Abby Kelley Foster Charter Public School in collaboration with Assumption College, the American Antiquarian Society, and Plimoth Plantation propose a Professional Development program for 25-30 teachers from 10 Central Massachusetts charter schools and other local school districts focusing on the interrelationships of the native and non-native peoples of southern New England over the course of four centuries.

This program, as a local paradigm of fundamental issues of citizenship, property, identity and representation that have been central to the advance of our Republic, will be integrated into the history curricula of the various participating elementary, middle, and high schools. The results of the program will be published through a variety of media for the benefit of both local and national elementary, middle school, and high school educators.

Program specific goals are to increase knowledge in the content area, inculcate an ability to apply the content specific lessons to broader issues in American history and to put in place a study component that will remain a permanent part of the participating schools’ history curriculum.

The envisioned model will provide intensive content seminars and summer institutes consisting of a minimum of 40 hours per year over a three year period an additional five full day workshops will held during for a total of 80 hours of Professional Development per year.

 In keeping with Massachusetts Curriculum Guidelines, teachers of American History in grades 5-12, as well as teachers of AP US history will be invited to participate in this program. All participants will commit to a three year course of professional development institutes/seminars in the content area. All participants will take a comprehensive content based entrance exam which will ultimately become the comprehensive exit data measurement of content learning over the course of the program.

UCLA’s School of Management Program, an independent evaluator, will provide oversight and concrete evaluation of the process and progress of the program ascertaining that all internal methods of data measurement meet the required protocols.

Please read the UCLA School of Management Program's first annual evalution below.

UCLA PROJECT EVALUATION 2007-2008

EXTENDED ABSTRACT

For those who would like to see a more in-depth description of our grant, just click on the link below.

FULL PROJECT NARRATIVE