Catalyst Fund Grantees

Based on evidence that demonstrates teacher effectiveness is the most important factor in student success, Jounce Partners seeks to improve student learning through a new model of professional skills development for educators that provides targeted support and an easy to follow structure. Jounce Partners will further develop its unique school leader and teacher coaching model that employs extremely high-frequency feedback, high-repetition practice of key teaching skills, and very specific criteria for execution of those skills.

Philadelphia has a rich cultural sector that provides informal educational opportunities for youth. These are often disconnected from the needs of the city’s schools. The Greater Philadelphia STEAM Initiative will explore how to bring together the cultural and education sectors to facilitate a more robust and academically purposeful relationship between the two sectors to create an integrated STEAM curriculum. A planning process that engages key stakeholders from each sector will aim to determine how to leverage the valuable programs of the cultural community to better support schools. If planning efforts are successful, subsequent phases of the Initiative will include creating a full curriculum and piloting it in three high schools.

PhillyGoes2College, a project of The Mayor’s Office of Education, launched Connect2College (C2C), an initiative featuring a web-based app and text messaging tool that provide users with college access information. The online and mobile tools supplement and enhance C2C’s work with community-based organizations to provide on-site college planning information. This new approach utilizes scarce resources more efficiently to provide citywide access to information and to foster a college-going culture.

Update: Through C2C, The Mayor’s Office of Education has strengthened 24 organization’s capacity to offer college access resources and services. Awareness of C2C has grown and more residents are accessing C2C through the website, the texting platform, at partner sites and through one-on-one appointments with C2C staff. From the launch in January 2015 through October 2015, the website had 6,962 users, the texting platform had 428 subscribers, the Facebook page had 1982 likes and there were 242 new Twitter followers demonstrating the reach of C2C’s message.