The Project for School Innovation An outgrowth of Boston’s Neighborhood House Charter School, The Project for School Innovation (PSI) brings teachers from charter and district schools together to share effective practices and to encourage grassroots innovation. PSI is an excellent example of how a single innovative school can influence practice within the larger Boston Public Schools system. In the past two years, PSI has delivered programming to 16 charter and district schools including over 1,300 hours of professional development to 200 teachers who touch the lives of over 1,500 students.

Boston is home to many outstanding schools. Some are part of the BPS, others not. They educate, energize, and inspire, but these leading-edge institutions can touch only a fortunate few students directly. Their true power is in their ability to influence teaching and learning practices throughout the Boston Public School District.

Supporting these schools and facilitating the sharing of their learnings with the broader BPS system is of critical importance to us.

Primary Approaches

We are presently focusing our efforts on:

Improving school facilities through capital grants.
Quality facilities are an important factor in establishing high performance teaching and learning environments. Yet, charter schools and many independent, tuition-free schools have little or no access to public and private capital to fund facilities. We are supporting the building and renovation of facilities for schools of excellence.

Building school leadership capacity.
Strong, effective leadership is a critical factor in establishing and building schools of excellence. We are supporting programs that identify and develop effective school leaders.

Supporting best practice identification and dissemination.
It is critical that the best practices of schools of excellence are broadly adopted throughout the BPS. We support programs that identify and facilitate the spread of these best practices.

Desired Outcomes

We hope that through our collaboration with a network of administrators, educators, students, parents, issue experts, nonprofits and funders to contribute to critical outcomes for Boston:

• A capable and growing group of effective, energetic school leaders to drive the process of city-wide school improvement
• Active inquiry and dialogue among city educators on best practices and their implementation
• Effective transfer of proven teaching and learning models into under-performing schools
• More rapid conversion of under-performing schools into successful learning institutions
• Improved capital infrastructure for charter and tuition-free independent schools.

Measures

We hope that through our collaboration with a network of administrators, educators, students, parents, issue experts, nonprofits and funders to contribute to critical outcomes for Boston. Some of the key measures include:

• Student performance metrics including, but not limited to, results of standardized tests as well as attendance, promotion, and drop-out rates
• Student and parent satisfaction levels
• Number of schools with effective, well respected leadership
• Number of quality educational facilities.

An Invitation

While our efforts are based on research and knowledge of the field, they remain our best bets. We’re eager to learn from your insights, experience, and creative ideas. We invite you to use our suggestion form if you have an idea you believe will further the strategy outlined in this section.