The Transatlantic School Innovation Alliance (TSIA) is a partnership designed to improve teaching and learning by creating a small network of schools in London and New York City engaged in action research in adolescent literacy instruction. The partners are, in the United States: the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and New Visions for Public Schools in New York City; and in the United Kingdom: the Department for Children, Schools, and Families; the Department for Innovation, Universities, and Skills; and the Innovation Unit Ltd through the Next Practice project.

Goal
The Transatlantic School Innovation Alliance brings together educators and students in two large cities with similar environments of ethnic and language diversity, deep contrasts in wealth and poverty, and innovative efforts to improve student achievement. By building and supporting learning communities in London and New York City schools and across the Atlantic, the Alliance enables participants to identify, adapt, and implement effective practices to raise literacy achievement against standards and improve curriculum content and relevance. Over the long term, the goal is to eliminate achievement and attainment gaps; promote intercultural understanding; strengthen supports from partners, the community, and local education authorities; and foster learning about strategies and cultures that promote achievement.

The Alliance focuses on four priorities:

1. Creating and supporting a small network of six schools in New York and six in London
   
   
2. Engaging those schools’ administrators, lead practitioners, and students in action research on targeted efforts to improve student engagement and learning
   
   
3. Hosting face-to-face and virtual learning exchanges for educators and students in both cities, designed to identify and share effective strategies, practices, and results of their research
   
   
4. Ensuring that the lessons learned are widely disseminated within each country's school systems

What We Do
The Annenberg Institute serves as one of the lead U.S. partners on the joint U.S.–U.K. Executive Board. The board oversees the project planning: preparing professional development exchanges for educators in the participating schools, garnering local and regional political support for the project, and developing a communications strategy.

The sponsoring partners also help participating schools adapt literacy action-research strategies to meet local inquiry and improvement needs, provide or broker related professional development, facilitate and support school-level data analysis, promote regular communication among transatlantic counterparts, co-design cross-school and transatlantic meetings, make sure schools report regularly on their work, and ensure coherence among program components at the school level.

The sponsoring organizations also provide ongoing documentation and coordinate the evaluation of the project.


Timeframe
2006–2010


Partners & Funders

• Department for Children, Schools, and Families (DfCSF)
• Department for Innovation, Universities, and Skills
• New Visions for Public Schools, New York City
• Annenberg Foundation
  NOTE: The Annenberg Foundation provides funding for the
  U.S. partners in the project.