Arts for Academic Achievement Developing Readers Project

Abstract

The Developing Readers Project is part of the Arts for Academic Achievement (AAA) program that has been implemented since 1997 in Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS). The mission of AAA is to increase student academic achievement and improve teacher practice by making arts-based and arts-integrated learning essential to classroom instruction through collaborations with artists and arts organizations. The primary goal of the project is to increase the reading achievement of students in the middle grades, with a concentration on working with students in grade 6. The students targeted for inclusion are struggling readers enrolled in schools that have a significantly large proportion of students in poverty as defined by their eligibility for free or reduced price lunch. MPS has contracted with the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement (CAREI) to evaluate its implementation of the Developing Readers Project. This document is the year 2 evaluation report that addresses project implementation during the 2009‐10 academic year. The report includes descriptions of the participants and project activities and the results of student surveys, classroom video documentation, and teacher interviews. Also included are the results of analyses of attendance rates during the 2009‐10 school year and standardized reading test performance in spring 2009 compared to spring 2010.