Investment Areas

Leveraging Research, Learning, and Policy

Overview

We are investing in fostering learning across schools and districts and in advocating for evidence-based state and local policies that support the development of world-class schools for all communities and children.

 

Building Schools that Continuously Learn and Improve

The fastest improving schools and systems regularly collect, reflect on, and share data related to the whole child’s success and the effectiveness of the learning environment in pursuit of meaningful annual and long-term goals, including academic growth, social-emotional development, school climate, and student, parent, and teacher engagement.  This process of continuous improvement is accelerated by ongoing partnership with researchers and state policies that meaningfully differentiate performance, encourage growth, and hold schools and districts accountable to progress with all students. We are supporting schools in St. Louis to collect more meaningful data for strategic improvement, sponsoring research on questions that educators are grappling with, and advocating for more supportive and effective state policies.

Our investments in this area have included a one-year, social-emotional learning improvement pilot that includes over 14 traditional and charter districts affecting 10,000 students in over 30 buildings.  Participating school leaders receive multiple surveys for students and staff, four workshops to receive coaching for improvement, and technology support to ensure hardware is available to implement the program.

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The Opportunity Trust invests in educators and school systems eager to build the capacity required to make significant and measurable change.

If that's you, check out our opportunities