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  Becoming a System of Professional Learning: Conceptualizing Improvement As a Throughline of Learning

  Michelle L. Forman, Tracy Fray-Oliver, and Doug Knecht

  This white paper introduces the “Throughline of Learning” (Throughline) model developed by the Bank Street Education Center. The model builds on the concept of the instructional core and demonstrates how focusing on system-wide adult learning needs can help districts successfully reimagine their approach to instructional improvement.

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  Centering Values: Building an Equitable Future through the American Rescue Plan Act

  Emily Sharrock, Brandy Jones Lawrence, Karen DeMoss, and Brigid Brennan

  The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) constitutes a significant change in our nation's approach to social policy and offers a new opportunity to imagine positive change in how we value and support human development and learning with a clear focus on equity. This memo outlines Bank Street's recommendations for spending to inspire communities and policymakers as they think broadly about the potential this funding offers to invest in our future.

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  Coaching: How a Focus on Adult Development Leads to Improvements in Student Learning

  Jessica Charles, Milenis Gonzalez, and Emily Sharrock

  The Bank Street Education Center partners with schools and districts across the country to help improve teaching and learning at scale. This publication documents the professional learning processes, tools, and activities used by Bank Street facilitators in their coaching work with teachers and leaders and brings to light what strengths-based, developmentally meaningful teaching and learning looks like for both adults and children.

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  Coherent Schools, Powerful Learning: When Shared Beliefs Fuse School Culture, Structures, and Instruction

  Douglas R. Knecht

  Describes the evolution of a theoretical model of school quality drawn from my experiences teaching at different schools, pursuing graduate studies, leading district policy and support networks, and partnering with school systems, as I presently do at Bank Street College of Education. The model positions schools as the key lever for improvement and equity in our public system and focuses on the coherence of school culture, structures, and instructional approach grounded in beliefs of human development and learning. Using two contrasting schools as cases to explore and develop this model, I offer one as an example of incoherence and the other, Humanities Preparatory Academy in New York City, as an exemplar of how culture, structures, and instruction are fused by shared beliefs and made manifest by leveraging a set of core values. I then turn to the role of districts and state agencies, which cannot directly generate coherence in schools from the outside in. Recent research underscores the importance of school-level coherence and also indicates that the ecosystem of schools must change to foster such coherence. I end with a brief discussion of our need to shift our systemic policies and approaches away from the reductive forces of high-stakes testing and instead embrace this holistic vision of schooling to shape future school improvement and reform efforts.

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  District-wide Instructional Initiative Framework

  Jessica Charles, Tracy Fray Oliver, Doug Knecht, and Emily Sharrock

  Describes the Bank Street Education Center's District-wide Instructional Initiative Framework, a tool that guides the Center's partnership work with school districts who are engaged in a process of instructional improvement. The Framework was developed out of research on district improvement, organizational development, school leadership, and professional learning, as well as the Center's own experience implementing large-scale district reform in the largest school district in the nation: New York City.

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  Equitable Compensation for the Child Care Workforce: Within Reach and Worth the Investment

  Emily Sharrock and Courtney Parkerson

  This brief outlines concrete ideas and innovative strategies to help advance early educator compensation at the local, state, and federal levels and, in turn, support the development and care of our nation's youngest learners.

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  Implementing NH ChILD: A Comprehensive Approach to Professional Learning to Reach All New Haven Early Childhood Educators

  Emily Sharrock and Courtney Parkerson

  New Haven Children’s Learning District (NH ChILD) envisions a city where all children have access to high quality early learning experiences. In order to turn this vision into reality for the 14,800 children ages 0-8 living in New Haven, NH ChILD is working to increase the number of spaces in high quality programs while simultaneously improving the quality of early learning experiences in existing programs. The following paper outlines NH ChILD’s beliefs, commitments, and plan for action with respect to NH ChILD’s citywide efforts for in-service professional learning.

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  Investing in the Birth-to-Three Workforce: A New Vision to Strengthen the Foundation for All Learning

  Emily Sharrock and Courtney Parkerson

  This report asserts that every child—regardless of race, income, or opportunity—should have consistent access to high-quality learning experiences from birth and provides a roadmap toward change at scale, including the development of residency programs and improved compensation for the infant/toddler workforce.

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  Maximizing Every Child's Potential in the First 1,000 Days of Life: A Landscape Analysis

  Emily Sharrock and Courtney Parkerson

  This report features a series of findings, supporting evidence, and bright spots that build a case for developing a stronger approach to supporting the diverse infant/toddler workforce.

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  Realizing the Promise of Early Educator Apprenticeships

  Brandy Jones Lawrence, Emily Sharrock, and Courtney Parkerson

  In response to the introduction of the Early Educator Apprenticeship Act in both houses of Congress, this positioning statement outlines recommendations for rebuilding the workforce at this critical moment with quality and equity at the center through apprenticeships, which have been effective in improving K-12 school systems. A national system of robust apprenticeship programs would support rebuilding our supply of care while also ensuring educators receive the high-quality clinical practice and coaching required for the complex task of supporting early brain development.

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  Schooling for and with Democracy

  Douglas R. Knecht

  Given the current challenges facing our democracy in the United States, the role of public schools in forming habits of democratic practice in our citizenry is as important today as ever. To explore this urgent topic, the author interviewed 13 leaders of 10 New York City public schools committed to educating for and with democracy. Six patterns of beliefs and practices emerged from the conversations, including commitments to intentionally developing informed, empathic, inclusive, inquiry-minded, confident, vocal, and involved citizens through parallel democratic structures for both adults and students. A seventh pattern was also identified; however, it took the shape of the absence of an intentional naming of democracy as it is being practiced. This raised a question for further discussion: To what degree is making this connection explicit in school communities important? Implications of these patterns are briefly discussed, and a few recommended next steps are offered for the consideration of educational leaders and policy makers. It is the hope and plan of the author to bring the group of interviewed school leaders together to discuss these patterns and dig more deeply into the work of schooling for and with democratic participation.

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  Structures & Supports: Building a Throughline Approach to District Partnerships

  Jessica Charles

  Bank Street College is committed to collaborative, systematic district reform that supports every layer of the school system so that districts are able to thoughtfully plan and implement large-scale instructional improvement initiatives to achieve maximum impact on student learning. The Bank Street Education Center “Education Center,” has developed a “Throughline” approach to district reform, designed to support districts across the system to foster conditions that enable schools to act as units of change and embed strong instructional practices through teacher leaders and teams.

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  Tracy Fray-Oliver Presents at Gates Foundation Networks for School Improvement Convening

  Tracy Fray-Oliver

  During the Gates Foundation Networks for School Improvement (NSI) convening on July 16, 2019, Tracy Fray-Oliver of the Bank Street Education Center presented a Year One Reflection on the center's work with Yonkers Public Schools to help more Black, Latino, and low-income students complete 8th grade math.