Equity and Diversity

In the four-year ICARE Schools study, EDC is identifying and documenting middle-grades schools that use innovative approaches to engage all families in the education of students with disabilities, particularly the creation and implementation of students’ Individual Education Plans (IEPs). After a systematic nomination, application, and review process, researchers selected three middle-grades schools that demonstrate successful parent involvement and positive outcomes for students with disabilities.

The project’s multidisciplinary research and development team has been investigating whether the integration of a specific kind of computational model i.e., simulations into a high school science curriculum, can support students from diverse academic, ethnic, and socio-economic backgrounds in developing computational literacy—a capacity to understand relationships between domain knowledge and the mathematical, algorithmic, and modeling processes that are the building blocks of computational science.

Although standards-based reform has increased the rigor and quality of mathematics education, those reforms have not been fully available to students with physical, developmental, sensory, and learning disabilities. One of the reasons for this deficiency is that teachers are not well prepared to implement the reforms with groups of students who have different needs, capabilities, and learning styles.

The Enhanced Assessment project is a federally funded 18-month project that supports New England states in their development of large-scale assessments that address the needs of students with disabilities and English-language learners.

Celebrated annually during the first full week of December, National Inclusive Schools Week highlights and celebrates the progress of the nation’s schools in providing a supportive and quality education to an increasingly diverse student population, particularly those with disabilities.

SmART Schools uses the arts as a core academic subject in the regular school curriculum and strengthens the use of high-quality arts in other academic subjects. This grant allows FSC to expand and enhance the standards-based, whole-school change SmART Schools model in diverse, high-need settings; refine the model’s tools, materials, techniques, and processes so that they are adaptable to various contexts; conduct a rigorous third-party evaluation of the program; and strengthen dissemination efforts so that the model can be replicated throughout the U.S.

EDC is developing and testing a middle-grades literacy curriculum that focuses on helping middle school students to develop and apply skills needed for research project. These skills focus on understanding, extracting, and synthesizing information—all key skills needed for carrying out a research project in middle school. The curriculum includes specific teacher-led activities that explicitly teach students these skills and meaningfully takes advantage of key features of the software program, SOLO.

The Hidden Sparks Fund is dedicate to helping children with learning differences reach their full potential by developing and supporting professional development for educators in Jewish day schools. This project evaluates a professional development program aimed at improving teachers and administrators understanding and support for a wide range of learners.

TinC (Technology in Class) tests the effectiveness of a software tool, Draft:Builder (previously developed at EDC), when it is integrated into an innovative curriculum. The curriculum, The American History Idol, builds basic skills in finding the main idea, locating supporting details, organizing information, and writing a persuasive essay. It draws on biographies of historical figures, thus linking social studies and English language arts. The software tool helps students create outlines and draft text.