The Impact 2012 Initiative
Learn from students - to improve student learning.
The Impact 2012 Initiative addresses a fundamental equity issue in schools: balancing the demands of high standards and accountability measures with the urgent needs of students who are far below grade level. In site-based team meetings, one-on-one coaching, and seminars, National Equity Project coaches guide participating educators to use formative assessment to plan instruction and interventions to meet every student's learning needs, while helping low-performing students accelerate toward grade-level standards.
Impact 2012 features:
Focal Student Strategy
Impact 2012 teachers and leaders make a sustained commitment to learn from a small group of high-need students to get better at meeting every student’s needs. Participants follow a formative assessment and intervention cycle to understand the learning gaps at the root of low grades and test scores. Through the inquiry process, teachers develop their powers of instructional decision-making, and students make concrete, dramatic progress. Successful approaches used with focal students inform instructional planning across the school.
Participants Say
"Impact 2012 impacted every single student in my classroom. It transformed my entire curriculum to really focus on literacy and reading comprehension." - Nancy Lai, EXCEL High School
"It really changed my classroom in a positive way that wasn't difficult to do. Students now understand assessment as a time for me to learn from them. Traditionally, they try to high what they don't know. But they're much more comfortable now with really showing me where they need help. My classroom has changed from "teach and test" to a partnership of learning. - Liz Lilly, Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School
"Now we are talking about what's going to drive us to the next level. There is a lot of urgency among teachers around what to teach next, but less time has been made available for assessments and getting at the real learning gaps. Impact 2012 has changed the dialogue and placed it solidly on real student learning. - High School Principal
Read a transcript of a Roundtable Discussion of teachers and principals who joined the program last year and made remarkable progress.
NEW! 2009-10 Midyear Network Day Updates
Learn about progress in some current participating schools.
Results and Evaluation
The SRN/LEADS Center at Stanford University completed an evaluation of the first year of Impact 2012. Among its key findings are:
Schools gained an average of 42 points on California's Academic Performance Index, which represents a very large increase.
Schools show a pattern of improvement in student achievement on California Standards Tests (CSTs) overall and in English and Algebra 1 specifically.
Teachers closely examined students' learning styles and used formative assessments to gauge student progress. Significant increases in teachers' assessment literacy and instructional quality.
Improved teacher-student relationships.
Impact 2012 Process
Participating schools assemble an Inquiry Team consisting of the principal, up to five teachers from the target subject areas (ELA or Algebra), and other school leadership (e.g. Assistant Principal, resource teacher, ELD specialist). A National Equity Project Coach is assigned to work with the Inquiry Team in regular meetings (2-4 times monthly) to facilitate their work in three Inquiry Phases over the course of the school year.
The coach provides processes and strategies for identifying and assessing focal students, deciding which skills to focus on, and determining interventions and instructional decisions to help accelerate the learning of those students.
How to Participate
The National Equity Project currently has openings for SF Bay Area districts and schools to participate in the Impact 2012 program in 2010-11. For more information, please contact Tom Malarkey at 510-208-0160 x318 or email tmalarkey (at) nationalequityproject.org.
Program fees vary according to school circumstances. Please consider using federal Title I and IDEA funds from the stimulus bill (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA).
Impact 2012 is made possible by a generous grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and additional funding from the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, the W. Clement and Jessie V. Stone Foundation, the Wayne and Gladys Valley Foundation, The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and the Y&H Soda Foundation.
