nellie Mae Education Foundation (NMEF) to pursue the development of a technically sound cross-school performance assessment system that is scalable and replicable. In September 2009, after a research and planning year, CCE launched a cohort of 12 Massachusetts public schools to design, field-test, and document technically sound common performance assessment tasks and local assessment systems. The goals of this initiative are to demonstrate the potential use of performance assessment as part of a balanced student assessment system and to influence state education policy on student accountability as the state considers the benefits of expanding and strengthening the current MCAS.
  
  
• Los Angeles Pilot Schools: The Center supports the development of a network of Pilot schools in the Belmont section of Los Angeles.
  
  
• Principal Residency Network (PRN): The Principal Residency Network is an apprenticeship model of principal preparation and certification. It is based on the belief that the best method of preparing new, innovative school leaders is to train them in schools that are engaged in real reform work. Aspiring principals are placed in small schools or larger schools with small learning communities, where they are mentored by a Distinguished Principal for a period of 15-18 months and engage in the work of the school. Each candidate has an individual learning plan to master a set of identified competencies that prepares him/her for principalship.
  
  
• Los Angeles Principal Residency Network: LAPRN is an apprenticeship model of principal preparation and certification, modeled after the PRN program in Boston. The overarching purpose of the Principal Residency Network is to nurture a new generation of educational leaders prepared for the complexities of founding and leading intentional small schools where equity is valued as the foundation that envisions academic success for all students.
  
  
• Los Angeles Urban Teacher Residency: LAUTR is an apprenticeship model of teacher preparation and certification, culminating in a master’s degree from California State University-Los Angeles. CCE and CSULA's partners in this program are Los Angeles Unified School District; the Mayor’s Partnership for Los Angeles Schools; three community organizations: Families In Schools, Alliance for a Better Community, and Central American Resource Center; the Los Angeles Pilot Schools; United Teachers Los Angeles; and WestEd Research. All of the partners share a social justice mission.
  

Projects and initiatives:

• National Turning Points: The Center for Collaborative Education serves as the National Turning Points Center, a New American Schools-recognized reform model for creating high-performing middle schools, based on the principles and practices for effective middle schools outlined in the national Turning Points report (Carnegie Foundation, 1989). Member schools engage in improving learning, teaching, and assessment, building a professional collaborative culture, engaging in data-based inquiry and decision making, and creating structures that support high achievement and personal development.
  
  
• Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) Network: The Center serves as the state-wide Regional Center for those schools affiliated with the national Coalition of Essential Schools reform initiative. Coalition schools organize learning, teaching, and assessment around ten common principles, including students learning to use their minds well, “less is more,” personalization, student as worker, and exhibitions as demonstration of mastery.