Ten Years of Supporting Higher Standards for All Students

To mark its tenth anniversary in 2007, Mass Insight’s Coalition for Higher Standards updated its name to the Great Schools Coalition, to match the goals of Mass Insight’s Great Schools Campaign:  World Class in Math and Science, Proficiency for All, and Turnaround of Underperforming Schools.

In its second decade, the Coalition will move from the effort to establish standards-based education to:

1.       Assuring state investment in math and science education, and

2.       Building the capacity of its member districts to provide world class math and science education.

The Coalition is a Massachusetts-based research and development collaborative that provides member districts with practical tools, workshops, and consulting services to meet the challenges of standards-based education – with a particular focus on math and science. The Coalition also shapes the policy work of its parent organization, the Mass Insight Education & Research Institute. Approximately 25 Massachusetts school districts are members of the network currently.

The major goals for the Coalition are:

• Major funding, in the millions, for math/science improvement in Coalition districts from public and private sources including national grantmakers.
• The establishment of regional math/science training and development centers, in partnership with colleges and universities, to lead more extensive, more effective capacity-building in the state.
• Widespread implementation of the AP Training and Incentive Program as a way of raising expectations, curricular rigor, teacher capacity, and student achievement in Coalition high schools
• Related reforms designed to help Coalition districts prepare students in earlier grades for AP-level coursework in high school, including math/science coaching programs, fifth grade math specialists, and math-science curricular alignment with standards that actually drives how, when, and what teachers teach – replacing the still too prevalent reliance on textbooks as maps.
• Self-evaluation and progress tools that help Coalition members take aim at – and build consensus for – reforms in the areas with the highest potential impact.

Great Schools Coalition members send a clear signal of their districtwide commitment to higher achievement to their community, to their faculty and staff,  to their students, and to education, government, and community leaders statewide.