Urban students, especially those living in poverty who come from minority groups, continue to perform far below their more affluent, suburban, white peers in these areas vital to personal and community 21st century success. However, while high school graduation remains a concern in cities such as New York and across the United States, the gap between high school graduation and college readiness has become a national educational priority. Every year, thousands of students in the United States enroll in college without the skills needed to succeed academically and in need of remediation that is costly in time and money, both for the students themselves and the community at large. The proposed program developed by this team seeks to address the high school to college gap by targeting schools with low rates of college readiness and developing a STEM-learning and college-going culture in the school community. The proposed "Peer Enabled Restructured Classroom" (PERC) Program improves secondary school STEM teaching and learning while dramatically increasing college readiness for middle performing urban high school students. The PERC Program is an instructional model that is proven to change the trajectory of urban youth--mostly minority students living in poverty--from barely graduating from high school to being prepared for college success. This program was developed with the understanding that STEM courses, with ever increasing standards for mastery, remain as gateways for high school achievement.
The PERC Program is founded on the principle of learning through teaching and leadership and is designed to build a cadre of peer leaders in schools who work along with the teachers to address the needs of peers in STEM classes. Through the PERC model, teachers and peer leaders form an instructional team and work daily to meet the needs of high school students. In this transformative program, peer leaders, called Teaching Assistant Scholars, or TAS, are themselves students who have not yet met the college-ready benchmarks and are often overlooked as potential school or academic leaders. Through the act of teaching and leadership, TAS grow into the role of leaders and scholars and emerge from high school college-ready and confident in STEM. Through the act of developing strong TAS, STEM teachers become more reflective about their practice and use TAS feedback to improve instruction. With the support of their peers, high school students become more confident and capable in STEM. Critical components of the PERC Program support the work of the PERC teachers and TAS. A strong professional development program introduces the teachers to their new classroom roles and identities, sustains their growth as managers of instructional teams, and develops the skills they need to teach and mentor the TAS. The TAS Pipeline-to-College begins with the TAS Class, which focuses on learning to teach, learning to learn, STEM content, and knowledge about college. The pipeline then offers TAS advanced courses and a bridge to college program extending into freshman year. A highly successful summer institute acts as a teacher professional development laboratory, offers internship opportunities to TAS, enables TAS to take courses to advance college readiness or earn college credits, and provides additional STEM learning opportunities for struggling students. The proposed project will take the PERC Program from an NSF-funded research project to a commercially viable program available to school districts across New York State and the country.
