PREPS Program Earns US Dept of Education Grant
The Darden College of Education's Program for Research and Evaluation in Public Schools (PREPS) has helped to secure a nearly $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education for its involvement in the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Program (GEAR UP).
The grant represents the culmination of three years of collaboration between the program and Hampton city schools, in which the organizations worked together to develop and test their grant proposal. Of the 283 school districts to apply for the grant in 2008, Hampton was one of only 24 approved for funding, representing the lone recipient in Virginia.
"Grants are much more competitive than they have been in the past," said David Blackburn, PREPS director. "This is a big deal."
The grant, dispensed at a rate of $482,194 per year over the course of the six-year GEAR UP program, will fund the development of research-based teaching strategies aimed at improving the performance of roughly 400 at-risk children in the Hampton school district. Working in conjunction with PREPS, the schools will use empirical data and proven reform techniques to help students, parents and faculty improve their performances.
"What we're doing is trying to get away from using personal preferences and move toward more research-based, proven techniques," Blackburn said.
The program is aimed at underprivileged children who statistically have a lower chance of attending or graduating from college. To qualify for funding, school districts had to meet certain criteria, such as offering reduced-price or free lunch to at least 50 percent of the student population.
Following a particular group of students, the GEAR UP program will evaluate their performance from grades 6-12. School administrators will be able to gather data on the various strategies being implemented, and follow the students' progress over a substantial portion of their academic career.
The program to be implemented in Hampton is one piece of a larger effort on the part of the PREPS program's push to strengthen the ties between grade schools and colleges across the state. Founded in 2003, PREPS has placed ODU faculty in a position to directly help teachers and administrators at lower grade levels. For example, Darden College of Education faculty Steve Myran and Jack Robinson's work with schools in Northampton County recorded a 10.2 percent closure of the learning gap between black and white students from 2003 to 2005. More recently, their collaboration with teachers in Norfolk's Willard Model School produced a 25 percent boost in SOL performance among regular students and a 35 percent increase among special education students.
The "school-embedded" approach being utilized in these programs are aimed at helping teachers use student assessment techniques to refine and develop their own methods. The programs tend to place emphasis on math, science and literacy, utilizing innovative techniques such as using music to help teach children math. PREPS also tries to increase parental involvement, offering weekend seminars and help with finding money to pay for college.
This most recent grant is the third such award the PREPS program has helped secure for local school systems. In 2000 and 2007, it partnered with Newport News Public Schools to develop and implement GEAR UP programs, both efforts resulting in multimillion-dollar grants. Since its inception in 2003, PREPS has helped Virginia school systems secure $16 million in grant money.
PREPS works closely with its partners to develop a connection between grade schools and colleges, providing a helping hand from beginning to end. The program not only helps the schools design reform programs and develop grant proposals, but it also works with school administrators and teachers to carry out these plans.
"One of the things we're doing is training them to conduct their own research to evaluate their own programs," Blackburn said. "You can't just go in there and tell teachers, 'Here's the theory, this is what you have to do.' That just doesn't work."
According to Blackburn, PREPS takes what he called a "k-20 view" of education, rather than looking at college and grade schools as separate entities. The ultimate goal is to create more-successful students who are not only more likely to get into college, but also more likely to graduate.
"We're changing lives, one kid at a time," he said.