The
Talent Development High Schools program at Johns
Hopkins will over the next four years more than double the
number of low-performing schools it serves.
A new $1.9 million investment from the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation will enable the TDHS reform model,
developed by the Center
for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins, to
continue its work in nearly 100 high schools and add about
110 more schools across the country by 2010, said Nettie
Legters, a TDHS co-director.
Within the next four years, the TDHS program will
expand its technical support, improve curriculum materials
and instructional tools, develop new methods to strengthen
program data collection and evaluation, and share its best
practices for high school improvement with those outside
the TDHS network. The goal of the TDHS model is to reduce
the dropout rate and increase the graduation rate among
students in low-performing high schools, as it prepares
them for college and the workforce.
"There is an increasing demand for solutions to the
challenges faced by low-performing high schools and the
students they serve," said Legters, who is also a research
scientist at Johns Hopkins. "This grant will enable TDHS to
grow with intention and a vigilant eye on quality and
results."
The TDHS model features extensive training and
coaching for teachers, particularly around ninth- and
10th-grade transition courses that enable students to
acquire skills and knowledge they often lack when they come
to high school. The program also includes structural
elements such as ninth-grade academies, teacher teams,
extended class periods and career academies to engage
students, support academic progress and help them connect
learning to everyday life and future plans.
This new investment will allow TDHS to carry out its
multiyear strategic plan, which was developed through
consultation with the Bridgespan Group and funded through
an initial one-year Gates Foundation grant that TDHS
received in 2004.
TDHS is working with high schools in New York City and
Los Angeles through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
partnership grants. It also operates the Baltimore Talent
Development High School through a partnership with the
Baltimore City Public Schools. Talent Development has
multiple sites in Chicago, Kansas City, Mo., and throughout
North Carolina, as well as single sites in a dozen other
states.
James McPartland, TDHS senior director, said, "The
Gates Foundation grant will help us accomplish our mission
of both research and development, to follow up our studies
of the major problems in public education with practical
solutions we design and evaluate. With Gates' assistance,
we can expand our TDHS improvements throughout the country
and study the processes of nationwide education reform."
For more about TDHS, go to
www.csos.jhu.edu/tdhs.
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