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Headlines at Hopkins
News Release

Office of News and Information
Johns Hopkins University
901 South Bond Street, Suite 540
Baltimore, Maryland 21231
Phone: 443-287-9960 | Fax: 443-287-9920

October 3, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Amy Lunday
acl@jhu.edu
443-287-9960


Talent Development High Schools
to Grow with Gates Funds

The Talent Development High Schools program at The Johns Hopkins University will more than double the number of low- performing schools it serves over the next four years.

A new $1.9 million investment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will enable the TDHS reform model, developed by the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins, to continue its work in nearly 100 high schools and add about 110 more schools across the country by 2010, said Nettie Legters, a TDHS co-director.

Within the next four years, the TDHS program will expand its technical support, improve curriculum materials and instructional tools, develop new methods to strengthen program data collection and evaluation, and share its best practices for high school improvement with those outside the TDHS network. The goal of the TDHS model is to reduce the dropout rate and increase the graduation rate among students in low-performing high schools, as it prepares them for college and the workforce.

"There is an increasing demand for solutions to the challenges faced by low-performing high schools and the students they serve," said Legters, who is also a research scientist at Johns Hopkins. "This grant will enable TDHS to grow with intention and a vigilant eye on quality and results."

The TDHS model features extensive training and coaching for teachers, particularly around ninth- and tenth-grade transition courses that enable students to acquire skills and knowledge they often lack when they come to high school. The program also includes structural elements such as a ninth-grade academies, teacher teams, extended class periods, and career academies to engage students, support academic progress, and help them connect learning to everyday life and future plans.

This new investment will allow TDHS to carry out its multi-year strategic plan, which was developed through consultation with the Bridgespan Group and funded through an initial one-year Gates Foundation grant that TDHS received in 2004.

TDHS is working with high schools in New York City and Los Angeles through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation partnership grants. It also operates the Baltimore Talent Development High School through a partnership with the Baltimore City Public Schools. Talent Development has multiple sites in Chicago; Kansas City, Mo.; and throughout North Carolina; as well as single sites in a dozen other states

"The Gates Foundation grant will help us accomplish our mission of both research and development, to follow up our studies of the major problems in public education with practical solutions we design and evaluate," said TDHS senior director James McPartland. "With Gates' assistance, we can expand our TDHS improvements throughout the country, and study the processes of nationwide education reform."

Talent Development High Schools began at CSOS in 1994 and has since established a research-based approach to transforming low-performing high schools, especially in high-poverty areas. A whole-school reform organization, TDHS provides a comprehensive package of materials, services and strategies designed to transform high schools into respectful, caring, and motivating learning communities where students are engaged and teachers are prepared to meet the needs of their students, many of whom may be performing far below grade level academically.

About Talent Development High Schools:

Talent Development High Schools, online at http://www.csos.jhu.edu/tdhs, is a comprehensive reform aimed at reducing student anonymity and apathy, increasing achievement and deterring drop outs. TDHS provides organizational, instructional and curricular innovations and extensive professional development to create an orderly teaching and learning environment that will help break the cycle of poor attendance and low achievement that plagues many large, urban high schools.


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