SERP Boston Field Site

In the spring and summer of 2005, SERP launched its first field site in collaboration with the Boston Public Schools. The problem identified by the school district as its most urgent problem of practice was middle school literacy across the content areas. The problem was manifest in the inability of high school students to comprehend their subject area text books, which the district believes fuels the high drop-out rate.

A model for a field site structure was established collaboratively, with a Core Group, Design Team, and Research Team, each of which has expanded over time. Interactions among the highly interdisciplinary teams and analyses of district data led to a broad problem definition:

• A significant proportion of BPS students still struggle with reading fluency in middle school, and some with basic word reading.
• Many BPS students who are fluent readers have not had the exposure to language and discourse that would prepare them to comprehend their textbooks. The gap in vocabulary and background knowledge is often wide, requiring a strategic focus on the language, concepts, and skills that can serve as effective stepping stones across the gap so that students have access to material in higher level courses.
• The breadth of the problem is such that it cannot be solved by English Language Arts teachers or by special education teachers alone. It will require consistent and coordinated efforts by teachers across all subject areas.
• If all schools are to reach these goals, the District will itself need to work coherently to provide schools with the resources to meet student needs, and principals with the supports to strengthen the internal coherence of their schools.

The SERP-BPS partnership has initiated several closely related and interdependent lines of work that collectively address the identified challenges: The RISE Assessment is being developed to provide teachers and schools with literacy profiles for middle school students that can serve as a basis for instructional differentiation and curriculum planning. Word Generation is a cross subject area program designed to build students’ academic vocabulary and background knowledge while strengthening school coherence. An Adolescent Reading Course for students, and a teacher preparation course for teaching adolescent reading, are being designed and piloted to serve the needs of students in middle and high school who are at or just above the third grade reading level. And the Internal Coherence Survey and the related coherence building initiative provide the District with a tool for differentiating supports to schools, and provide School leaders with information that helps to identify important targets for coherence building.

See also:

• Boston Core Group Members
• Boston Design Team Members
• Boston Research Team Members