Eligible applicants: Chicago Public School System or external agencies in partnership with Chicago Public Schools

High performing schools require strong principal and teacher leadership; high expectations of students and staff; planning and collaboration among staff; parent engagement; strong support systems for students and teachers; effective, strategic and differentiated professional development; strong content knowledge and effective instructional practice; and curricular coherence across the school.

To support development of high performing schools, projects in this priority area must:

• Strengthen curriculum and instruction in key content areas: Literacy, Math/Science, Arts, Multilingual Learning, Social Studies
• Develop partnerships between intermediary organizations and/or universities and the Chicago Public Schools’ appropriate curriculum department and instructional areas
• Provide differentiated support to schools based on their strengths and needs
• Be aligned with CPS' curricular frameworks and use research-based best practices and diagnostic assessments to guide instruction
• Build teacher knowledge in curricular content through graduate course work and in-school modeling
• Use demonstration schools to model best practices
• Involve whole school change strategies, including purposeful teams
• Provide opportunities for teachers to work collaboratively within and across grade levels
• Build coaching and leadership capacity in schools, in the areas and in the CPS central office
• Include strong program evaluation

Eligible applicants: By invitation only

Leadership is the second leading school factor in improving student achievement after teaching.  To move to the next level of performance, schools need to provide instruction that leads to higher order thinking and achievement as well as transformational and distributed leadership. The Trust is seeking partners with the capacity to develop strong school leaders through a program that builds candidates’ instructional knowledge in the content areas, organizational knowledge, ability to transform urban schools into high performance institutions, leadership, and analytic skills. These programs should include an extended and purposeful practicum and mentoring.

Eligible applicants: Chicago Public School partnerships or networks (including charter schools) and/or private/ independent school systems seeking to address an important issue creatively and to work collaboratively.

Many innovations are occurring in a variety of Chicago Public Schools. These innovations are not always effectively shared and often reinvented. Through this priority area, the Trust aims to provide a forum for schools to share and learn from one another and support networks to exchange their ideas.

Projects in this priority area must:

• Involve an innovative way of examining and solving a teaching or learning challenge
• Stem from research-based best practices
• Ensure capacity building in the school
• Involve whole school change
• Use external resources or partners
• Create useful tools and use data to guide instruction
• Share information and tools beyond the project
• Include strong program evaluation.

Eligible applicants: Chicago Public School System or external agencies in partnership with Chicago Public Schools

The Trust understands the need for and importance of quality pre-schools and high schools. Therefore, grants to selected projects beyond elementary schools will be funded. Critical to the funding of these programs is alignment with the elementary work outlined above.

Projects in this priority area must:

• Demonstrate strong links to curricular work in elementary schools
• Address transition gaps to or from elementary schools
• Strengthen curriculum and instruction in key content areas: Literacy, Math/Science, Arts, Multilingual Learning, Social Studies
• Develop partnerships between intermediary organizations and/or universities and the Chicago Public Schools’ appropriate curriculum department and instructional areas
• Provide differentiated supports to schools based on their strengths and needs
• Be aligned with CPS curricular frameworks, use research-based best practices and diagnostic assessments to guide instruction
• Build teacher knowledge in curricular content through graduate course work and in-school modeling
• Involve whole school change strategies, including purposeful teams
• Provide opportunities for teachers to work collaboratively within and across grade levels
• Build coaching and leadership capacity in schools
• Include strong program evaluation

Eligible applicants: By invitation only

Work in this priority area will address the most pressing needs and build on strong models.

Projects in this priority area must:

• Focus on common areas of need and demographics, low-income and immigrant populations
• Target instructional issues in core curriculum areas, including multilingual education, science and civic education
• Include strong program evaluation