Supporting successful transitions into college and careers for youth with learning differences
YouthBuild is expanding its schools diploma granting model to Mexico, Brazil, and South Africa. This school model will be responsive to diverse learning needs in providing experiential learning environments and leadership opportunities to a global network of “opportunity youth” – those youth who are disconnected from learning, leadership and livelihood opportunities.
About the organisation
The YouthBuild International mission is to unleash the intelligence and positive energy of young people to transform their lives and rebuild their communities. Provision of technical resources support the planning and implementation of locally operated YouthBuild programs and scaled networks of national, and regional YouthBuild programs outside of the United States. YouthBuild International builds the capacity of local, national, and regional partners who have assessed the need for and potential impact of YouthBuild and who lead the process of adaptation and implementation. YouthBuild International’s vision is to create viable, sustainable livelihoods for all young people, through training, education, employment and self-employment.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support of its Global School Design and Youth Engagement program, YouthBuild International seeks to achieve three primary outcomes:
- Opportunity youth – from diverse geographies – shape global strategies to multiply dignified, productive and sustainable livelihood pathways
- Opportunity youth who have not completed their secondary education have access to publicly funded, community-based diploma granting schools, which provide relevant academic instruction and linkages to quality livelihoods
- Build internal capacity and understanding of learning differences and position YouthBuild International as a learning differences “aware” organization
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Improving RULER, an evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning (SEL), using the Universal Design for Learning framework
Based in the Yale Child Study Center and descended from the work of psychologist Peter Salovey, a co-founder of the theory of emotional intelligence, the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence has introduced its RULER Approach in more than 1,500 public, private, and charter schools from preschools through high schools nationally and globally. Its grant supports a partnership with an expert in Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to examine RULER through the UDL lens, with the results used to improve offerings and to inform the field about best practice in program evaluation related to learning differences and SEL.
About the organisation
The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence uses the power of emotions to create a healthier, and more equitable, productive, and compassionate society, today and for future generations. Since 1990, the center’s scholars have developed programs and approaches, conducted basic and applied research, and published over 600 journal articles, chapters, and books on the subject of emotions in health, education, and other areas of human experience. Since 2005, RULER has been introduced in more than 1,500 public, private, and charter schools serving students in rural, suburban, and urban settings. The center is part of the Yale Child Study Center within Yale’s medical school and its 50-person team includes faculty researchers and operational staff.
About the Oak funded project
The RULER approach to Social and Emotional Learning emphasizes that adults and students will be more effective at using their cognitive resources to teach and learn when they are able to recognize, understand, label, express, and regulate emotions and apply these skills in their daily lives. With Oak’s support, the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence will partner with EdTogether, recognized for its UDL expertise, will systematically identify specific malleable factors within RULER’s design and implementation can be improved through the UDL framework. The work will articulate strategies to ensure equal opportunities to access, fully participate in, and benefit from RULER. Currently there is no national benchmark or recommendation that has been systematically developed and rigorously evaluated with the end of public dissemination in mind. By leveraging our research team’s collective expertise in SEL and UDL, and our extensive networks of support across the SEL and learning differences communities, we are uniquely positioned to effect change at scale for the field. The process and findings from the grant funded research will be shared with the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) and Understood.org for use as an exemplar model of systematic accessibility review for the fields of SEL and learning differences.
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Solving hard problems facing humanity in a game-based environment
The Center for Game Science at the University of Washington develops scientific discovery games to discover optimal learning pathways for STEM education, cognitive skill training, human creativity, collective over individual intelligence, and much more. With Oak’s support and in partnership with other non-profit organizations, the Center for Game Science will pilot and test existing products within an international technology platform to give teachers proven strategies and interventions in math. The platform allows teachers to deploy real-time in-class individualized support to ensure every student achieves key learning milestones.
About the organisation
University of Washington’s Center for Game Science creates scientific discovery games to advance STEM learning, cognitive development and creativity for educators and students. An important focus of the Center is its Teacher Toolkit.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, the Center is developing an online platform called Teacher Co-Pilot, which allows teachers the ability to analyse the progress of individual students in real time and to continuously identify parameters to adapt learning needs for the best outcomes for each student. The Co-Pilot delivers a K-8 math curriculum specialized for each learner, teacher and classroom. The project will begin with small pilots and teacher interviews before deploying the curriculum to thousands of teachers and classrooms. Oak Foundation recognizes the Co-Pilot as an opportunity to optimize learning for all students, including those with learning differences.
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Designing the settings and means to deliver holistic learning and development opportunities to all students
The Equitable Learning and Development Project is a three-year collaboration by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research; the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL); and the National Equity Project. The project seeks consolidate, align, and translate best practice to develop a set of practice-oriented frameworks and tools that serve as roadmaps for equitable education in a richly diverse society.
About the organisation
The University of Chicago Consortium on School Research informs solutions to the greatest challenges facing urban schools. Founded in 1990, the consortium is based at the university’s Urban Education Institute. The consortium created a research-practice partnership with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) – inspiring more than 25 other cities and states to create similar partnerships. The consortium conducts research of high technical quality that can inform and assess policy and practice in CPS. It seeks to expand communication among researchers, policymakers, and practitioners as it supports the search for solutions to the problems of school reform. The consortium encourages the use of research in policy action and improvement of practice but does not argue for particular policies or programs.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, the Equitable Learning and Development Project will synthesize a coherent set of powerful, integrated, developmental, equity-focused multidisciplinary frameworks linked to an accompanying set of tools and resources that clarify the educational ecosystem required to support the education of richly diverse learners. Frameworks for students, for practitioners, and for education systems will provide clarity, structure, and direction to practitioners on how to enhance equitable social, emotional, and academic outcomes for diverse learners ; integrate efforts across lines of work, support greater adult capacity to engage in this work ; and address the school- and system-level factors necessary to enable their success. The partner organizations will conduct a literature review, 90 interviews, four national and four regional convenings and draw on the expertise of their own national networks and a youth advisory circle organized for the project. Through this process, the partners will design, facilitate, and model to foster an inclusive, multi-disciplinary, racially and culturally diverse community of people across the country who can effectively lead for excellence and equity at the level of the classroom, school, district, and state.
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Conducting research to support optimal outcomes for all students with learning differences
The Laboratory for Educational Neuroscience / Learning Engineering & Neural Systems Lab (brainLENS) is primarily situated at the University of Connecticut (UConn) and combines cutting-edge, cross-disciplinary research with public outreach. With its grant, the Lab is conducting two studies: one of compensatory reading comprehension strategies for people with dyslexia and one exploring the causes of and responses to stereotype threat for people with learning differences.
About the organisation
BrainLENS (Laboratory for Educational NeuroScience) combines cutting-edge, cross-disciplinary research methods with a deep passion for maximizing children’s potential in life, particularly stemming from the academic domain. With a firm belief in interdisciplinary research, it integrates the latest brain imaging techniques, genetic analysis, and computational approaches to examine processes of learning, including acquisition of skills, such as reading, socio-emotional processing, motivation and resilience. The brainLENS laboratory is comprised of 7 full-time postdoctoral fellows, 6 full-time research associates, and 6 part-time graduate students. Additionally, there are approximately 50 undergraduate, graduate, and post baccalaureate volunteer research associates. Expertise covered includes: neuroscience, psychiatry, neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, education, linguistics, multilingualism, and speech language pathology.
About the Oak funded project
Neuroscientists Fumiko Hoeft and Stephanie Haft are committed to conducting research that helps support optimal academic and social-emotional outcomes for all students with learning differences. Although remediating the challenges students face in their learning (such as reading for dyslexia) as well as promoting socio-emotional competencies and compensatory mechanisms are documented as important factors, the various pathways to achieve success and enable resilience remain largely unknown. The goal of the two Oak-supported studies is to develop a set of strategies for promoting compensatory mechanisms that are tailored to individual students who learn differently and for reducing stereotype threat for students who learn differently.
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To design and build school models that help all children in the US learn in supportive, engaging, and effective learning envrionments
Transcend accelerates innovation in school model design to far better prepare students and society for the 21st century. Its grant for core support is helping the organisation explore, develop, codify, and expand use of new school models that better serve diverse learners’ needs.
About the organisation
Transcend is a national non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating innovation and equity in the core design of “school.” It does so in three ways: by building and expanding use of innovative school models in partnership with visionary school communities, deploying a diverse force of R&D talent to develop, codify and spread these new learning models, and by building and sharing actionable knowledge to inform the innovation process with evidence-based insights.
Through each of these lines of work, Transcend partners with innovative leaders in schools across the district, charter, and independent school sectors.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, Transcend is fostering the creation and adoption of new school models that generate strong academic and social-emotional outcomes for all students, especially those who learn differently. Through bringing evidence-based insights, expert capacity, and a diverse network of cutting-edge schools, researchers, and design talent, Transcend serves as a catalyst for school communities to make changes to learning models that better prepare 21st-century children for the demands of today’s society. The organisation approaches its partnerships with school, district and CMO leaders flexibly, meeting educators where they are and working together to accelerate breakthroughs. Each project is supported by Transcend’s R&D Engine, which provides insights from learning science, diverse world-class talent, and expertise in change management and design processes to turbocharge lasting change in school design.
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Improving educators’ ability to meet the needs of all students, including students with learning differences
Teach For America (TFA) enlists and trains corps members to effectively teach in low-income classrooms for at least two years, and then supports alumni to effect change within and beyond the education sector. Support from Oak Foundation enables TFA to leverage technology, regional networks, and learning science to expand its leadership corps that understands and responds to the needs of diverse learners, with a particular focus on their skill in early literacy.
About the organisation
Teach For America enlists, develops, and mobilizes promising leaders to grow and strengthen the movement for educational equity and excellence in the United States. Today, the organization is the largest and most diverse teacher pipeline for low-income communities, with over 8,000 corps members teaching across 52 urban and rural regions. In addition to developing corps members into effective teachers, Teach For America also cultivates their leadership, so corps members are equipped to effect change within and beyond their classroom. Teach For America’s alumni base exceeds 60,000 leaders, with alumni working from multiple angles in and outside the education sector to create more equitable and inclusive opportunities for all children.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak Foundation’s support, Teach For America is furthering its focus on learner variability in its initial corps member training and teacher leadership development so all corps members and alumni are equipped to support, advocate for, and empower diverse learners. Work under this grant includes incorporating approaches to teaching literacy that are grounded in learning science and proven effective for students with learning disabilities; modernizing the corps member experience to attract and prepare the next generation of leaders as excellent educators and systems change agents; and creating a standardized “roadmap for development” that guides all corps members’ experiences across diverse regional contexts to infuse knowledge and skill development with a focus on the needs of diverse learners.
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Training “Oak Learning Differences Fellows” and Building New International Partnerships
Teach For All, the global expansion of the Teach For America concept, is a global network of locally rooted organizations with a common vision: to develop collective leadership that ensures that all children have the opportunity to fulfil their potential. Its grant is infusing a focus on reaching all learners via a Learning Differences Fellowship for teacher coaches and a Learner-Centered Design Team Fellowship for teams from 5 network organizations who are working on innovative projects to “reimagine education.”
About the organisation
Teach For All includes 40 independent, locally-led and governed partner organizations and a global organization that works to accelerate the progress of the network. Each network partner recruits and develops promising future leaders to teach in their nations’ high-need schools and communities and to work with others, inside and outside of education, to ensure all children can fulfil their potential. Teach For All’s global organization works to increase the network’s impact by providing partners with direct support, facilitating connections among them, accessing global resources, and fostering the leadership development of partner staff, participants and alumni.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, Teach for All launched a Learning Differences Fellowship and is launching a Learner-Centred Design Fellowship. The initial “Oak Fellows” were 12 experienced teachers from around the world who were in the “teacher coach” role and worked with first- and second-year teachers to support them in their efficacy as educators and leadership via a deeper understanding of learning differences. The fellows became embedded experts in learning differences while supporting the development of a global network to share best practices and new information, present at conferences, and catalyse conversations about learning differences.
The organisation is also piloting a Learner-Centered Design TEAM Fellowship, which involves funding teams from 5 partner organizations in Europe who are working on innovative initiatives to put learners at the centre. In addition, it is backing early stage entrepreneurs looking to bring its model to new countries (with a focus on Africa and the Middle East), increasing partner capacity and impact in classroom and communities, and further strengthening and diversifying its global organization.
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Training teachers and offering tools to support diverse learners in general education classrooms
The Special Education Leader Fellowship (SELF) develops special education leaders and aspiring leaders to create high-impact programs for students with learning differences within and beyond the city of New Orleans.
About the organisation
In 2015, the Special Education Leader Fellowship was created to meet the need for high-quality special educational programming in schools. The 2-year Fellowship develops special education leaders, aspiring leaders, and their principals to create high-impact programs for students with learning exceptionalities. To ensure these students can their potential, SELF develops special education leaders to build their technical expertise and leadership skills; a shared belief in the potential of all young people; partnerships with colleagues, external organizations, and parents; and personal responsibility for student success. Fellows work in high-needs schools across greater New Orleans and Baton Rouge, with an expanding footprint across Louisiana and the nation.
About the Oak funded project
SELF is addressing diverse learners’ needs by implementing an intensive, two-year fellowship for special education staff. Teachers rely on school staff known as “special education coordinators” for assistance with differentiating lessons. Through the fellowship, coordinators are developing stronger skills for providing high-quality special education services. SELF has allowed special education coordinators from across New Orleans to build a strong community of practice and develop a peer program review rubric. Oak support also enables SELF to undertake a strategic planning process to explore opportunities for expansion of its services and supports within the city of New Orleans and across the United States.
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Inspiring and guiding young people to define their own roads in life
Roadtrip Nation (RTN) is part media outlet, part education organization that empowers individuals to identify their interests and discover career pathways aligned with their unique ambitions and skills. Oak Foundation’s grant supports its next initiative to develop a documentary film, web platform and educational resources that share stories of individuals who achieved fulfilment and success through alternative career paths to inspire and guide young people to define their own roads in life.
About the organisation
Since its inception in 2001, Roadtrip Nation has become a movement, helping millions of career seekers of all ages find their own roads in life. They do this by sharing stories of the career and life paths of individuals with young people and developing career exploration products—including an educational curriculum, personalized online tools, video content, books and events. These resources show young people what careers and paths are possible and help them find the stories about people who share similar backgrounds, characteristics and interests as them and how they navigated their own careers. What began as a PBS television series and documentary film now offers school-based programs giving students a framework to discover their roads in life. To date, over 170,000 students from 32 states have participated in a Roadtrip Nation Experience.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, Roadtrip Nation is launching a road trip for three young people to interview a diverse slate of professionals who navigated unlikely pathways to rewarding careers while overcoming challenges such as learning differences. The journey will be documented in a film, web platform and in educational resources to inspire and guide young people. The “Roadtrip” will seek to build societal understanding of and support for a broader vision of success––which creates more opportunities for those who learn differently to set and move towards their own visions for success. The content will feed into educational resources to be distributed across multiple channels and will also provide educators with materials and videos to use with students in ways that build a sense of belonging, agency and purpose and how young people can explore and build these for themselves.
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Preparing special educators to lead schools in supporting students with learning differences.
Relay believes becoming a great teacher or principal is much like becoming a great musician or doctor. It takes continuous practice, feedback, and dedication. Relay’s Inclusive Leadership Institute prepares special educators to lead schools in supporting the academic and social-emotional success of students with learning differences.
About the organisation
Relay Graduate School of Education is a national, independent, non-profit school of education committed to equipping teachers and school leaders with the skills and knowledge to be successful with all students, regardless of background or geography. Based on proven practices of high-achieving schools and substantiated by research, Relay’s programs emphasize the application of practical measures that prepare graduates to lead their students to academic and character growth. Through purposeful collaborations with local public schools and other leaders in the field, Relay seeks to achieve innovation at scale, and inform new models of excellence in educator preparation.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, Relay is updating and revising its special educator training offerings through the Inclusive Schools Leadership Institute, with two new cohorts of special education leaders across the country. Participants – including teachers, principals, and leaders from district offices and charter management organizations – receive intensive training to build “inclusive schools,” learning environments characterized by a set of common beliefs, an inclusive culture, and effective instructional practices that enable each student to excel in school, across lines of race, gender, ethnicity, language, disability, family background, and family income.
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Establishing a new definition of success for students and the schools in which they learn based on the “science of the individual”
Focusing on culture and systems, Populace works to transform the education system into a personalized, student-centred one that meets the needs of all learners in an equitable, cost-effective, and scalable manner. With core support from Oak, Populace pursues research, and public engagement to advance a principled understanding of individuality, a change in public mindset, and visible solutions across leverage points in the education system that showcase the power of this new way of thinking.
About the organisation
Co-founded by Harvard professor Todd Rose, author of the widely acclaimed The End of Average, Populace is dedicated to harnessing new understanding of individuality to transform how people learn, work, and live so that all people have the opportunity to pursue fulfilling lives in a thriving society. The non-profit think tank aims to improve the lives of students in U.S. schools, focusing on parents as drivers of change. Populace believes that change also depends on alignment with public values, so it engages with a majority of Americans who also share a view of success signalled by personal fulfilment. With offices outside Boston and in Los Angeles, the Populace team consists of 38 scientists, creative artists, and educators including full-time, permanent contract, and agency employees.
About the Oak funded project
Oak has been a core funder since 2014 when Populace was granted non-profit status. With its current grant, Populace will build its efforts to advance a changed view of success and establish cultural expectation for personalized education systems. In addition, to enable those making change, Populace will equip practitioners with useable knowledge, define new educational outcomes, and conduct applied research. The work to equip the public to demand change will include growth of a Success Index created with the Gallup public opinion organization as well as other quantitative and qualitative research to target engagement. The work to offer solutions will include research and case studies around meta-cognitive and self-regulation skills essential for learning and collaboration on a large-scale, multi-disciplinary project to define new educational outcomes that reflect understanding of individuality and promote personalized learning.
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Building a cloud-based, affordable U.S. version of the premiere Units of Sound literacy programme to scale its impact
Nisai Education Trust is a group of education organizations that has, for 15 years, provided educational services to vulnerable students around the globe. Nisai works to connect research and practice, where innovation can take place and where proof of concepts can be worked through, with a clear focus on maximising the potential of those who are unable to access the current system. Units of Sound, an online literacy intervention program, is a non-profit partner to Nisai that, with Oak support, reaches hundreds of schools and thousands of students in the United Kingdom and across the globe.
About the organisation
For over 24 years, Nisai Education Trust has delivered flexible, innovative education programmes to learners and supported them in achieving their ambitions. In particular, it works to give traditional and non-traditional learners the skills to flourish through innovative education and by influencing positive institutional change. One of Nisai’s partners, Units of Sound, was developed in the 1970s by an inspired army teacher named Walter Bramley to teach reading, spelling and writing skills to recruits with literacy difficulties. Originally produced as cassettes and books, over the years the Units of Sound team has refined the program and now presents the latest online version. This makes Units of Sound accessible to all, anytime, anywhere, and it is currently used in approximately 1,600 educational settings worldwide and 3,000 homes. Its emphasis on independent work makes it an ideal solution for students who need a literacy intervention they can use at home.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, Units of Sound is developing an online, U.S. version of its acclaimed software, then launching a marketing and distribution plan to make the curriculum accessible across the U.S. and Canada. The reading passages for the new U.S. version are incorporating U.S. speech and spelling patterns, culture, and history. Online accessibility will allow students to view content from anywhere and at any time, allowing teachers to assign Units of Sound for homework and break the home/school barrier for literacy intervention. New features increase the percentage of independent work, thus reducing the teacher’s time supporting students. In addition, an in-app messaging service for teachers is bringing the Units of Sound team closer to its schools so that teachers feel well-supported.
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Reimagining public education through powerful ideas and passionate entrepreneurs so that all children – especially those in underserved communities – have the opportunity to succeed.
NewSchools Venture Fund is a U.S. based venture philanthropy. Since its inception in 1998 NewSchools has invested nearly $260 million in 200 education ventures, supported 470 new schools with the potential to serve more than 200,000 students, and backed close to 60 Ed Tech companies that reach 60 million students. Oak provides core support to NewSchools’ work.
About the organisation
NewSchools Venture Fund finds, funds and supports teams of educators and entrepreneurs with the vision and skills to reimagine public education. The team builds strong pipelines of diverse innovators, conducts due diligence to select those with high potential for success, and then supports them with funding and customized management assistance to help them reach their potential for impact. NewSchools builds communities of practice among their entrepreneurs so they learn from each other, ensuring that innovation cycles are faster, and promising practices spread more quickly. Insights and learnings from the NewSchools portfolio are shared through substantive publications and the annual Summit, which attracts 1200 diverse education leaders from across the country.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, NewSchools will advance the pace and quality of education innovation. Oak shares in the value of investing in promising leaders with bold ideas to meet the needs of every learner. The NewSchools-Oak partnership will seed new ventures that personalize learning in support of an expanded definition of student success and demonstrate a commitment to equity for all students, including those who learn differently.
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Providing data, analysis, and guidance to educators and charter sector leaders to better serve students with disabilities, including those who learn differently
The National Center for Special Education in Charter Schools’ (NCSECS) mission is to ensure that if students with diverse learning needs are interested in attending charter schools, they are able to access and thrive in them. Through research, coalition-building, advocacy and support, NCSECS works to help the charter school sector fully embrace its responsibilities to meet the needs of all students and serve as a model of innovative and exemplary programs for students with diverse learning needs.
About the organisation
NCSECS’s mission is to increase collective understanding of challenges, identify viable solutions, and ensure effective charter school practices that justify the trust of parents and students with disabilities. The organisation was established in 2013 Oakland has since quickly positioned itself as the leading national voice regarding special education in the charter sector. NCSECS proactively disseminates information about the status of students with disabilities in the charter sector; tracks and informs federal, state, and local education policy; brings together diverse groups of stakeholders to change the status quo for children with disabilities; and works to actively engage communities to fully leverage the innovative opportunities created by charter school laws.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, NCSECS is amplifying its voice and expanding its impact by honing its communications capacity; developing new communications materials such as model policies, briefs, blogs, and earned media; and elevating communications with key change-makers in the field. The goal of this strengthened communications strategy is to foster development and adoption of practices that enable students with disabilities to excel, teachers to be supported, and schools to be strengthened.
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Working to create a society in which every individual possesses the academic, social, and emotional skills to succeed in school, at work, and in life
The National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD), a pillar in the field of learning and attention issues, is a thought leader and a trusted resource for parents, educators, policy makers, and people with learning differences nationwide. Its core support grant furthers NCLD’s efforts to improve the lives of the 1 in 5 children and adults nationwide with learning and attention issues—by empowering parents and young adults, transforming schools, and advocating for equal rights and opportunities.
About the organisation
NCLD’s mission is to improve the lives of children and adults with learning and attention issues by empowering parents and young adults, transforming schools, and advocating for equal rights and opportunities. It is working to create a society in which every individual possesses the academic, social, and emotional skills needed to succeed in school, at work and in life. NCLD advocates for legislation at the federal and state level to protect and support the rights of the 1 in 5 children and adults with learning and attention issues.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, NCLD is furthering its core mission through research, advocacy, and young adult engagement to improve access for students with learning differences to evidence-based instruction, meaningful and timely accommodations, and deeper learning opportunities that prepare them for college, career, and life success.
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Empowering young people to bring the voice of youth to grassroots advocacy for mentoring
Through its research and dissemination of evidence-based practice and quality standards and its advocacy since 1990, MENTOR has been a national leader in promoting supportive relationships for every child and adolescent. With Oak’s support, MENTOR will launch a year-long national grassroots advocacy effort for high school students and young adults called the Youth Advocates Program.
About the organisation
MENTOR’s mission is to fuel the quality and quantity of mentoring relationships for America’s young people and to close the mentoring gap for the one in three young people growing up without this critical support. As creator of the evidence-based Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring™ and the National Quality Mentoring System, the convener of the National Mentoring Summit, and a founding partner of National Mentoring Month, MENTOR is recognized as the national leader advancing youth mentoring to ensure that every young person has the supportive relationships they need to grow and develop into thriving adults. MENTOR has a staff of 32. In addition, 23 local affiliates serve as a critical link between MENTOR’s national efforts and local organizations that foster and support quality mentoring relationships. After rigorous screening for proof of impact and scalability, MENTOR was included in the Social Impact 100 (S&I 100 Index) as one of America’s 100 top-performing non-profit organizations.
About the Oak funded project
Based on a body of evidence and experience that have found young people who engage in community organizing and advocacy demonstrate accelerated skill development in many capacities, including leadership, creative problem solving, consensus building, and communication, MENTOR will use Oak’s support to launch its Youth Advocates Program to pilot an opportunity for 12 young people, including some with learning differences, to participate in a year-long grassroots organizing initiative. With the help of national partner organizations, MENTOR will identify, train, and provide individual advisors for two young people ages 16 to 24 who have had a mentor, two each from six states. The Youth Advocates will engage in grassroots and national advocacy based on their communities’ needs and their own interests. They will be featured at a National Youth Day in Washington in early summer 2020. With youth voice at the forefront of the mentoring movement’s national grassroots strategy, this pilot will engage participants in training and youth-led events for extraordinary personal development and skill building. Participants will hone critical skills to assess their own communities for injustices and inequities, evaluate and inform policy solutions that address the issues they care about, and promote improved youth-serving systems.
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Creating a North Carolina Learning Differences Action Network
MDC works to design, test and scale strategies that deliver equitable opportunities to communities in North Carolina and around the Southeast. Oak’s Learning Differences Programme is partnering with MDC to build a network of non-profit organizations that aim to advance policy and practice reforms for students with learning differences.
About the organisation
For fifty years MDC has helped Southern leaders and communities advance economic mobility for people on the margins through education, employment, economic security, and strategic philanthropy. MDC is a Durham, N.C.-based non-profit organization founded in 1967 to help organizations, leaders and communities close the gaps that separate people from opportunity. Its work achieves the vision of « shaping a South where all people thrive » by serving as one of the few intermediaries in the region to focus on an equity agenda.
About the Oak funded project
MDC is partnering with Oak to develop a Learning Differences Learning and Action Network in North Carolina. This network will work both collectively and individually to connect and support a diverse cohort of non-profits in a learning community designed to advance reflective practice and peer-to-peer learning. The network will enable participants to elevate common challenges, advance strategy and action in response to those challenges and accelerate their work. The project will augment grant making by Oak’s Learning Differences Programme in developing a strong group of North Carolina-based organizations working at the grassroots, system and state levels with both distinct and shared agendas advancing policy and practice reforms for students with learning differences who experience barriers to opportunity.
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Implementing a framework for creating trauma-sensitive schools
Massachusetts Advocates for Children is an advocacy organisation for children who face significant barriers to equal educational and life opportunities, particularly those who have disabilities, are low income and/or are racially, culturally, or linguistically diverse. Its Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative (TLPI) is refining its Inquiry-Based Process to provide the necessary materials, resources and guidance to create safe and supportive, trauma sensitive-schools.
About the organisation
Massachusetts Advocates for Children (MAC) partners with Harvard University on the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative (TLPI) that is focused on ensuring that children traumatized by exposure to violence and other adverse experiences succeed in school. To accomplish this mission, TLPI engages in a host of advocacy strategies, including: providing support to schools to become trauma-sensitive environments; research and report writing; legislative and administrative advocacy for laws, regulations and policies that support schools to develop trauma-sensitive environments; coalition building; outreach and education; and limited individual case representation in special education where a child’s traumatic experiences are interfacing with his or her disabilities. Its websitecontains a more detailed description of its work and links to two key publications, Helping Traumatized Children Learn, Vols. 1 and 2, that are available as free PDF downloads. These publications summarize research on the impact of trauma on learning and guide school teams through developing trauma-sensitive schools.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, the TLPI is sharing evidence from their Trauma-Sensitive Schools study which documents the process and results of schools as they implement TLPI’s inquiry-based process for creating safe and supportive, trauma-sensitive schools. Trauma-sensitive schools support all students, including those with learning differences, in four key areas: relationships; self-regulation; academic and non-academic competence; and physical health and wellbeing.
In addition, TLPI is hosting convenings of education stakeholders; writing and publishing Volume 3 of Helping Traumatized Children Learn; producing videos and other resources for educators; continuing legislative and policy work; and supporting individual schools and families.
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Thinking differently about dyslexia
Made By Dyslexia (MBD) is a global charity led by successful dyslexics with a purpose to help the world properly understand, value and support dyslexia. With its grant, MBD will develop and launch a second level of dyslexia training modules for parents and educators, building on the success of the Essential Knowledge modules that were developed in partnership with Microsoft.
About the organisation
Made By Dyslexia is a global charity with a mission to help the world understand, value and support dyslexia. They aim to bring about change in both education and the workplace, and level the playing field by creating awareness and digital solutions. MBD partners with leading communications companies to organize creative campaigns that shape global opinion and behavioural change and build active online communities who are committed to supporting dyslexic students.
About the Oak funded project
Made By Dyslexia will create parent and teacher training modules providing high-quality, engaging and accessible content to deepen understanding of phonics-based and multi-sensory methodology that are critical for dyslexic students and skill-building for all students. Each module will provide a deep dive into the subject matter paired with instructional videos showing teachers working with students to illustrate the concepts and techniques. The series of advanced level training films will be made freely available on the Microsoft Educator Community platform. This project is an exciting opportunity for Oak to help equip parents and teachers globally to meet the needs of students with learning differences.
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Fostering supportive schools for children who struggle to learn due to trauma
Lesley University’s Center for Special Education provides resources to schools, families, and policymakers; conducts research; and disseminates information about instructional approaches and technologies. Its Institute for Trauma Sensitivity (LIFTS) helps teachers, staff, schools, and districts understand the prevalence
of trauma and its effect on learning.
About the organisation
The Lesley Institute for Trauma Sensitivity (LIFTS) seeks to help educators and school communities understand the neurobiology of trauma, how it can manifest in the classroom, and what can be done to create school environments that are safe, supportive, and conducive to learning for all children. Trauma—including experiences with abuse, neglect or living in disruptive home situations—can impact not only a child’s emotional health, but also cognitive processes such as executive functioning, self-regulation, memory, language expression and attention. These changes in emotional and cognitive functions can result in behavioural problems such as outbursts or student disengagement. Trauma-sensitive educators recognize the possible sources of such behaviour and instead of punishing, address its root cause. A trauma-sensitive classroom can result in improved academic performance, social/emotional awareness, relationship building and sense of well-being for all children, not just those affected by trauma.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, LIFTS is training student teachers, veteran teachers, and other school professionals to recognize and respond to signs of student trauma. LIFTS is offering graduate level coursework on the effects of student trauma to budding teachers and experienced school professionals. It is also developing a variety of course formats to accommodate the professional development needs of districts, including hybrid courses and weekend intensives. Finally, beyond building capacity to train educators, LIFTS is developing an evaluation model to assess the effectiveness of trauma-sensitive classrooms and schools. Documenting efficacy at the level of the school, classroom, and individual student will better inform both theory and future practice.
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Driving change in the American workforce and education systems to promote economic advancement for all
The leaders of KnowledgeWorks’ Student-Centered Learning Research Collaborative (SCLRC) know that educational progress depends on a research-proven, field-tested, policy-driven evidence base that is well understood by leaders and powerfully implemented by educators. The SCLRC focuses on evaluating the impact of student-centered learning methods on marginalized students, including those with learning differences.
About the organisation
The Student-Centered Learning Research Collaborative at KnowledgeWorks was developed in 2016 to build evidence-based research projects and research fellowships to identify when and how components of student-centered learning environments work well for students poorly served by current educational models (including students with learning differences and disabilities, students of color, and low-income students). In just two years, the Research Collaborative has set an ambitious research agenda; conducted a cycle of research studies; held convenings of research teams and leading scholars; supported a cohort of Distinguished Fellows; established an Advisory Group; and released an array of field-friendly resources designed to advance the field.
About the Oak funded project
Funding from Oak supports the SCLRC’s cohort of four research studies, including those with analysis of impacts on students with learning disabilities; piloting of REMIQS, a project designed to build an evidence base on student success by identifying high-functioning schools that are best serving high-needs populations and studying their success; and the design and initial implementation of the Youth Researchers at the Intersection (YARI) project, a youth-driven initiative that taps the expertise and perspectives of students with learning differences.
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Working at the intersection of policy and politics to transform public education
Founded in 2001 by former North Carolina Governor James B. Hunt, Jr., The Hunt Institute works with current governors, future governors, state legislators and other key senior-level state leaders to drive sustainable reform and champion public education. Equity in educational access, quality and opportunity is a core focus of The Institute’s work. With Oak’s support, The Institute aims to connect policymakers with actionable policies to better understand and address the disproportionate impact learning differences have on underserved students.
About the organisation
The Hunt Institute’s mission is to secure America’s future through quality education. An affiliate of the Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy, The Institute is a recognized leader in the movement to transform public education. Marshalling expertise from a nationwide partner network since it was established in 2001, The Institute brings together people and resources that help build and nurture visionary leadership and mobilize strategic action for greater educational outcomes and student success.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, The Hunt Institute will work with current and future political leaders to build their understanding of the disproportionate impact that learning differences have on disadvantaged students, and to connect policymakers with actionable policy options to address these effects. The objectives of the project are to: increase awareness and policy discussions among Hunt-Kean Leadership Fellows on how inequities impact student performance among different subgroups; enhance programming around equity concerns across the education continuum; and build a cadre of informed, motivated and influential state officials and political leaders to reform state education systems to improve educational outcomes for all children.
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Closing gaps between research and educational practice to accelerate the spread of effective approaches and tools
Insights for Education is a new entrepreneurial, independent foundation launched to “Respectfully Agitate” how practitioners and policymakers think about – and use – evidence to improve education, focusing no only on what works, but also how practice can change in different contexts. Following 18 months of due diligence, the foundation is in the first year of a three-year start-up phase.
About the organisation
Insights for Education mission is to better enable decision makers, so that scarce resources are always invested in evidence-informed approaches to improve educational outcomes and transform the lives of all learners, and especially those hardest to reach. Insights is a new, independent foundation registered in Switzerland and establishing a presence through partners in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the United States, Australia, and the rest of Europe. Its co-founders are two executives who collectively have held leadership roles in international organizations, built global collaborative initiatives, crafted high-performing teams, and who carry extensive international networks.
About the Oak funded project
Following 18 months of due diligence, Insights for Education is in the first year of a three-year start-up phase. With Oak’s core support, Insights will begin work in Kenya, its first partner country. In with Kenya’s national education sector plan processes, Insights will build experience forming the foundations of core operating model that can be used more widely going forward. In Kenya, the foundation also will pursue greater systems-level integration of evidence-informed policies and successful implementation, to be achieved through strengthened capacity, greater knowledge and higher will among decision makers to more tightly connect evidence to decisions and practices regarding learning sciences, skills, and differences. More broadly, Insights will build a novel education evidence categorization framework adapted from health research that codifies evidence from many different types of sources and languages. The aim is to reduce the knowing-doing gap, and to diversify the sources and participants in education evidence that can improve lives of those locked out from traditional learning environments. Insight also will develop new, effective non-traditional alliances and greater synergies across multidisciplinary actors deployed for education improvements to accelerate learning and skill development and to reach the most marginalised learners, beginning in Kenya.
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Providing core support to an educational non-profit dedicated to serving K-12 students who learn differently through school year, summer, tutoring, and educator training programs.
Hill Learning Center aspires to be a learning hub for equitable, research-based, differentiated instruction for students with learning and attention challenges. Its grant supports Hill’s individualized reading interventions with students, and its service to educators through the learning pathways, online courses, and resources they need to successfully teach students who learn differently.
About the organisation
Based in Durham, North Carolina, the Hill Center’s mission is to transform students with learning differences into confident, independent learners. It offers a unique, half-day programme during the school year to students in grades K-12 who have specific learning differences, including learning disabilities or attention deficit disorders. More than 170 students from approximately 67 base schools are enrolled at The Hill Center for three hours of intensive reading, writing, and math remediation each day, attending the remainder of the school day in local public, private, or home schools. The Hill Center also offers summer and tutoring programs, delivering powerful learning experiences for a broader range of students based on practices and lessons learned in the school program. Based on its success with students, Hill has codified and packaged its research-based reading intervention, the Hill Reading Achievement Program (HillRAP), into a curriculum that educators in other settings can use to reach struggling learners. Hill supports HillRAP delivery, and trains teachers in a range of strategies to address specific students’ skills and learning gaps, through internationally accredited teacher professional development.
About the Oak funded project
Oak’s core support grant includes support for the Hill Center’s design and implementation of refined strategy and growth goals. This includes the ongoing implementation and evaluation of the Hill Reading Achievement Program (HillRAP) with existing partners and targeted expansion to other regions serving marginalized student populations, as the Center seeks to improve its service to high-need communities.
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Identifying Dyslexia Interventions for Treatment Resisters
A team of neuroscience and educational researchers from around the country, led by Georgia State University, seeks to understand why some people with dyslexia do not see significant improvements in reading after participation in an intensive, gold-standard literacy intervention. Funding from Oak allows the team to compare the impact of two different reading intervention programs, deepening the impact of the research, and potentially contributing to more personalized dyslexia intervention strategies tailored to individual learners.
About the organisation
A team of scientists from around the country, led by Georgia State University’s Dr. Robin Morris, are conducting a 5-year study to understand the neurocognitive and instructional basis of dyslexic “treatment resisters,” and to identify options that will improve their academic and social-emotional outcomes. Neuroscience and integrated education-relevant research has made significant strides in the last 10 years, largely through the use of functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI) and other brain-related imaging techniques which have allowed scientists to measure brain activity while persons are learning and reading. These new technologies have led to a growing body of research that demonstrates both structural and functional brain differences between typically-developing readers and those with dyslexia. But there is still little known about the neurocognitive basis for the learning differences of readers with dyslexia who have limited responses to high-quality literacy interventions, a group sometimes called “treatment resisters.”
About the Oak funded project
The original study was designed to offer study participants two different reading interventions to identify whether a treatment resister to one intervention had a similar or different treatment response to a demonstrably different reading intervention program. Due to budget limitations, however, the second intervention was not included in the final study, significantly limiting the potential translation of the findings into real-world solutions for children. With Oak’s support, Dr. Morris’ team are reinstating the second intervention component, and thus strengthen the applicability of the entire research project. The team is also introducing small pilot treatment-focused projects that may demonstrate trends that could inform next steps for researchers and educators.
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Providing a series of learning opportunities for educators and students to develop an actionable understanding of learner variability
North Carolina State University’s Friday Institute provides professional learning opportunities for state and district-level leaders, principals, instructional coaches, and educators. Oak funding supports Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) for students and teachers that help educators understand and support students’ learning differences and helps students understand themselves as learners. Its grant also supports expanding the depth and breadth of its learner variability program by creating learning opportunities around learner agency and social-emotional learning.
About the organisation
The mission of the Friday Institute is to advance education through innovation in teaching, learning, and leadership. The Friday Institute conducts research, develops educational resources, provides professional development programs for educators, advocates to improve teaching and learning, fosters cross-sector collaboration, and helps inform policymaking. Located on the North Carolina State University’s Centennial Campus, it is well-connected with corporate and government organisations, business incubators, and highly innovative students and faculty members.
About the Oak funded project
In 2013, Oak commissioned the Friday Institute to develop a Massive Open Online Course for Educators (MOOC-Ed) to help educators understand and support students’ learning differences. The response to the MOOC-Ed was overwhelmingly positive: over 10,000 educators have engaged with the MOOC from 65 countries and all 50 states. To encourage students to take a more active role in their learning, the Friday Institute also developed a MOOC for Students (MOOC-S) ages 13 and up to help them understand themselves as learners. The Friday Institute is expanding this work by creating modules and micro-credentials around learner agency and social-emotional learning and conducting two school-level “deep dives” to study how these ideas can be implemented across an entire school. It has also developed a series of modules that support key learner variability constructs such as working memory, motivation, and executive function, and has developed over a dozen micro-credentials that allow educators to demonstrate their understanding.
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Advocating for children with learning and communication difficulties in Ethiopia
Fana Association for Individuals with Learning and Communication Difficulties (Fana-Ethiopia) is a non-profit and non-governmental organisation that works to create awareness of learning and communication difficulties and provide help and support to children with these difficulties, in Ethiopia. Its grant is providing core support for the fledgling organisation as it works to develop influence and build partnerships.
About the organisation
Established in 2012, Fana-Ethiopia’s ultimate goal is improving the quality of life of, and opportunities available to, Ethiopian individuals with learning and communication difficulties. While dyslexia and other learning disabilities may still be widely misunderstood in countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, individuals there who have a formal identification as learning disabled are entitled to certain rights and services under disability laws. In many other countries, including Ethiopia, these rights and services are not available, and teachers are not routinely trained to identify or support students with learning differences. To begin to change this reality in countries such as Ethiopia, organisations must work on three fronts: policy, practice and perception. At the policy level, organisations must advocate for legal rights and protections for individuals with disabilities; at the practice level, organisations must encourage and empower schools and teachers to develop classroom atmospheres conducive to learning for all pupils; and at the perception level, organisations must communicate broadly to youth, teachers, parents and the general public about the reality of learning and communication difficulties and why current understanding limits the potential of millions of individuals. Fana-Ethiopia has already taken action on all three fronts and plans to continue this multi-pronged effort to change the country’s understanding of and support for youth with learning differences.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, Fana-Ethiopia is continuing to build its influence and organisational capacity. Given a lack of even a basic understanding of specific learning difficulties in Ethiopia, Fana-Ethiopia is focusing much of its early work on the following:
- Raising awareness of learning and communication difficulties among the general public;
- Building the knowledge and skills of teachers and parents of affected populations in particular;
- Shaping policies and legislation on disability in general and learning and communication difficulties in particular (this includes introduction of new policies in support of these individuals in schools, workplaces, courts, hospitals, etc.); and
- Providing direct services to individuals with learning and communication difficulties.
An early success has included establishing partnerships with two major educational organisations, Rainbows4children and Yellow Brick, which have asked Fana to train Ethiopian teachers in these organisations’ partner schools to work with children with learning and communication difficulties. More recently, for over a year now, Fana-Ethiopia has been working in partnership with the UK-based organisation, ChildHope, on a project that supports about eighteen thousand girls towards improving their educational performance.
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Mentoring students with learning differences to grow their advocacy skills and self-esteem
Eye to Eye is a US-based mentoring and advocacy organisation that pairs young adult mentors with learning disabilities and/or attention deficit disorders with middle school mentees who also have learning differences. Oak is providing core support to allow Eye to Eye to expand its Mentoring Program in key metropolitan areas; scale up its Diplomat Program, where professionally trained student speakers are strategically deployed across the nation to raise awareness, dispel stigmas, and educate stakeholders on behalf of those in the LD/ADHD community; cultivate Eye to Eye Alumni; and offer additional assistance to leaders of its local mentoring chapters.
About the organisation
Eye to Eye’s mission is to improve the life of every person with a learning disability; it does so by supporting a network of youth mentoring programs run by and for those with learning differences, and by advocating for the full inclusion of people with learning disabilities and ADHD. According to the National Center for Learning Disabilities, 2.4 million students nationwide struggle because of learning differences; 19% of those students drop out of high school, compared to just 8% of the general student population, and one in three have been arrested within eight years of leaving high school. In an effort to help young people avoid these negative outcomes, Eye to Eye creates a supportive community for young people who learn differently, works to destroy the stigma associated with LD/ADHD, and develops and champions successful role models for students with learning differences. Eye to Eye’s Mentoring Program has grown to operate 60 chapters in 20 states, pairing high school or college students with LD/ADHD with middle school students who have similar labels. Mentors share their experiences, showing mentees how to take charge of their unique learning styles with social-emotional learning techniques including: self-esteem, metacognition, self-advocacy, and proactive learning strategies. To date, the program has served over 3,100 LD/ADHD mentee-mentor pairs, with anticipated direct service to 4,500 students. An estimated 165,000 students and adults will be reached through our advocacy and culture change work.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, Eye to Eye is scaling its efforts to reach a larger number of students with even greater efficacy. By 2020, Eye to Eye intends to dramatically increase its programmatic footprint, expanding the Mentoring Program to serve 4,500 students, an increase from the current 1,350, and the Diplomats Program to reach over 150,000 people, an increase from the current 16,000. To achieve those ambitious targets, the organization will concentrate its growth in geographic clusters, focusing first on regions where Mentoring chapters and the partnerships that sustain them already exist. For each of the coming academic years, the organisation will set growth targets for its direct service and advocacy programs and commit to increasing internal capacity to accommodate programmatic growth.
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Building the learner-centred education movement and cataloguing best-in-class learner-centred environments
Education Reimagined seeks to accelerate the growth and impact of the learner-centred education movement in the United States. With support from Oak, they are developing the next generation of leaders for learner-centred education; strengthening a national community of practice; and designing and launching a national year of learning, in partnership with the Center for Individual Opportunity, to build demand and recognition for learner-centred education.
About the organisation
Education Reimagined was launched out of an 18-month dialogue process, led by Convergence, that brought together 28 ideologically diverse education practitioners and stakeholders to reimagine education. Out of this process, the group created “A Transformational Vision for Education in the US,” which lays out a new future for education that has the learner at the centre. In this future, the current Industrial-era, standardized education system has been transformed to one that truly adapts to the unique interests, needs, strengths, and aspirations of each and every learner, regardless of their circumstances. To further this vision, Education Reimagined was formed to accelerate growth and impact of the learner-centred education movement by identifying, connecting, amplifying, and convening learner-centred champions already at work bringing the vision to life.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, Education Reimagined has grown its SparkHouse community to include even more passionate young leaders from diverse learner-centred environments across the United states. These young people act as a powerful force in the learner-centred education movement—keynoting and leading workshops at conferences and events across the country, starting new organizations, launching learner-led publications, and contacting their local and state representatives to advocate for learner-centred education.
The support of the Oak Foundation has also allowed Education Reimagined to dramatically expand its national Pioneer Lab Community of Practice and, in partnership with members of this community, to create a learner-centred site visit toolkit designed for learner-centred practitioners to peer review their own progress towards successfully having each and every child thrive. Finally, in partnership with a diverse set of organizations and learners across the country, Education Reimagined is leading an inquiry into redefining and broadening measures of learner success, including how to gather evidence about these outcomes and the invention of new systems of assessment and accountability.
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Developing and implementing plans for systemic change in six U.S. cities that address the needs of diverse learners
The aim of the Education Redesign Lab is to engage in a research-informed design process to create a “new engine” for education and child development—an engine that will integrate an array of solutions to mitigate the effects of poverty and level the playing field for all students. Its grant provides core support to document processes and outcomes in the Lab’s consortium of six U.S. cities that are moving toward customized systems of education and child development.
About the organisation
Education Redesign Lab’s mission is to engage in a research-informed design process to integrate an array of solutions that mitigate the effects of poverty and level the playing field for all students. No one has yet built a 21st century engine of child development and education that delivers success to all at scale. While some design principles and theories about what needs to happen do exist, the real work takes place in communities where there are leaders who share this vision. The Education Redesign Lab is immersing itself in laboratory work in a handful of communities where top leadership has embraced its vision and expressed a willingness to expend political and financial capital to figure out how to get it done. Its work is informed by and builds upon successes associated with prior initiatives in this area, such as full-service/community schools, the Harlem Children’s Zone, and various collective impact efforts.
About the Oak funded project
The Lab’s core initiative is the By All Means consortium, which connects entrepreneurial and committed city leaders dedicated to achieving systemic, integrated improvements in services for children directly with the expertise of Harvard faculty and design leaders. Six participating cities are designing and implementing plans for change that include: creating student-centred, differentiated learning experiences for students; integrating social, emotional and health services with education services; providing easily accessible, high quality expanded learning experiences for all children; and enacting governance structures that will support this integrated model of services for children. Teams are supported in using design-thinking strategies to create a plan for change that is inclusive of the community and builds on existing initiatives, and their work is documented through a series of case studies. Data and outcomes measured at each site will provide a rich learning opportunity for understanding the critical factors that support, or create barriers to, a city-wide implementation effort that supports all learners.
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Elevating Stories of Learning Differences and Teacher Engagement
EducationNC is a collection of non-profits and initiatives dedicated to serving as a catalyst for change for students and the future of North Carolina. EducationNC works to provide citizens and policymakers with nonpartisan data, research, news, information, and analysis about the major trends, issues, and challenges bearing on education in the state. The launch of the elevating stories project, supported by Oak Foundation, reflects a shared belief in the importance of engaging teachers across North Carolina in leadership and learning that is focused on the nexus of equity and learning differences.
About the organisation
The mission of EducationNC is to expand educational opportunities for all children in North Carolina, increase their academic attainment, and improve the performance of the state’s public schools. Its strategy is to provide citizens and policymakers with nonpartisan data, research, news, information, and analysis about major trends, issues, and challenges bearing on education. EducationNC gathers and disseminates information primarily through the Internet. The work encourages informed citizen participation and strong leadership on behalf of the school children of North Carolina.
About the Oak funded project
Elevating Stories of Learning Differences and Teacher Engagement addresses a lack of coverage about education in North Carolina that can reinforce systemic barriers for children with learning differences and students of colour in the state’s schools. EducationNC is engaging teachers across the state in leadership and learning that is focused on the nexus of equity and learning differences through trainings, convenings, and fellowships; and elevates the stories of learning differences through regular stories and highlights from EducationNC focusing both on Oak grantees and policy issues related to learning differences, special education, and learner variability.
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Building greater awareness of the needs of diverse learners and approaches to serving them more effectively
Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) and its flagship publication Education Week are widely recognized as America’s pre-eminent source of news and information on precollegiate education. Support from Oak allows journalists, opinion researchers, and social media experts to focus greater attention over three years on the needs and challenges facing students with learning differences in the United States, as well as promising practices and policies for supporting their success in school.
About the organisation
Since the organization’s founding in 1959, EPE’s mission has been to raise awareness and understanding of critical issues facing American schools. EPE is the independent, nonprofit publisher of Education Week and other print, online, digital, and video products serving educators, researchers, policymakers, and the public with high-quality reporting and analysis on pre-K-12 education. Its staff of about 85 full-time employees includes a newsroom anchored by two dozen editors and reporters and an eight-person visuals team, supported by an in-house research center and Web, production, and events departments. EPE also works with a group of five contributing editors and writers, freelance journalists, photographers, videographers, and interns.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak support, Education Week is producing and publishing enterprise journalism focused on students with learning differences, to appear in a variety of forms including news articles and analyses, blog items, digital stories, videos, charticles, and infographics and other visuals. In addition, Education Week’s Research Center is designing and implementing a hybrid online survey-quiz for general education and special education teachers to capture their perceptions about serving students with learning differences as well as to provide information and resources to fill in knowledge, skill and belief gaps apparent from their responses. Finally, drawing on Education Week’s knowledge of engagement through social media and its 2 million followers across social platforms, the publication will spark dialogue about serving students with learning differences through quarterly Twitter chats and Facebook posts.
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Expanding access to a college education for students with learning differences.
East Carolina University (ECU)’s STEPP Program guides students with learning disabilities, whose access to postsecondary opportunities are often limited, through three key transition points toward college and career success: transitioning from high school to the university setting, entering into a specific major or program, and graduating to enter a chosen profession. Its grant will allow the program to sustain and deepen its support for the 40-50 students it currently serves each year and to expand the impact of its work beyond the participating students.
About the organisation
STEPP’s mission is to provide students with learning disabilities who aspire to achieve a college education, and demonstrate the potential for postsecondary success, with access to, and comprehensive support throughout, their university experience. Through partnering with these students, their families, and a variety of educational communities, the STEPP Program builds a network of resources and opportunities that empower and support students, from admission to graduation, at East Carolina University. By helping promising students who otherwise would not have met college-entrance criteria gain special admittance, designing an integrated and collaborative system of support for them, researching short-term and long-term outcomes, and responding programmatically based on what its leaders learn, STEPP opens the door to a college education for students with learning disabilities.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, the STEPP Program serves 40-50 students annually and is admitting ten new students with identified learning disabilities each year. STEPP is increasing and better targeting its recruitment activities and continually refining its programming. It is working to maintain and increase the retention rates for its participants to ensure that they continue to match or exceed those of the university overall.
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Taking first steps toward the development and widespread adoption of research-driven Learner Variability Project
The mission of Digital Promise Global is to accelerate innovation in education to improve opportunities to learn in an interconnected world. Its grant is building its organisational capacity to launch and grow the Learner Variability Project (LVP), a free and open source initiative focused on synthesizing the learning sciences into a whole child framework of learning factors and strategies matched to each learner’s strengths and challenges.
About the organisation
Authorized by the U.S. Congress in 2008, the Obama administration officially launched Digital Promise in 2011 with the mandate to accelerate innovation in education through technology and research. In 2013, its sister organisation, Digital Promise Global was launched and together they have grown from a staff of two to a staff of nearly 50 across two offices – one in Silicon Valley, and one in Washington, D.C. The work of Digital Promise and Digital Promise Global is guided by the following principles: that networks connect us with people and ideas; that stories inspire ideas and incentivize action; that research informs decision-making; and that engagement motivates learning for life.
About the Oak funded project
A grant from Oak supports Digital Promise Global’s Learner Variability Project, which seeks to promote deeper understanding and whole-child learning by fostering the development and widespread adoption of the Learner Variability Navigator, an open source web app built to drive the design and development of EdTech products, school environments, and practices to support the full diversity of learners. This is accomplished through the creation of learner models that are research-driven, holistic representations of critical variables affecting how learners learn. The interconnected whole-child framework begins with factors under four pillars of learning: Domain, Cognition, Social and Emotional, and Student Background. The project also surfaces research-based instructional and design strategies that support these factors with the goal of informing design and practice.
Digital Promise is working with over a dozen EdTech product partners committed to founding their product development in the research behind how and why learners vary so that teachers have supports to turn to as they tackle formidable challenges and strive to support each individual learner.
Over an eight-year horizon, the project’s ultimate goals include having 50+ evaluated, research-based LVP based-products in the market; the adoption of industry standards and certifications for products in this category; 700,000 teachers, or 20 percent of the market, using validated LVP based products; the removal of key policy barriers for LVP based products; and the adoption of common Learner Variability language by educators, developers, policymakers, and other stakeholders.
Equity and student success are key goals for this programme. LVP aspires to a world where all learners are understood and provided with an evidence-based education that supports how they learn best.
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Helping school leaders create inclusive and effective learning environments for all students, regardless of background.
The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO or the Council) is a nonpartisan, nationwide, nonprofit organization of public officials who head departments of elementary and secondary education in the states, the District of Columbia, the Department of Defense Education Activity, the Bureau of Indian Education and the five U.S. extra-state jurisdictions. With support from Oak Foundation, CCSSO is convening the Advancing Inclusive Principal Leadership initiative, a coalition of diverse states and organisations committed to advancing policy and practice that support inclusive learning environments for all learners in the United States.
About the organisation
The Council of Chief State School Officers is committed to ensuring that all students—regardless of background—are prepared for success in college, careers, and life. To realize this, CCSSO assists chief state school officers and their agencies to ensure each student, including those with learning differences, has access to the resources and educational rigor they need, at the right moment in their education, regardless of their circumstances.
About the Oak funded project
Oak Foundation’s investment will build on the work of the Council to strengthen states’ efforts to support school principals to continuously improve schools and make them places where students who learn differently thrive. The Advancing Inclusive Principal Leadership initiative includes a diverse group of organizations—from member organizations to national accreditors, federal centers, higher education organizations, and non-profits—dedicated to advancing policy and practice that support inclusive learning environments for students with disabilities.
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Giving students with learning differences on college campuses the tools and support to succeed
College STAR (Supporting Transition, Access, and Retention) is a multi-campus collaborative project designed to help participating postsecondary institutions to become welcoming environments for students with learning differences. With Oak’s support, College STAR is currently growing a network of students, parents, and educational professionals committed to this mission.
About the organisation
College STAR is committed to increasing student success by providing ongoing faculty development opportunities balanced with direct support services for students. An estimated 67% of students with learning differences enroll in postsecondary institutions after graduating from high school. Of that amount, only an estimated 41% graduate from community colleges and 34% from four-year colleges/universities. College STAR is designed to reach students with formally identified disabilities (e.g. Learning disabilities and ADD) as well as raise awareness on post-secondary campuses about learner variability in general. It weaves together direct supports for students, instructional supports for faculty members, and partnerships with a wide variety of stakeholders. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles, which encourage educators to plan and deliver instruction with the widest possible range of learners in mind, are at the heart of the instructional support component of College STAR.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, College STAR is collaborating with partners who are working to make college campuses become more welcoming of students with learning and attention differences. By weaving together direct supports for students and instructional supports for faculty members, this initiative is providing the opportunity for participating campuses to learn together and implement effective strategies for teaching students with varying learning differences in postsecondary settings. As a network, College STAR focuses on resource development and dissemination, action research, and network building.
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Advising high school students with learning differences toward postsecondary enrolment and completion.
College Advising Corps (CAC) aims to increase the number of low-income, first-generation, and underrepresented students who enter and complete higher education by placing college advisers in underserved high schools. By adopting a proven curriculum intended to transition students with learning differences into college, CAC’s grant from Oak Foundation focuses on supporting diverse learners’ pathways to postsecondary success.
About the organisation
College Advising Corps partners with 25 colleges and universities in 15 states to place recent graduates as college advisers in 600 underserved high schools. Advisers foster a college-going culture within the schools they serve by collaborating with teachers and school administrators to support students and families in navigating college and career pathways. Advisers work full-time to help students plan their college searches, complete admissions and financial aid applications, and enrol at schools that will serve them well. Each adviser is a recent college graduate who can relate to the students in powerful ways. Advisers are largely reflective of the communities they serve: 69% identify as a person of colour, 53% are first generation college graduates, and 62% were Pell grant-eligible themselves in college, meaning their families are classified as “low-income.” They are uniquely qualified to deliver the message, “If I can succeed in college, you can too!”
About the Oak funded project
With funding from Oak, CAC is 1) piloting an innovative learning differences partnership in high schools throughout Texas and 2) supporting increased engagement of parents of students who learn differently through “Parent Academy” learning differences texting initiative throughout North Carolina for eventual scale across the country. The project’s ultimate goal is to increase college enrolment rates for student with learning differences in high schools served by CAC advisers.
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Designing to create accessible, personalized and equitable learning environments for students in high-need communities
City Year partners with public schools to provide targeted interventions for students at risk of dropping out. Oak’s grant supports Compass Academy, a charter school in Denver, and City Year to disseminate innovations in personalised learning that focus on supporting students with learning differences and strengthening their self-agency, cognitive and social-emotional skills to ensure that all students graduate ready for college or their careers.
About the organisation
City Year was founded on the belief that young people can change the world through national service. They unite young individuals (AmeriCorps members) from diverse backgrounds to engage in a year of full-time service, leadership development and civic engagement. As tutors, mentors and role models, these diverse young leaders are deployed in teams to high-poverty, urban schools to make a difference in the lives of underserved children and youth.
About the Oak funded project
The Oak-supported School Design Division serves as a catalyst through which City Year and its partner, the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University, can investigate, develop and share effective personalized, accessible, and equitable learning innovations in high-poverty schools, and offer the field a broader array of proven approaches to serve high-potential, high-need students. Oak’s grant supports
- Refinement of an Early Warning and Response System (EWRS) as a tool for schools to monitor and support all students and destigmatize focus on students with learning differences
- Development of the Social-Emotional and Academic Development (SEAD) Competency Model and dissemination of the Learner and Leader Curriculum
- Completion of a guide to help evaluate the implementation of personalized learning environments for the middle grades, transferring and promoting the most successful evidence-based practices through Compass Academy and the broader City Year and CSOS/JHU networks.
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Making education more relevant.
The Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR) is a Boston-based, international education research and engineering organization committed to defining 21st Century curriculum for students in K-12 and Higher Education. CCR delivers deeply researched, carefully curated frameworks, recommendations and structures for standards, curricula and assessments. It focuses on the knowledge and competencies (aka “social-emotional learning”, “21st century skills”), that students need to succeed in a global world of life and work. CCR has developed a globally relevant framework that is comprehensive yet compact, and meant to
be eminently actionable and demonstrable.
About the organisation
The mission of the Center for Curriculum Redesign is to answer the question, “What should students learn for the 21st century?” (in an age
of Artificial Intelligence) and openly share its recommendations and frameworks on a worldwide basis. The vison of the Center for Curriculum Redesign is to make education more relevant, with a sense of urgency, to prepare students for life and work in this rapidly changing 21st century.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, CCR is working to develop educator resources and professional development that bridge the gap between the teaching of 21st Century competencies (e.g. communication, critical thinking) and the teaching of disciplines (e.g. math, science, language). This will serve to support the learning of essential 21st century skills/social-emotional learning, comprehension and mindsets, including the ability to reflect on one’s learning, set learning goals and monitor one’s progress.
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Awarding Universal Design for Learning (UDL) credentialing and certification to educators and education leaders.
The Center for Applied Technology (CAST) developed the concept of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which describes a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. In collaboration with partner organisations the Universal Design for Learning Implementation & Research Network (UDL-IRN) and the National UDL Taskforce, CAST is introducing a credentialing and certification system for Universal Design for Learning (UDL) that, similar to the Green Building Council’s LEED system, will identify education professionals, districts and product developers who apply UDL principles to their practice or products.
About the organisation
CAST is a multifaceted organization with a singular ambition: to eliminate the barriers to learning that millions of people experience every day. It does so by helping educators and organizations apply insights from the learning sciences and leading-edge practices to educational design and implementation. CAST is best-known for developing the principles of UDL: that teachers must stimulate learners’ interest (the “why”); present information in different ways (the “what”); and differentiate the ways that students can express what they know (the “how”). First articulated by CAST in the 1990s and now the leading framework in an international reform movement, UDL informs all of CAST’s work in educational research and development, capacity building and professional learning.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, CAST and its partners are creating an online platform through which educators, education leaders and product developers can earn credentials verifying their mastery of UDL principles. To ensure that growing numbers of teachers, school leaders and education product developers are well-versed in UDL principles and can apply them competently, the three major leadership organizations in the Universal Design for Learning field are joining forces to create a voluntary credentialing and certification ecosystem for UDL. With the growth in demand for UDL nationally and internationally, it is an opportune moment to establish a recognition ecosystem for educators and education organizations desiring to demonstrate their capacities in UDL. By establishing a voluntary credentialing and certification system that recognizes quality, the initiative seeks to showcase UDL innovation in its many forms and catalyze further adoption. In Phase One, the three partners will convene a UDL Council to design the core credential and certifications. Next, they will design, populate and pilot the online delivery system. Simultaneously, the partners will develop plans and partnerships in the areas of governance, marketing, communications, outreach, and fundraising to support scaling and sustainability of the system.
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Improving education by developing and informing education leaders across policy and practice, with an emphasis on sustainability and equity
The Aspen Institute’s Education & Society Program (Aspen Education) improves public education by inspiring, informing, and influencing education leaders across policy and practice, with an emphasis on achieving equity for students of color and children from low-income backgrounds. Oak’s grant supports Aspen Education to develop a richer vision of student success among educational leaders. The initiative is designed to support school district leaders in taking an approach to education that recognizes the interplay between academic learning and social-emotional learning and development. All students can benefit from this approach, especially the most marginalized and those who learn differently.
About the organisation
The Aspen Institute is an international non-profit and nonpartisan forum for values-based leadership and the exchange of ideas. The Aspen Institute’s Education & Society Program improves public education by inspiring, informing, and influencing education leaders across policy and practice, with an emphasis on achieving equity for students of colour and children from low-income backgrounds. Aspen Education supports leaders at all levels, from networks of urban superintendents and their teams, to state chiefs and their cabinets, to elected officials and their staffers. They convene groups that are diverse by design – policymakers and practitioners, union leaders and reformers, Republicans and Democrats – to question conventional wisdom, elevate evidence over ideology, and promote innovation that addresses vexing challenges.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, Aspen is building on its leadership role in the National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development (SEAD) through a continued focus on integrating academics with social-emotional learning (SEL) and equitable conditions for learning. Over the course of the grant, educational leaders have opportunities to look beyond standardized test scores and connect their district strategies to a vision of student success that considers SEL and equitable learning environments. The program consists of retreats, workshops and roundtables for educational leaders with The Aspen Institute providing continued strategic communications and support. Success hinges on participants translating knowledge about SEL and equity into practice across their districts and wider networks.
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Developing talented, young, local leaders to ensure a just, sustainable and prosperous nation.
The Aspen Institute is a nonpartisan educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, DC, which provides a forum for values-based leadership and the exchange of ideas. The Addressing Systemic Inequity grant supports the Aspen Young Leaders Fellowship (AYLF) initiative to recruit and cultivate a diverse cadre of young leaders to engage in the values-based leadership essential to transforming their lives and society for the better.
About the organisation
The Aspen Institute is an international non-profit and nonpartisan forum for values-based leadership and the exchange of ideas. Its mission is to foster leadership based on enduring values and to provide a nonpartisan venue for dealing with critical issues. The Aspen Young Leaders Fellowship identifies, cultivates, and amplifies future generations of talent to engage in the values-based leadership essential for transforming their lives and society for the better. AYLF is a place-based, multi-site program that nurtures a cadre of diverse youth committed to addressing the most compelling social, political, and scientific issues facing their communities. The fellowship is designed to: connect talent to opportunity; develop passions into purpose; and transform vision into action.
About the Oak funded project
With Oak’s support, Aspen will expand the reach of its AYLF program by graduating 400 fellows by 2023. The goal is to create robust cohorts of diverse, locally-grounded and nationally-connected changemakers whose leadership translates into just and equitable communities. AYLF cohorts will be comprised of 25-30 diverse fellows between the ages of 18-22, from low- or moderate- income households, with 15 percent reporting having learning differences. Fellows will focus on activities that directly serve communities, with a goal of benefiting 4,000 community members by the end of 2022. The program will continue to sharpen its equity lens to sustain and share broadly with communities high-impact equity practices.
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Exploring what knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes children and young adults across the globe need to be ready to contribute to society
As part of the Aga Khan Development Network, the Aga Khan Foundation invests in high-quality institutions such as schools, clinics, banks and universities that anchor communities and equip people with the tools they need most. Its Schools2030 project will partner with schools in marginalised communities in 10 countries to generate evidence of effective practices that improve learning and livelihoods.
About the organisation
The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) brings together the required human, financial and technical resources to assist the poorest and most marginalised communities within strategic geographies to achieve a level of self-reliance and improved quality of life. AKF, and its sister agencies under the Aga Khan Development Network, have over 100 years of learning experiences in global education across 15 countries in Asia and Africa working with schools, governments, civil society, and key partners to develop globally-informed and locally-rooted solutions that enhance learners’ curiosity, imagination, resilience, and the capacity to respect and care about the well-being of themselves, their friends, families, communities and planet. At the local level, AKF has been working in partnership with civil society and regional governments in these regions for decades. Headquartered in Geneva, AKF has 19 offices in South and Central Asia, Eastern and Southern Africa, West Africa, the Middle East, Europe and North America. Each of these offices set their individual priorities based on the context and are responsible for effective implementation of programmes.
About the Oak funded project
Schools2030 will partner with 1,000 successful schools and communities in marginalized contexts across 10 countries as meaningful, collaborative, and influential global learning partners. The project partners will generate new evidence about what works for improving learning outcomes and livelihoods for three simultaneous cohorts of children and young people (aged 5-15; 10-20; and 15-25) over the course of a 10-year longitudinal action research programme from 2020 to 2030. With Oak’s three-year grant, Schools2030 will increase the capacity and collaboration of 15,000 educators and system leaders across its partner sites to lead school-level design thinking, action research, and evidence generation. This will occur through professional development, technical assistance, enhanced data management, and a “solveathon” and subsequent microgrants to implement solutions annually at each site. The Aga Khan Foundation will convene both annual national forums in all 10 countries and Schools2030 World Forums in 2021-2023. Schools2030 will be led by a Global Secretariat housed at AKF and advised by a Global Donor Steering Committee. With a view towards ensuring local ownership in each country, AKF will establish in-country National Advisory Committees. AKF also will hire National Programme Directors to lead coordination and delivery in each of country and a Global Director to support them.
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