School Case Studies
CASE 1: Springfield Public Schools, Massachusetts
As the third largest city in Massachusetts, Springfield has many of the same challenges that other urban districts face: 14% of the students have limited English and 76% come from low-income families. The district's MCAS results show a high percentage of students failing or in the needs improvement categories.
In January 2008, The Writers' Express and Springfield School District kicked off a 4-month pilot collaboration to train and implement the WEX curriculum with approximately 90 classroom teachers (including, Sped and ELL teachers) in grades 3-5 and Literacy coaches in eighteen schools across the city.
The following results show the dramatic progress students made in just 4 months.
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Example of Student Growth
The following pre- and post- writing samples (typed, but unedited by adults) were written by one 4th grader and demonstrate the kinds of results seen in Springfield after the implementation of the WEX Method.
PROMPT: Choose something you did in the last week that you did not want to do. Write a story about what
happened and how you felt.
January 2008 |
May 2008 |
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Last week at home my mom had to go out to a LOT of places she asked me and my cousin if we can clean the house feed the fish and clean the fish tank make shore that my little sister ate, was bathed and in bed by 8:00. Tootles. Later that evening. Were finally finished. CRASH!!! What was that Dani, Dani are you ok I brake your piggy bank Hello! Hi mom hi thanks for the help $20 each. The very next day. Wake up. Good morning mom what is this oh! Dani broke it last night clean it up now aw man can I do it later mo no pretty please no means no. Ok I will clean it up. |
The thing I did not want to do last week was clean my room. That includes under the beds, tv, mirror, window, closet and worst of all, the most dangerous, crazy dresser. I told my mom it will take me the whole day to clean that pigsty!!!! Of course my mom got me to work faster by saying I could watch Ugly Betty, the best tv show ever if I finished. So I speeded upstairs like a cheetah into my room and started cleaning. By the time I was at the closet I felt lazier than a sleeping hippo in the water. I did not want to move the world's heaviest toy box ever made, but inside my tiny, little brain was teasing me saying, I'm going to watch Ugly Betty!! I have to do it!!! I did it!!!! Then oh no Crash! Except that! To my surprise I saw that my mirror cracked! I knew I finished my room when it was spic and span. Then my mom checked my job. The last thing I need to do was vacuum. Oh gosh let's see how long this is going to take. |
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CASE 3: Boston Renaissance Charter School, Boston, Massachusetts
One of the largest charter schools in the country, Renaissance serves 1,280 students, 96% of whom are Black and Hispanic. After successfully piloting a program for 200 fourth-graders, The Writers' Express was hired to provide training in data-driven instruction for all of the school's 2nd through 6th grade teachers.
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Sample of Student Growth
The following pre- and post- tests illustrate a single 4th grader's performance gain over a duration of a 7-month study.
Prompt: Pick something you did in the last week that was hard for you. Use details to describe what happened.
Pre-test
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Post-test
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At home when I was playing in the park it was hard to do the glider and I was on the platform and I jumped of and I banged by nose on the platform I started to bleed then I started to cry that's because my nose hurted that's and I went to my house my mom and dad saw me bleeding through my nose and my mom gave me a cloth to put on my nose to make it stop bleeding and I felt painful when I fell and I felt better when mom took care of me. That's what happened to me and that's how I felt. That's what happened last week. It was really hard. |
The time I had to do something hard was when I learned how to play basketball. The hard part was to shoot the ball in the hoop. My sister said that when you shoot in a hoop you bend your knees a little and hold ball and shoot. I was sweating like an ice cream cone sitting in the sun melting. I kept practicing and practicing until my arms fall off and my legs break. One day after practicing I tryed again and I shot it for the first time. I was so happy it felt like if I got a headmasters award. I told my brother and sister that I made it in but they didn't believe me so I said "will prove it to you." So we went to the court and I made it in again. I got really good at it and that's how I know how to shoot it in the hoop. That's the time I did something hard. |
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CASE 4: Dearborn Middle School, Boston, Massachusetts
The Dudley Square neighborhood in Boston is one of the poorest in the city with almost all of its students eligible for free lunch programs. Prior to working with The Writers's Express, Dearborn students tied for third lowest in the state on their MCAS exams.
Over a three-month period, The Writers' Express piloted a professional development program that focused on a single teacher who had consistently received unsatisfactory evaluations of her teaching. In the year prior to working with WEX, this teacher was able to help only 33% of her students make progress on their Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI) scores. After participating in the WEX program, she led 87% of her students to increase their reading scores.
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CASE 5: English High School, Boston, Massachusetts
The oldest public high school in America and the most diverse in Boston, English High School hosts the largest bilingual program in the city. After receiving their students' results on Massachusetts' MCAS exam, the school hired The Writers' Express to boost student achievement and enhance their literacy program.
The 10th grade was randomly divided into two cohorts of five teachers and 125 students. The Writers' Express worked with one cohort, coaching four teachers of different disciplines to integrate writing into the curriculum. At the end of the year, 40% of the students in The WEX cohort scored proficient or better on the ELA section of the MCAS. In the control group, only 22% of the students scored proficient or better.
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