"The intersection of educational research, policy, and practice."

That is how we define ourselves. Our work is guided by the assumption that sound education policy stems from good research and an understanding of the realities of school practice. We apply that assumption to bring about meaningful -- not marginal -- school reform.

We are, therefore:

Synthesizers and providers of research. Mass Insight is a national resource for practical information on how to effectively implement standards-based education. The Turnaround Challenge represents a new form of educational policy research: highly graphical, presented in varying user formats (print, presentation, web), and expressly designed to spur action on both the policy and practice fronts. Our Building Blocks Initiative for Standards-Based Reform has been cited and used as a model for effective-practice research by the U.S. Department of Education. The landmark Keep the Promise Initiative studied urban, at-risk high school students in the first three classes subject to Massachusetts' MCAS graduation requirement and district strategies for serving them.

Policy facilitators. We are a leading statewide convener and catalyst for thoughtful, informed state education policymaking. Mass Insight's Great Schools Campaign and its predecessor, the Campaign for Higher Standards, have played a highly visible role in shaping the priorities of Massachusetts' education reform drive. Mass Insight consults on education policy formulation outside of Massachusetts as well -- most recently helping to design school turnaround frameworks in Illinois and Washington State.

Leaders in standards-based services to schools. We provide practical, research-based technical services, staff and leadership development programs, and consulting services to schools and school districts -- particularly to members of the Great Schools Network, a partnership of nearly 30 change-oriented Massachusetts districts founded in 1997. Our field services have focused on math and science, and over the next five to ten years will revolve principally around using increased access to AP courses and improved performance on AP tests to catalyze dramatic cultural an dinstructional change in schools across grades 6-12. The effort wil lbe funded in part through the National Math & Science Initiative, which awarded Mass Insight $13 million as the Massachusetts lead on a competitive RFP in September, 2007.

MASSACHUSETTS MATH & SCIENCE INITIATIVE

Following a highly competitive application process, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in partnership with Mass Insight Education and Research Institute, succeeded in securing one of the first-ever awarded grants from the National Math and Science Initiative, Inc (NMSI) for the Massachusetts Math & Science Initiative (MMSI), an Advanced Placement® training and incentive program. NMSI is an innovative non-profit organization created to facilitate the national scale-up of programs that have a demonstrated impact on math and science education in the United States. Initial funding for NMSI comes from ExxonMobil. Massachusetts was one of six states to receive the grant, which will provide $13.2 million through 2014 (to be matched by local funding) to help fund a state wide Advanced Placement® training and incentive program.

The goal of the initiative is to increase student enrollment in mathematics, science and English AP courses, and to improve student performance as reflected by a substantial increase in the number of qualifying scores (3, 4 or 5 on a 1 to 5 scale). The program will provide extensive training for AP and Pre-AP teachers, establish AP lead teachers, demand additional student preparation, and provide performance-based financial incentives for students and teachers. Under the leadership of Morton Orlov II, who is the President of the AP Training and Incentive Program in Massachusetts, cohorts of high schools are being selected annually to join the program, with the goal of implementing the initiative in 100 high schools by 2013 through the integration of Regional Development Centers.

SCHOOL TURNAROUND STRATEGY GROUP

The Turnaround Challenge, Mass Insight’s 2007 Gates-funded report, reveals the urgent need in the education reform community for new strategies to turn around the nation’s poorest-performing schools. The report was downloaded more than 100,000 times in the year after its publication. The Turnaround Challenge has clearly struck a chord.

Our continued work will produce organizational strategies, work plans, and manuals for states, large urban districts, and outside funding partners to turn around low-performing schools through a new system of turnaround zones with improved operating conditions, lead turnaround partners, and other supports. The new system, an operationalization of the recommendations from The Turnaround Challenge report, will create models that use clusters of turnaround schools as an entry point for reinventing the way districts, states, and external partners organize their work. The initiative, which has received startup funding from the Carnegie Corporation with matching support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will establish “partnership zones” in three states in 2009-2013 to serve as proof-points for these school turnaround and district redesign strategies.

There is some urgency in this work – not only on behalf of struggling students in struggling schools, but because of the two-year window of opportunity in front of us to develop effective turnaround policies, implementation strategies, and new capacity before a reauthorized NCLB starts channeling significant federal funding into school intervention. The lessons from the experience of NCLB’s expansion of support for failing students (through Supplemental Educational Services) are clear. In the absence of good policy models, promising exemplars, and informed partners, federally-driven scale-up of support for failing schools will result in largely ineffective, marginal-impact reform.