CEI-PEA Awarded $17.5 million in Teacher Incentive Fund Grants to Support Charter Schools

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Center for Educational Innovation—Public Education Association (CEI-PEA), a national not-for-profit educational organization headquartered in New York City (NYC), has announced that it will implement two groundbreaking educational reform projects with $17.5 million in grants from the Teacher Incentive Fund of the U.S. Department of Education. CEI-PEA has joined with 13 charter schools in NYC and Buffalo (NY) to establish the Partnership for Innovation in Compensation for Charter Schools in New York City (PICCS-NYC) and the Partnership for Innovation in Compensation for Charter Schools in Buffalo (PICCS-Buffalo).

PICCS-NYC and PICCS-Buffalo will improve teacher effectiveness and academic achievement at charter schools with roughly 500 teachers providing instruction to nearly 6,000 elementary, middle and high school students. PICCS-NYC and PICCS-Buffalo are designed to provide comprehensive support and technical assistance to 13 public charter schools located in communities in Buffalo and throughout four boroughs of New York City. Students enrolled in these schools are roughly 85 percent economically disadvantaged. PICCS-NYC and PICCS-Buffalo will improve instruction and academic outcomes at these schools by:

• Helping schools establish or expand performance-based financial incentive programs for teachers and administrators based on improved student achievement—including value-added measures of achievement;
• Providing extensive training and support to teachers, administrators, parents and students;
• Training teachers to use student data effectively and tailor instruction to address individual student needs;
• Helping teachers create Individual Learning Plans to ensure that each student’s academic needs are met;
• Supporting teachers and administrators in collaborative planning, peer review and the development of professional learning communities to improve teaching and learning at their schools;
• Supporting schools in reforming their teacher and principal evaluation systems to consider student achievement and to incorporate meaningful teacher input in establishing the performance targets and metrics by which they will be evaluated; and.
• Building a state-of-the-art Student Data System and technology framework to support teachers and administrators in improving accountability and student achievement.

“CEI-PEA is proud to take the lead in advancing these critical initiatives, which get at the heart of what works in education reform: improving the professional opportunities for teachers and school leaders, bringing educators together to help one another improve practice, and supporting community-based schools that are meeting the unique needs of their students,” explains Sy Fliegel, CEI-PEA President and Gilder Senior Fellow. “It is easy to complain about what’s wrong with public education but the truth is that there are a lot of excellent educators creating exceptional public schools, and we should focus on those schools in order to pave the road for improving all public schools. That’s what these two initiatives are all about.”

The PICCS-NYC and PICCS-Buffalo projects will build on the successful initiatives of CEI-PEA’s original PICCS project, which is supported by a separate $10.5 million Teacher Incentive Fund grant and is currently underway in New York City. The original PICCS project has been demonstrated in external evaluations to be effective in improving the quality of teaching, use of data-driven instructional strategies and professional collaboration among educators in the participating schools.

PICCS-NYC and PICCS-Buffalo were designed by CEI-PEA, in collaboration with the educational consulting firm JPS Solutions, LLC and with the input and participation of each participating school. CEI-PEA worked closely with JPS Solutions to create and manage the original PICCS project, and the two organizations will work together to implement PICCS-NYC and PICCS-Buffalo. In implementing the project, CEI-PEA will also work closely with a variety of educational experts and educational technology companies, including New York University’s Metro Learning Center, the Danielson Group, Tetra Data (a Follett company), SunGard Performance Pathways and Heimes Communications.

About CEI-PEA

The Center for Educational Innovation – Public Education Association (CEI-PEA) is a national nonprofit organization that creates successful public schools and educational programs. CEI-PEA’s staff of experienced leaders in public education provides hands-on support to improve the skills of teachers and school leaders, increase parent involvement, and channel cultural and academic intervention programs into schools. For more information about CEI-PEA and its programs go to www.cei-pea.org.