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PHOTO: Wysession leads a brainstorming session with Ritenour High School teachers and ISP instructional specialists A two-year collaboration between teachers at the Ritenour School District and faculty and staff from Washington University in St. Louis culminates this year with four completely new high school science courses.  Instructional specialists with WashU’s Institute for School Partnership (ISP) […]

Successful completion of algebra 1 is the gatekeeper to higher-level math and is required for virtually any education beyond high school. That makes math education an equity issue. A  2019 article in the Journal for Research and Mathematics Education states, “It’s well documented that Black and Hispanic students are underrepresented in eighth-grade algebra courses. As […]

Last summer, four organizations came together to launch a new program in 17 St. Louis Public elementary schools. The Institute for School Partnership (ISP), The Little Bit Foundation (TLBF), and St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS), with funding from the Bayer Fund, developed a pilot program to increase capacity for STEM teaching and learning in SLPS. […]

How do plants grow? Where does food come from? Who grows your food? Agriculture is the No. 1 industry in Missouri. The state is home to 95,000 farms, according to the Missouri Department of Agriculture, covering two-thirds of the state’s total land acreage, with the top commodities being soybeans, corn, cattle, hogs, and turkeys. But despite […]

PHOTO: Students from Barbara C. Jordan Elementary School in University City, including Ania Hargrove and Tyler Smith, participated in an Hour of Code activity in 2017 that was led by the Institute for School Partnership. (Photo: Myra Lopez/ISP) The Institute for School Partnership (ISP) at Washington University in St. Louis is developing a new strategic […]

When the coronavirus pandemic shut down schools in March, it highlighted the widening digital divide for many families and students in the St. Louis region. Schools and families struggled to quickly pivot to remote learning – lacking reliable internet and access to computers. Public television has become a key tool to keep students engaged and […]

The School District of University City has taken a big leap in developing the next generation of transformational school leaders. Last summer, it named Jessica Hawkins and Deitra Colquitt co-principals of Pershing Elementary School. Both served as Teacher Instructional Leaders prior to their advancement. They credit the Transformational Leadership Initiative, a multi-year effort designed to […]

The Transformational Leadership Initiative has partnered with two Saint Louis Public elementary schools, Ashland and Meramec, to challenge traditional educational models of top-down leadership. More common in schools serving low-income and minority communities, these long-standing models enforce rigid, test-focused leadership which makes them less able to cope with day-to-day stressors and pushes educators away from […]

Kids learn by doing. So what does that mean for science instruction in the age of Covid-19, when many schools are closed and children are learning from home? It’s embracing the uncertainties, shifting mindsets and expectations, and finding a new learning landscape. The shift to at-home learning should not mean skipping core content. While disruptive, the […]

St. Louis algebra teacher Josh Humphrey has 45 minutes to deliver his lesson on geometric sequences to his ninth-grade class — what they are, why they matter and how they differ from their mathematical cousin, the arithmetic sequence.