New SERP Partnership with District of Columbia Public Schools Focuses on Early Literacy

District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) has made significant investments over a decade in early literacy: The district was the first to extend enrollment to all three- and four-year-olds. It has introduced five essential literacy practices that are closely aligned with the research literature and has provided opportunities for teachers to learn about how to enact those practices and for administrators to learn how to observe, evaluate, and support the practices. DCPS has also adopted a phonics program (Fundations) and developed a district-wide core curriculum for literacy. While significant student gains have accompanied these changes, there are still schools in which the majority of students are not reaching proficiency in reading by third grade. District leaders proposed a partnership with SERP to dig deeper into the contributors to literacy outcomes both by integrating and analyzing data sets and by doing case studies of a set of schools that have similar characteristics but vary in literacy outcomes. The goal of the project is to identify strategies district instructional leaders might pursue to better support schools to achieve reading success for their students. Corinne Colgan (DCPS Chief of Teaching and Learning), Catherine Snow (Harvard University), and Suzanne Donovan (SERP) are co-PIs for the project.