About the Initiative

Aims and Accomplishments

The Yale National Initiative to Strengthen Teaching in Public Schools, which builds upon the success of a four-year National Demonstration Project, promotes the establishment of new Teachers Institutes that adopt the approach to professional development that has been followed for more than twenty-five years by the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. Teachers Institutes focus on the academic preparation of school teachers and on their application in their own classrooms of what they study in the Institute. By linking institutions of higher education with school districts where the students are mainly from low-income communities, Institutes strengthen teaching and learning in public schools and also benefit the institutions whose faculty members serve as seminar leaders. Each Institute also helps to disseminate this approach, encouraging and assisting other institutions and school districts as they develop similar programs in their own communities.

A Teachers Institute places equal emphasis on teachers increasing their knowledge of a subject and on their developing teaching strategies that will be effective with their students. At the core of its program is a series of seminars on subjects in the humanities and sciences. Topics are suggested by the teachers based on what they think could enrich their classroom instruction. In the seminars, the university or college faculty members contribute their knowledge of a subject, while the school teachers contribute their expertise in elementary and secondary school pedagogy, their understanding of the students they teach, and their grasp of what works in the crucible of the classroom. Successful completion of a seminar requires that the teachers, with guidance from a faculty member, each write a curriculum unit to be used in their own classroom and to be shared with others in the same school and other schools through both print and electronic publication.

Throughout the seminar process teachers are treated as colleagues. Unlike conventional university or professional development courses, Institute seminars involve at their very center an exchange of ideas among school teachers and university or college faculty members. The teachers admitted to seminars, however, are not a highly selective group, but rather a cross-section of those in the system, most of whom, like their urban counterparts across the country, did not major in one or more of the subjects they teach. The Institute approach assumes that urban public school teachers can engage in serious study of the field and can devise appropriate and effective curricula based on this study.

The National Demonstration Project

The National Demonstration Project, supported by a major grant from the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund and a supplementary grant from the McCune Charitable Foundation, demonstrated that Teachers Institutes based on the principles grounding the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute can be established and sustained in other cities where the pattern and magnitude of needs and resources are different from those in New Haven. It did so in a variety of institutional contexts, which included liberal arts colleges, private universities, and state universities, acting individually or in a consortium. As a result of the Demonstration Project, institutions that had long relied simply upon departments or schools of Education for their programs in professional development are now providing seminars for teachers in the liberal arts and sciences. The Demonstration Project also, by establishing Institutes from coast to coast, a National Steering Committee of school teachers, and a National University Advisory Council (of university and college faculty members), and by holding a series of Annual Conferences, laid the groundwork for a national league of such Teachers Institutes.

In 1997 the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute had designed the Demonstration Project, had surveyed and visited likely sites, and had selected fourteen sites to be invited to apply for Planning Grants. (See "School Districts and Institutions of Higher Education" on page 52 for a listing of those involved in the Demonstration Project.) In 1998 it provided those sites with extensive information concerning the Institute's policies and procedures. On recommendation of a National Panel, it then awarded Planning Grants to five applicants. Their eight months of planning included a ten-day "July Intensive" in New Haven, during which Planning Directors and teams of university faculty members and school teachers participated in a varied program of activities that were designed to initiate them into the Institute process. Teachers took part in National Seminars (truncated versions of New Haven seminars) led by Yale faculty members, and also observed local seminars. University faculty members observed both types of seminars and, with the advice of Yale faculty members, wrote seminar proposals. Planning Directors also observed both types of seminars, attended workshops on Institute principles and procedures, and, with the advice of the Director of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, prepared proposals to establish Teachers Institutes.

Then, again on recommendation of the National Panel, the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute awarded three-year Implementation Grants to four applicants: the Pittsburgh Teachers Institute (a partnership among Chatham College, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Pittsburgh Public Schools); the Houston Teachers Institute (a partnership between the University of Houston and the Houston Independent School District); the Albuquerque Teachers Institute (a partnership between the University of New Mexico and the Albuquerque Public Schools); and the UCI-Santa Ana Teachers Institute (a partnership between the University of California at Irvine and the Santa Ana Unified School District). These four Institutes exemplified a wide range of institutional type, city size, and opportunities for funding.

From 1999 through 2001 the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute monitored these new Institutes and helped them to become established as members of a collaborative network. It did so through a multitude of efforts, including a second "July Intensive"; three Annual Conferences; annual meetings of the Directors, the National Steering Committee (of teachers), and the National University Advisory Council (of faculty members); and many site visits and consultations. During those three years the Pittsburgh Teachers Institute offered 17 seminars, led by 11 different faculty members, in which 145 Fellows wrote curriculum units. The Houston Teachers Institute offered 17 seminars, led by 15 different faculty members, in which 129 Fellows wrote curriculum units. The Albuquerque Teachers Institute offered 20 seminars, led by 18 different faculty members, in which 157 Fellows wrote curriculum units. And the UCI-Santa Ana Teachers Institute offered 23 seminars, led by 18 different faculty members, in which 146 Fellows completed 151 curriculum units. (See "Seminars, Faculty, and Fellows" on page 54 for a listing of numbers of participants.) All of these curriculum units were circulated in printed copies and on Institute Web sites.

At all four sites the vast majority of the Fellows expressed great satisfaction with the kind of professional development that the Institutes made possible. At all four sites the administrators of the institutions of higher education and of the school districts praised highly the work of the Institute. From the Irvine-Santa Ana Teachers Institute, for example, Executive Vice Chancellor Lillyman wrote:

The goals and practices of the UCI-Santa Ana Teachers Institute are in keeping with the University of California and UCI's outreach mission, to expand educational opportunities for all Californians. Creating innovative opportunities for professional development is a key strategy in our efforts towards this goal. When teachers are inspired to take responsibility for the knowledge process through active engagement in reading, writing, and research, they can have a strong effect on the intellectual lives and futures of their students.

In Pittsburgh the principal of the high school that has sent the greatest number of teachers to the Institute wrote that never before had he witnessed a professional development program for secondary school teachers that "met the needs of experienced teachers as well as the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute does." And the Director of that Institute, Helen Faison, who had served as Acting Superintendent of Schools, has said,

In my more than a half century involvement in public education in positions ranging from novice teacher to interim superintendent of a large urban school district, I have never been associated with a teacher professional development model that afforded teachers the level of self-determination and satisfaction that the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute model does.

She has also stated that "the public school community continues to think of the Institute as a permanent opportunity that will be available to teachers in the Pittsburgh Public Schools for an indefinite period."

Reflecting more broadly on the work of the Houston Teachers Institute and its applicability across the nation, Susan Sclafani (formerly Chief of Staff for Academic Operations in the Houston Independent School District and now Counselor to the United States Secretary of Education and Acting Assistant Secretary, Office of Vocational and Adult Education) said to teachers gathered in New Haven:

We've got to change the way in which we prepare our young people. . . . Part of the reason that you are working in this Institute is because you have understood that you weren't getting all of your children engaged; that there had to be better ways to develop curriculum, there had to be better ways to learn. You needed yourself to learn new strategies that could be effective with the young people you teach—and to do that in a way that you had some say about. . . . What appealed to us in Houston—and what appealed to you in Albuquerque and Pittsburgh and Santa Ana—was that there was a different way of doing it.

Sclafani spoke of "teacher quality" as "the most important factor in whether or not children learn." That, she said, "is what this project is all about." And she challenged the group "to figure out how to expand and grow" the number of teachers involved in Teachers Institutes, within the cities represented now by such Institutes and within other cities across the nation. "How do we turn district-wide professional development into this?" she asked. "How do you start having an influence on the way in which all teachers are engaged in intellectual pursuits? Because that really is the issue."

Within these Institutes the teachers have found a greater creative responsibility for their own curricula, and they have found an opportunity to exercise leadership and judgment in sustaining the program of seminars that provides continuing professional development. The university faculty members have also recognized more fully their responsibility for teaching at all levels in their own communities. As this has occurred, both the school teachers and the university faculty members have discovered their true collegiality in the on-going process of learning and teaching. And they have realized both the opportunities and the responsibilities that follow from their membership in a larger community devoted to the educational welfare of the young people of this nation.

Each of the five Teachers Institutes involved in the National Demon-stration Project serves an urban school district that enrolls students, most of whom are not only from low-income communities, but also members of ethnic or racial minorities. (See "Demographic Information on Demonstration Sites" on page 55.) In New Haven, 57 percent of the students in the district are African-American and 28 percent are Hispanic. In Pittsburgh, 56 percent of the students are African American. In the participating schools in Houston, 30 percent of the students are African-American and 50 percent are Hispanic. In the participating schools in Santa Ana, more than 90 percent of the students are Hispanic, and more than 70 percent have limited English. As the Teachers Institutes enable teachers to improve their preparation in content fields, prepare curriculum units, and accept responsibility for much of their own professional development, they also help large numbers of minority students to achieve at higher levels by improving teaching and learning.

During the three years of the National Demonstration Project all four Institutes met the very difficult funding challenge posed by the terms of the Implementation Grants they were offered. And in December 2001, all four Institutes declared their intention to apply for Research and Planning Grants in the Preparation Phase of the Yale National Initiative.

In sum, the National Demonstration Project has shown in four different cities larger than New Haven:

• that a Teachers Institute serving approximately 20 schools that enroll predominantly minority students can be rapidly inaugurated;
• that such a Teachers Institute can immediately carry out a program of 4-6 content-based seminars in the humanities and sciences, which increase teachers' knowledge, heighten their morale, encourage their use of new technologies, and result in individually crafted curriculum units of substance for use in classrooms;
• that such Institutes will arouse the enthusiasm and support of significant numbers of teachers and university faculty members;
• that such Institutes can attract support—including pledges of continuing support—from administrators of a private liberal arts college, a private university emphasizing the sciences, a flagship state university, and a major state university in a larger system;
• that high-level administrators in school districts, superintendents or their immediate subordinates, will be attracted by the idea of such an Institute, will start thinking about the local means of scaling-up, and will commit themselves to its long-term support;
• and that the strategies employed in establishing the National Demonstration Project, including National Seminars, the observation of local seminars in New Haven, and workshops on Institute principles and procedures, are admirably suited for the process of further disseminating the Yale-New Haven model and establishing a nation-wide network of Teachers Institutes.

In doing so, the National Demonstration Project has made amply clear the importance of the principles upon which these Institutes are based. It has shown that, given favorable circumstances, the new Teachers Institutes can sustain themselves after the initial Grant. It has provided the foundation for the expansion of some Teachers Institutes and the establishment of yet others in cities across the nation. And it has shown that such Teachers Institutes can make a substantial contribution to the most important kind of school reform in this nation—the improvement of teaching itself.

The Preparation Phase

The Preparation Phase of the Yale National Initiative (April 2002-June 2004) has led to yet further success in two of these new Institutes. The Pittsburgh Teachers Institute and the Houston Teachers Institute applied for and, on recommendation of a National Panel, received Research and Planning Grants. These grants, supported by an extension of unexpended funds from the Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds and a grant from the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, have enabled them to conduct both qualitative and quantifiable research into the effectiveness of their programs and to plan for future systemic impact within their school districts.

Though the Albuquerque Teachers Institute was prevented by administrative problems in the Albuquerque Public Schools from applying for a Research and Planning Grant, it has continued under the aegis of the College of Arts & Sciences of the University of Mexico and is expanding into other school districts. And though the UCI-Santa Ana Teachers Institute was likewise prevented by the financial crisis in California from applying for such a Grant, and temporarily suspended, the University and its faculty members continue to maintain strong relationships with teachers and administrators in Santa Ana and several other districts.

During the Preparation Phase of the Yale National Initiative, the Pittsburgh Teachers Institute and the Houston Teachers Institute have not only sustained but also expanded and deepened their programs. In 2002, the Pittsburgh Teachers Institute mounted seven seminars, two of which were developed in collaboration with the Pittsburgh Public Schools. The Fellows completed 58 curriculum units. In 2003, this Institute mounted eight seminars, three of which were developed in collaboration with the Pittsburgh Public Schools. The Fellows completed 60 curriculum units. In 2002 the Houston Teachers Institute also mounted seven seminars, one of which was funded by Project TEACH, a partnership between the Institute and the Houston Independent School District supported by the U.S. Department of Education. The Fellows completed 69 curriculum units. In 2003 this Institute mounted eight seminars, two of which were funded by Project TEACH. The Fellows completed 85 curriculum units.

During this Preparation Phase, the Yale National Initiative has continued to advise and support these Teachers Institutes. It hosted an Annual Teachers Institutes Conference in November 2002, in which teams from the Pittsburgh Teachers Institute, the Houston Teachers Institute, and the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute participated. This Conference discussed, and enthusiastically endorsed, the principles and accomplishments of the Teachers Institutes. It also made suggestions with regard to the future work of the Yale National Initiative and indicated a readiness to participate in it. After the Conference, representatives from the Pittsburgh and Houston Teachers Institutes discussed their own on-going work in research and planning.

During the Preparation Phase, the Yale National Initiative has also continued to collate and analyze the Fellows Questionnaires and the Surveys of Curriculum Unit Use that were distributed during the National Demonstration Project. A preliminary report on the resulting data was presented by Rogers M. Smith of the University of Pennsylvania during a meeting in New Haven with the Directors of the Pittsburgh, Houston, and Yale-New Haven Teachers Institutes in July 2003. A more detailed written report, "To Motivate My Students: An Evaluation of the National Demonstration Project of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute," was prepared by Smith and his research team in October 2003. (See "Evaluations and Independent Studies" on page 14.)

During this Phase the Yale National Initiative has also developed a more integrated and somewhat expanded version of the Basic Principles underlying the National Demonstration Project—now included in this booklet as "Articles of Understanding" and "Necessary Procedures." These documents have also been discussed by the Directors of the three Institutes in their meeting of July 2003. They will now serve as a primary basis for proposals for the establishment of new Teachers Institutes under the Yale National Initiative. Also developed during the Preparation Phase are other elements of the framework that will be used for planning and implementing any new Institute, regardless of the nature of the funding that has been sought or obtained. That framework allows for a variety of possible funding—by a Federal or State program, by a national or local foundation, by a school district (through a variety of federal and other sources), or by a college or university—which might be provided directly to the new Institute or indirectly through the Yale National Initiative. The information provided in this booklet under "Proposals for Planning an Institute" and "Proposals for Implementing an Institute" specifies what such proposals should contain, including the narrative, budget, budget narrative, demographic chart, and other necessary information.

Effective Activities

The successes of the National Demonstration Project and the Preparation Phase of the Yale National Initiative have been made possible by a series of activities undertaken by the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute for and with the participating sites. Those activities began with a survey and a series of preliminary inquiries made of a variety of institutions and districts that had expressed some interest in the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. These were accompanied by distribution to interested sites of an extensive body of publications and videos offering information about the policies and procedures of the Institute. There followed a number of visits, made by members of a Planning Team, including the Director and selected New Haven teachers and Yale University faculty, to selected sites, and then a voluntary information session in New Haven to which sites were invited. After Planning Grants were awarded, teams from the sites awarded Grants were invited to participate in the first July Intensive in New Haven. The following year, after Implementation Grants were awarded, teams from the new Institutes were invited to participate in a second July Intensive. These Intensives, described earlier in this brochure, have initiated school teachers and university faculty into the actual workings of a Teachers Institute. The National Seminars have been especially popular with teachers at every site, who have often called for further National Seminars to be established in New Haven and elsewhere. Each year during the National Demonstration Project there were also further site visits carried out by members of the Implementation Team from New Haven, highlighting each year a different aspect of the work of an Institute. These were of great assistance to both the new Institutes and those directing the Project.

As the Implementation Grants proceeded, the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute placed increasing emphasis upon leading the new Institutes in common or shared work. It established an annual Directors' Meeting for reporting and planning by the five Teachers Institutes; a National Steering Committee, through which Fellows representing each Institute could have a voice in shaping the common activities; and a correlated National University Advisory Council, in which faculty members from the institutions of higher education might have an advisory voice. It also projected three Annual Conferences, at which the five Institutes could share their challenges and accomplishments. The First Annual Conference was planned by the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute; but the four new Institutes played increasingly important roles in the planning of the Second and Third Conferences. In the Third Conference, which was overwhelmingly judged by the participants to be the most successful, all five of the Teachers Institutes took part on an equal basis. The questionnaires sent out to those in attendance elicited comments that reaffirmed the basic principles of the National Demonstration Project and offered further guidance for the Preparation Phase of the Yale National Initiative—during which this strategy of equal participation has been continued in the Teachers Institutes Conference and Directors' Meetings.

Very important also in the success of this effort has been the commitment to documentation, evaluation, and dissemination of results from the points of view of all participants. The National Demonstration Project has gained information from Fellows' questionnaires on completing the seminars; the publication of curriculum units; Annual Reports from participating Institutes; questionnaires for Fellows and non-Fellows on the use of curriculum units; and the preparation of global Annual Reports for funders. The periodical On Common Ground has devoted one number to summarizing the views of participants. An external evaluation was carried out for the Wallace Funds by Policy Studies Associates. During the Preparation Phase, research and planning were carried out by the Pittsburgh and Houston Teachers Institutes, and by the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, and reports from each Institute were discussed by all three. A further evaluation of the National Demonstration Project was also prepared by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania on the basis of the internal documentation that had been collected. The collaborative dimension of the process of documentation and dissemination is now most strikingly manifested in the linked Web sites of the group of Teachers Institutes, which may all be reached through links with the primary Web site for the Yale National Initiative.

Timeline

Evaluations and Independent Studies

The Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute and the Yale National Initiative regard both internal and external evaluation of their principles, practices, and results to be of the utmost importance. For more than a quarter of a century the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute has arranged for, and learned from, both internal and external evaluations. These have been embodied in its Annual Reports and other publications, including A Progress Report on Surveys Administered to New Haven Teachers, 1982-1990 (New Haven, 1991), the periodical On Common Ground, and two videotape programs, Teaching on Common Ground (1995) and Excellence in Teaching: Agenda for Partnership (1997). The National Demonstration Project and the Preparation Phase of the Yale National Initiative have continued that process of multiple evaluation. The internal evaluations, based in part upon observations in site visits and conferences, the results of questionnaires, published curriculum units, and Annual Reports from participating Institutes, have been embodied in Annual Reports to the funding organizations. They have been supplemented by external evaluations of several kinds. The DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund commissioned an external evaluation of the National Demonstration Project conducted by Policy Studies Associates. As part of its research and planning, the Pittsburgh Teachers Institute commissioned an evaluation, using focus groups, carried out by Allyson Walker, of Cornerstone Evaluation Associates, and Janet Stocks, Director of Undergraduate Research at Carnegie Mellon University. As part of its research and planning, the Houston Teachers Institute commissioned a massive evaluation, using focus groups, interviews, surveys, and both quantitative and qualitative analysis, carried out by Jon Lorence and Joseph Kotarba of the Department of Sociology, University of Houston, and a further evaluation, based on interviews and observation of teaching, by Paul Cooke, Director of the Institute. The Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute also commissioned an evaluation of the entire National Demonstration Project, carried out by Rogers M. Smith of the Department of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania, and his research assistants, that was based primarily on analyses of Fellows' questionnaires and of the survey of the use of curriculum units by Fellows and non-Fellows.

Though differing in their procedures and to some extent in their detailed results, these evaluations lend support to a number of important conclusions. At all four sites, there were positive results similar to those that had been obtained in New Haven over many years. Both Policy Studies Associates and Rogers M. Smith concluded that the National Demonstration Project had "succeeded in reaching its goal" of replication of the Yale-New Haven model within a relatively short period of time in four sites that are considerably larger than New Haven. At each site, new Institutes involved roughly 900 teachers and 60 college or university faculty members in 75 seminars over the course of the Project. Smith noted that these seminars produced results that were remarkably similar to each other and to experiences in New Haven, and markedly better than those reported by most existing forms of professional development. These results occurred despite significant demographic differences among the cities. The major variations, according to Smith, could be correlated with structural departures from National Demonstration Project guidelines and with certain administrative difficulties in the partnering districts and institutions of higher education.

As Smith pointed out, recent research indicates that the single most important factor in student performance is teacher quality. The consensus of researchers and teachers is that many existing forms of professional development are cursory, dreary exercises that leave teachers bored and resentful, not informed or inspired. The approach of the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, however, significantly strengthens teachers in all five of the major dimensions of teacher quality: it helps to produce teachers who really know their subjects; who have good basic writing, mathematics and oral presentation skills; who expect their students to achieve; who are enthusiastic about teaching; and who can motivate all children to learn.

According to Smith's analysis, teachers in the new Institutes chose to participate out of desires to improve themselves in exactly these areas. At each site, teachers participated out of desires to obtain curriculum suited to their needs, to increase their mastery of their subjects, and especially to obtain materials to motivate their students. According to the research in Pittsburgh, moreover, teachers "find the Institute to be the best professional development they ever had" because its seminars increase their knowledge, emphasize content, not pedagogy, have direct applicability to their classrooms, encourage them to be creative, and are spread over sufficient time to allow them to master the content. The Pittsburgh teachers also reported that they were attracted to the Institute by the independence they enjoyed in suggesting seminar topics and then selecting those seminars in which they would participate without regard to the subject or grade levels at which they taught. According to the research in Houston, the Institute program "cultivates a significant increase in skill level for those many Fellows who were never really trained earlier in the design and implementation of a very workable, thought-out, substantively well-informed curriculum unit." Teachers therefore "take ownership of big corners of the fields of knowledge in which they labor and take that possession over to their students."

According to Smith, ninety-five percent of all participating teachers rated the Institute seminars "moderately" or "greatly" useful. Similar percentages said the seminars increased their knowledge, improved their skills and morale, and raised their expectation of students. Both teachers and principals who participated in the Pittsburgh study reported that the Institute experience boosts teachers' positive attitudes toward teaching and learning because: it excites teachers about learning and their excitement is transferred to their students; it enhances teachers' self-image and sense of direction; it augments teachers' sense of professionalism; it encourages collaboration among teachers; and it provides teachers with a network of resources. Smith also found that the Institutes served to foster teacher leadership, to develop supportive teacher networks, to heighten university faculty commitments to improving public education, and to foster more positive partnerships between school districts and institutions of higher education.

The Houston study concludes on the basis of interviews with Fellows, a survey, and observation of students "that students of HTI Fellows benefit from instruction informed by solid scholarly values, not simply bureaucratic curriculum requirements." It indicates also that "students benefit from the presence of teachers who can serve as role models of intellectualism, commitment, and excellence."

According to Smith, after teaching their curriculum units, two-thirds of all participants rated them superior to all other curriculum they had used. Roughly sixty percent of all participants rated student motivation and attention as higher during these units, producing substantially greater content mastery. The teachers and principals who participated in the Pittsburgh study also reported that the students learned new ways of thinking, questioned what they read and saw, made connections among various subjects, eagerly learned content set within a familiar context, and acquired and implemented research skills modeled by the teachers. These curriculum units, as Smith noted, emphasized teacher-led discussion, writing exercises, activities designed to strengthen speaking, listening, vocabulary, reasoning skills, and mathematics skills. The research in Houston indicated that "all categories of students benefit from teachers who have completed a Houston Teachers Institute seminar: skilled and unskilled; English speaking and ESL; Anglo and minority; and gifted, mainstreamed, or special education students."

All four studies do suggest that it would be fruitful to engage in yet further research concerning ways of assessing student learning in classes where Institute units have been taught. The DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, in supporting the National Demonstration Project, had explicitly excluded such research because of its firmly grounded belief that the most significant factor in producing increased student learning is teacher quality. And with regard to that factor, the more detailed studies in Pittsburgh and Houston confirm and extend the positive conclusions that have been reached by Policy Studies Associates and by Smith in their analyses of the National Demonstration Project.

According to the report from Policies Studies Associates, there is "clear evidence of important accomplishments, reflected in the number of seminars provided in the Institutes, the number of Fellows who participated in these seminars, and the number of curriculum units the Fellows produced." It stated further:

Large majorities of Fellows were unequivocal in saying that their experience in the Institutes, especially the preparation of a curriculum unit, gave them a real sense of accomplishment and rekindled their excitement about learning. As one Fellow put it: "To be teachers, we must also be learners." When asked in interviews to compare their experience in the Institutes with their experience in other kinds of professional development, teachers agreed that the Institutes are vastly superior.

The report by Rogers M. Smith concluded:

No single program can overcome the enormous obstacles to educational achievement faced by economically disadvantaged students, usually from racial, ethnic, and linguistic minorities, in large American cities today. But if recent researchers are right to contend that the single most important factor in student achievement is teacher quality, and if quality teachers are indeed knowledgeable, skilled, and enthusiastic, with high expectations for their students and the means to motivate students to reach those expectations, then the National Demonstration Project provides strong evidence for the value of the Teachers Institute approach.