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Boston Public Schools (BPS) commissioned companion studies as part of its efforts to address achievement gaps for Black and Latino males. The first study revealed the increasing diversity of Black and Latino males and stark opportunity gaps throughout the system that contribute in large part to wide attainment gaps for these students. We hypothesized that in schools doing comparatively better with Black or Latino males than their counterparts, educators would be strategically and comprehensively implementing evidence-based cultural, structural, and instructional practices tailored to meet these students' needs and aspirations. Through qualitative case studies of four schools, we identified several cross-cutting themes that provide the district and school leaders with some positive news about effective practices found in all good schools: strong school cultures, professional collaboration, differentiated instruction, and, in the elementary schools, family engagement. While we observed pockets of best practices specific to Black and Latino male education, we also brought to light unfinished business, in that none of the four case study schools had an intentional and comprehensive schoolwide approach to educating Black and Latino males. This lack of intentionality resulted in a paucity of evidence that the school administration and faculty as a whole: (a) know and value students' cultural and linguistic backgrounds; (b) adopt explicit and responsive approaches to race and gender; and (c) develop and implement a comprehensive approach to culturally responsive curriculum and instruction. We posit that lack of knowledge, intentionality, and coherence impedes further progress in educating Black and Latino males, and has implications for educators in schools, for staff members in community partner organizations, and for family members of BPS students. Methods are appended. [This executive summary was prepared by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and the Center for Collaborative Education on behalf of the Boston Public Schools. This Phase II report is part of a larger study, "Analyzing Enrollment, Outcomes, and Excellent Schools for Black and Latino Male Students in the Boston Public Schools." For the executive summary, see ED574736.]

This research study aims to better understand the diversity of experiences and backgrounds among Black and Latino male students in Boston Public Schools (BPS) by examining enrollment and outcomes of Black and Latino males relative to their female peers and their male peers from other racial backgrounds. Specifically, the authors designed this study to provide a more nuanced analysis of engagement and performance of Black and Latino male students by disaggregating enrollment and outcome data not only by major racial/ethnic groups, but also by geographical region of origin and by different racial groups within regions. A companion study will share case studies of BPS schools in which Black and Latino males perform well compared to BPS schools with similar demographics. Through this latter study, the authors aim to identify promising school and district practices and policies associated with increased engagement and improved outcomes for Black and Latino males. Two appendices include: (1) Data, Methods, and Limitations; and (2) Graphs for Data in Non-Exam Schools (SY2012). [This report was prepared by the Center for Collaborative Education and the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University on behalf of the Boston Public Schools. This Phase I report is part of a larger study, "Analyzing Enrollment, Outcomes, and Excellent Schools for Black and Latino Male Students in the Boston Public Schools."]

Boston Public Schools is at a crossroads. Nearly one-third of the system's schools operate under one of several "autonomy" structures, where school leaders have increased flexibility regarding staffing and other resources, and choice data indicate parents are far more likely to prefer these schools over so-called "traditional" schools. This paper explores the question of how Boston Public Schools can strengthen and support autonomy and accountability across its portfolio to promote innovation for equity and high performance. The findings and recommendations draw on detailed investigations of how five other urban school systems are navigating many of the same challenges that Boston faces today. The paper divides the research into six chapters. Chapter One: Introduction; Chapter Two: Methodology and Approach; Chapter Three: Findings from Boston; Chapter Four: Findings from Peer Districts; Chapter Five: A Proposed Path Forward; and Chapter Six: Conclusion. The paper also includes nineteen appendices: (1) Growth of Autonomous Schools in the Boston Public Schools; (2) Growth of Boston Student Population; 1990-2012, (3) Members of BPS Cross-Functional Working Group; (4) Boston Public Schools and Related Staff Interviewed for the Research; (5) Current Boston Public Schools School-Based Autonomies; (6) Growth in Scores by School Type and Subject; (7) Case Studies of BPS "Top Quadrant Schools";;(8) Case Studies of Peer Districts; (9) Members of the Advisory Group; (10) Student Choice and Assignment by School Type; (11) Flexibilities Available through School Site Council Waivers; (12) BPS Principal Survey Results--Preferred Autonomies,; (13) School-by-School Demographic and Incoming Proficiency Data, SY2013-2014; (14) Extended Learning Time Analysis; (15) Time in School for Commonwealth Charters vs. BPS; (16) Teacher Demographics and Compensation Across School Types; (17) School Leader Experience, by School Type; (18) BPS Principal Survey Results--Evaluation of District Services, and (19) BPS Teacher Survey.

A Pilot School is a public school in the Boston Public School district with teachers who are members of the Boston Teachers Union. A Horace Mann Charter School is a public school under a Massachusetts state charter that operates within a regular school district and serves the students and families enrolled in that district. An Innovation School, a new development in Massachusetts education reform, is also an in-district public school that has been given increased autonomy and flexibility in up to six areas (depending on the school's design proposal): (1) curriculum; (2) budget; (3) schedule and calendar; (4) staffing; (5) professional development; and (6) district policies. This paper provides a description of a Pilot School, a Horace Mann Charter School, and an Innovation School. There are currently 21 Pilot Schools in Boston, all included in this guide. There are currently four Horace Mann Charter Schools in Boston which include Boston Day and Evening Academy, Edward M. Kennedy Academy for Health Careers, UP Academy and Boston Green Academy. Boston Public Schools is proposing additional Horace Mann Charter Schools (also referred to as "in-district charters") to open in future school years. Currently, Roger Clap (Elementary) Innovation School is the only Innovation School open in Boston.

This study is part of a collaborative project entitled "Identifying Success in Schools and Programs for English Language Learners in Boston Public Schools". The companion to this report, entitled "Improving Educational Outcomes of English Language Learners in Schools and Programs in Boston Public Schools", provides a comprehensive analysis of student-, program-, and school-level data from SY2006 to SY2009 to describe the trends in enrollment and educational outcomes for Boston's ELL students in those years. This study follows up and extends the research published in 2009, which analyzed the enrollment and performance of BPS ELL students from SY2003 to SY2006 (Tung et al., 2009) and found (1) a decline in the identification of students as LEP and in their ELL program participation; (2) an increase in LEP student enrollment in special education programs; (3) substantial increases in dropout rates; and (4) large gaps in MCAS pass rates between LEP students and English proficient students. In the present study, the same enrollment and educational outcome indicators are examined, but new analyses are also presented. Appended are: (1) Detailed Methods; (2) ELL Practices Framework Based on Literature Review; and (3) List of Acronyms. (Contains 3 figures, 23 tables and 50 footnotes.) [This paper was written with Eileen de los Reyes and Antonieta Bolomey. For "Learning from Consistently High Performing and Improving Schools for English Language Learners in Boston Public Schools. Executive Summary," see ED540998.]

The perspectives of graduates offer a valuable source of understanding for educators and policy-makers on how to ensure high quality educational pathways that prepare all students for work and college. Based on in-depth interviews with graduates from three Boston Public Schools with well-established performance-based assessment systems, the study analyzes graduates' preparation for future academic, professional, and personal endeavors. First, graduates describe the process of learning from performance assessment, defined as assignments that measure how a student uses knowledge and complex skills to create or refine an original product using multiple steps over time. Next, they reflect on the ways their learning prepared them for future schooling or work and the areas in which they faced challenges. Overall, despite a few challenge areas, graduates who were interviewed say the study schools' performance assessment systems contributed to their success in college and in the world of work. Performance assessments helped students who participated in the study to discover their own learning styles, to learn academic content and skills, and to develop critical thinking, communication, and real world skills. Appended are: (1) Methods; (2) Interview Protocol; (3) School Characteristics and Sample Demographics; and (4) About the Study Schools and the Center for Collaborative Education. (Contains 4 tables, 7 charts, 1 diagram, 4 boxes and 24 footnotes.)

The purpose of this literature and field review is to understand previous efforts at scaling up performance assessments for use across districts and states. Performance assessments benefit students and teachers by providing more opportunities for students to demonstrate their knowledge and complex skills, by providing teachers with better information about student progress, and by encouraging schools to build professional collaborative cultures through integrating curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Despite these benefits, performance assessments in accountability systems are still relatively rare in the U.S. This review of such systems found that the main challenges facing educators interested in using performance assessments at scale, and for accountability purposes, are the technical quality of performance assessments, the sustainability of implementation through strong professional development models, and political buy-in. Through the wealth of their collective experiences, the knowledge and capacity to tackle each of the challenges exists, and those lessons should be applied to the next generation of accountability systems. Through a systematic description of seven performance assessment scale-up efforts, as well as descriptions of analogous efforts from teacher certification, medicine, and law, this review concludes with implications for future endeavors to integrate performance assessments into accountability systems. Some of these implications include: (1) Develop and provide schools and districts with criteria and guidelines for achieving technical quality in performance assessments; (2) Use external partnerships and experienced teachers to create professional development models in assessment literacy, assessment design, and scoring; (3) Use state and district policy incentives to support the regular collection of technical quality evidence for each assessment; and (4) Build public and political support for including performance assessments in accountability systems. (Contains 5 tables and 3 footnotes.)

The Pilot schools Experiential Education Demonstration (PSEED) project was intended to deepen and embed high-quality experiential education within each participating school's academic programs. A continuation of a multiyear set of initiatives by the Barr Foundation, PSEED was an effort to unify the foundation's content area foci on arts, fitness/sports, and environmental education with its belief that Pilot schools held promise as a systemic reform in the Boston Public School system (BPS). The Barr Foundation chose to collaborate with the Pilot schools in this work, in part because their greater flexibility allows for the adjustments in budget, staffing, and scheduling at the school level that are a prerequisite for successful experiential education programming. The PSEED work was grounded in the belief that high-quality experiential education would significantly enhance student engagement and performance over time. PSEED implementation began in the fall of 2005 and ended in the spring of 2008. The purpose of this PSEED documentation report is to summarize the three years of work in the seven Pilot schools, all of whom had diverse goals and implementation plans. Two appendices are included: (1) Instruments Used in the Documentation Project; and (2) Documentation Exemplars from Schools. (Contains 5 tables and 11 footnotes.)

This study probes more deeply on defining the "reform agenda" and answering the question, "How do coaches balance pushing the reform agenda and meeting the immediate needs of school staff?" This study first teases apart what coaches mean by "reform agenda" and "immediate needs." The term "reform agenda" has multiple owners: the district reform agenda, the principal's reform agenda, Center for Collaborative Education's (CCE's) reform agenda, and/or the coach's reform agenda and therefore multiple meanings. The school staff's attitudes towards whole school change depend upon how they perceive and experience each reform agenda. This study identifies some of the "immediate needs" which potentially detract from the work of whole school change. It then describes coaches' strategies for achieving the balance between reform and reality, the challenges faced in achieving this balance, and ways that CCE may address these challenges to develop the coaching and reform models. Three appendices are included: (1) CCE Networks; (2) CCE Mission and Theory of Action; and (3) Interview Protocol. (Contains 1 table.)

High parental involvement has been linked to increases in student achievement and engagement in school (Moore, 1992; Swap, 1993; Henderson and Berla, 1994; Fuller and Olsen, 1998). Schools with large populations of low-income students or students of color often have difficulties in engaging a majority of parents due to a variety of social and cultural differences among parents and teachers. While the literature on parent involvement cites many examples of challenges to parent involvement and suggestions to overcome those challenges, few models of extensive parent involvement in urban, public high schools have been described. The Boston Arts Academy is one such example. Parent involvement was studied at this urban public high school through staff and parent interviews, documentation, and observation of family events at the school. Boston Arts Academy engages a vast majority of its parents in school-based activities through multiple events and entry points, a welcoming school environment, and frequent communication among staff and parents. By focusing on building a diverse, inclusive culture and encouraging parents to take part in the school, the academy engages parents with varied prior experiences and dispositions toward parent involvement. Parents express that the school creates an open, welcoming, and informative environment. Findings from this case study suggest several key approaches that other schools may adopt: (1) Developing a coherent school vision that focuses on including families of varying dispositions as part of the team; (2) Supporting staff commitment to knowing students well and regularly communicating with parents; (3) Creating multiple, diverse opportunities for parent involvement, and support for parents to avail themselves of these opportunities; and (4) Allocating staffing resources toward facilitating parent communication and involvement. Two appendices are included: (1) Descriptions of the Pilot School Autonomies; and (2) Multiple Entry Points. (Contains 10 footnotes.)

For the past decade, the federal government has supported comprehensive school reform as a way to improve under-performing schools (US Department of Education 1998). Thousands of schools across the country are now implementing scores of different whole school reform models with the hopes of improving school culture and raising student performance. Numerous studies have examined the effectiveness of CSRD schools (Sterbinsky and Ross, 2002; Sterbinsky, Ross, and Redfield, 2001; Berends, Bodilly, & Kirby, 2002a; Berends, Bodilly, & Kirby, 2002b). Their most significant finding is that schools which are able to implement the design fully are more likely to show gains in student improvement; however, levels of implementation vary greatly across schools, districts, and designs (Berends 2000; Berends et al, 2002a). The ability of designs to adapt to local contexts has met with mixed levels of success (Bodilly, 2001), as has their ability to have an impact on the "core of educational practice" (Elmore, 1996). In a recent article in Phi Delta Kappan, Mike Schmoker argues that "comprehensive school reform" must take a more flexible, less prescriptive approach that cultivates professional learning communities focused on improving instruction. Much of the research on CSRD schools has been focused on quantitative outcomes. Additional research needs to examine ways that schools and model developers adapt their designs based on local context to examine closely teaching and learning. This study uses qualitative methods to examine four Turning Points Middle Schools to understand how these schools have achieved success in adapting the Turning Points design. Appendices include: (1) Turning Points Principles and Practices; and (2) Profile of Current Regional Centers. (Contains 11 footnotes.)

The purpose of this study is to document how member schools of the Boston Pilot Schools Network use authentic assessments to understand what their students know and can do. These principles not only reflect the belief that a student's learning must be measured in multiple, authentic ways, they also reflect the Network's focus on equitable practices--schools should take responsibility to encourage students from different contexts and cultures to show in diverse ways what they know and how they learn. This study provides documentation of a new generation of schools that have come of age after most of the foundational research on authentic assessment was produced. This paper offers a snapshot of the use of authentic assessment in the Pilot Schools and identify the challenges the schools face as they try to advance this work. This study contributes to the field by documenting performance assessment schools as they struggle to continue the work in a difficult political context. The researchers hope to inform those working with authentic assessment or evaluating its impact. Ideally, their work will also be of use to practitioners as they implement personalized assessments in an increasingly standardized environment. Pilot Schools Network Statement on Accountability is appended. (Contains 1 footnote and 26 resources.) [Funding for this report was provided by the Barr Foundation, the Goldberg Family Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation.]

There is no more pressing problem in education today, writes the author, than closing the achievement gap between low-income urban schools and more advantaged predominantly suburban schools. A study by the Center for Education Research & Policy at MassINC (CERP), identifies some of the characteristics of higher-performing urban high schools in Massachusetts. On the most general level, the CERP findings are consistent with a significant academic literature on effective urban high schools. Such schools are typically marked by a culture that is highly focused on a core academic curriculum and college preparation. The faculty are highly skilled and share a commitment to work together to foster the success of all students. Students are known by their teachers and receive personalized support and encouragement. There are clear, agreed-upon standards of performance for all members of the school community with bonds of mutual commitment and obligation to achieve the school's mission. Examination of the schools included in the CERP study suggests certain principles that, if applied to urban high school reform, may lead to greater success for urban youth: (1) Small is better; (2) Autonomy on matters of staffing, budget, curriculum, governance, and time is as critical as size; (3) Choice is associated with achievement; (4) Extra resources make a difference; (5) Well-conceived, structured, and supported inclusion programs can be effective in educating English language learners and students with special needs; (6) College and community partnerships help; (7) Incorporating earlier grades is a potent strategy for closing the achievement gap in high school; and (8) Stronger school and student accountability provisions make a difference in creating academically challenging communities of learning. Recommendations are included for both state and district level. Appendix contains: Characteristics of Selected High-Performing Schools. (Contains 8 endnotes.)

This report examines the efficacy of the Boston Pilot Schools, an innovative model of urban schools created to promote innovation and increased choice options within the Boston school district. The report uses school and district level data to examine student demographics, achievement, and engagement at the 11 Pilot Schools that were in operation for over 1 year. Overall, while the Pilot Schools serve a student population generally representative of the Boston Public Schools, their students perform well on all available measures of student engagement and performance and are among the top performing of all Boston Public Schools. This report concludes that with an enrollment roughly mirroring the district's student population, the Pilot Schools have succeeded in creating communities of learning which meet students academic and emotional needs. These schools have low grade retention and high graduation rates and send significantly more students on to postgraduate education. The Pilot Schools succeed because their status, with autonomy from the district over budget, staffing, scheduling, governance, and curriculum, allows them to create unified learning communities. Their smallness allows staff and students to know each other well, and structures such as smaller learning communities and advisories allow relationships among school community members to build over time. (Contains 12 references.) (SM)

Perhaps the greatest challenge facing educators of today is to create and sustain high-quality educational environments for low-income students and students of color. The Boston Pilot Schools Network, a network of eleven small, innovative schools within the Boston Public Schools, can be a model for other schools and districts as to how to create schools in which students of color can achieve at the highest levels. There are several factors that contribute to the success of Pilot Schools. Pilot Schools operate within the Boston Public Schools, but have autonomy from the district over budget, staffing, governance, curriculum and assessment, and the school calendar. Pilot Schools use their autonomies and increased flexibility to organize their schools to meet two conditions known to support high student achievement--creating environments where students are well known to their teachers and providing teachers with adequate time to collaborate. Pilot Schools also use their autonomies to engage parents in the school, and parent engagement is linked to high student achievement, especially among students of color. Another proposed reason for the success of Pilot School students is that most Pilot Schools actively talk about diversity, and these conversations influence the structures, staffing, professional development, pedagogy, and curriculum of the school. The goal of this paper is to show the broad range of how and why Pilot Schools engage in these conversations. After presenting information on the history of the Pilot Schools, this paper describes research that examines the impact of diversity conversations in schools and the negative consequences for students when those conversations are silenced. Next, the results of a study examining how Pilot Schools think about and engage in diversity discussions is described. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for schools to develop the ability to engage in diversity conversations. (Contains 3 footnotes.)

This paper presents data from an ongoing study of the role of coaches in facilitating whole-school reform, analyzing teacher and administrator perceptions of coaching practices in their schools and how those practices influence school reform. Teachers and administrators from five schools that received coaching from the Center for Collaborative Education completed surveys and interviews, and the coaches kept coaching logs. Data analysis indicated that teachers and administrators saw coaches as playing in important role in effecting school change. Coaches typically worked with teachers during meetings, primarily with academic teams. Administrators reported one-on-one weekly meetings with coaches to help them stay focused. Coaches used a variety of activities, including looking at student work, engaging in databased inquiry, and working on the school improvement plan. Coaches focused their work on improving learning, teaching, and assessment, building a collaborative culture, and databased decision making. Two key equity issues considered of low-effectiveness were heterogeneous grouping and exploring equity. Most teachers said coaching led to school and classroom change and had less influence on addressing equity. Barriers to implementing the reform model included lack of faculty commitment, too many initiatives in the school, and lack of understanding of the coaching role. (SM)

This is the second in a series of reports that examines the role of coaches in facilitating school change. The report explains that as coaching, or external facilitation of school change, becomes a more widespread strategy for helping schools undergo comprehensive restructuring to create more professional collaborative cultures and to increase student achievement, the need for documentation of effective practices becomes greater. At the Center for Collaborative Education, a model of weekly coaching based on four core school-based practices has developed. The role of the coach was first discussed in a paper examining coaches' own perceptions of their role in schools, their relationship building with school staff, their short and long term goal setting, and their beliefs about change. This paper extends those findings by analyzing teacher and administrator perceptions of coaching practices in their schools. (Contains 6 tables, 1 figure, and 5 footnotes.)

Parent involvement in their children's education is widely regarded as a way to help students succeed in school. High parental involvement has been linked to increases in student achievement and engagement in school. As a result, efforts to increase parent involvement in their children's education, both in and out of school, have been included in many school improvement and reform efforts over the last two decades. This paper focuses on preliminary findings of a study on parent involvement in the Pilot Schools. The goal of this paper is to present the range of opportunities that Pilot Schools provide for parents in their communities. As it is the first in a series of reports, it forms a base for future studies on the impact of parent involvement in the Pilot Schools. A list of autonomies is appended. (Contains 2 footnotes.)

This study examines Pilot Schools, which were created via a partnership among Boston's mayor, school committee, superintendent, and teachers union, to promote increased choice options within the school district. The initiative provides models of educational excellence to help foster widespread educational reform in all Boston public schools. Each school is small, democratic, and personalized. Enrollment matches that of the public schools by race, gender, and income status. The schools have autonomy over budget, staffing, governance and policies, curriculum/assessment, and the calendar. They have maximum flexibility in exchange for increased accountability. This study examines how Pilot Schools use their autonomy over resources to improve conditions of teaching and learning and increase their capacity to better meet students' needs. Data from interviews with school leaders, observations of Pilot School meetings, and document analysis (school calendars, schedules, staff lists, class lists, and annual all funds budgets) find that Pilot Schools negotiate consistent and equitable per pupil amounts. Through budget autonomy, they make necessary staffing and scheduling decisions to carry out their missions of improved student learning. They create staffing patterns that best met students' needs, use budget autonomy to personalize learning environments, and use scheduling autonomy to create longer blocks of instructional time. (Contains 16 references.) (SM)

Boston Pilot Schools were created in 1994 to promote increased choice options within the school district. Unlike most urban public schools, the Pilot Schools have control over budget, staffing, curriculum, governance, and time, though they continue to operate within the Boston Public Schools. This report examines quantitative indicators of Boston Pilot Schools related to student demographics, engagement, and performance. Data come from the Boston Public Schools and individual Pilot Schools. Results indicate that the Pilot Schools serve their students well. With an enrollment roughly mirroring the district's student population, the Pilot Schools have succeeded in creating communities of learning which meet students' academic and emotional needs. Across indicators of student engagement, the Pilot Schools have among the highest attendance and longest wait lists, and among the lowest transfers out and suspensions in the district. By standardized test scores, Pilot Schools students score at or above the district average in all subjects. These schools have low grade retention rates and high graduation rates, and they send significantly more of their students on to postsecondary education. Their status as Pilot Schools allows them to create unified learning communities with smaller class sizes, higher teacher-student ratios, longer instructional periods, and greater collaboration to improve teaching and learning than most other public schools in Boston. (SM)

This paper describes the role of Center for Collaborative Education (CCE) in supporting a unique urban public school network, the Boston Pilot Schools Network. By informing the educational community of its strategies, activities, and challenges, CCE hopes to contribute to the understanding of how change promoted from outside the school can affect teacher and student learning. The Center for Collaborative Education is a non-profit organization whose mission is to improve student learning in K-12 public schools and districts by promoting models of systemic reform.

This paper reports on the preliminary results of an ongoing long-term study of the role of coaches from the Center for Collaborative Education (CCE) in facilitating whole-school reform. The paper also presents a glimpse into the work of coaches at a very specific time in their work, both with schools and in their own understanding of coaching. The report focuses on two points: (1) how coaches assist and enhance schools' efforts at reform, that is, what kinds of activities coaches engage in, how these activities facilitate change, and what coaches think about these activities; and (2) how coaches' activities are grounded in CCE's core school-based practices. Data for the study were collected from the logs of, interviews with, and observations of 18 coaches. (Appended are a sample coach's log and the interview protocol.) Following are some of the key findings of the study: The coaches' principal activities focused on meetings facilitation, conflicts among staff members, teacher-student interactions, and solutions to schoolwide dilemmas. The most frequently mentioned roles of a coach were to ask questions, to mirror the school culture for teachers, and to bring resources to teachers. (Contains 12 references.) (WFA)

Turning Points is a New American Schools design for comprehensive middle school reform coordinated by the Center for Collaborative Education (CCE) in Boston Massachusetts. It focuses on creating a professional collaborative culture and using data-based inquiry to improve teaching and learning for all students. Turning Points seeks to create high-performing schools, especially those serving high percentages of low-income students and students of color. The design is driven by one overarching goal--ensuring success for every student. Based on twelve years of research and practice in urban, rural, and suburban middle schools across the country, Turning Points helps middle schools to strengthen their academic core and to create caring and challenging learning communities that meet the needs of young adolescents. The design grew out of the seminal "Turning Points" report issued by the Carnegie Corporation in 1989, which concentrated on the considerable risks adolescents face as they reach the "turning point" between childhood and adulthood.

Increasingly, third parties are working with schools and providing a coach (a skilled educator external to a school) who helps to facilitate reform. This paper explores some of the complexities of coaching by presenting a case study of a coach in her first year of facilitating math and science reform in a pseudonymous middle school in a Boston suburb. The school enrolled 900 students, predominantly white and middle class, and had approximately 70 teachers, including 12 math and science teachers. The coach came from the Center for Collaborative Education, a nonprofit organization that works with schools and districts to improve student learning by promoting and facilitating models of school reform. The center employs the following four school-based practices: (1) building leadership capacity and a professional collaborative culture; (2) improving learning, teaching, and assessment; (3) creating structures to support high achievement; and (4) fostering data-based inquiry and decision-making. The case study identified some of the challenges coaches face and some of the strategies used by coaches in their daily work. The paper also discusses some of the challenges coaches face. (WFA)