Holistic Process

True education reform is a holistic process. Students from low-income neighborhoods face as many challenges outside of school, as they do in school. Yet, many aspects of their lives outside of school affect their achievement in school. Project GRAD seeks to address all the factors affecting a student’s academic achievement.

Project GRAD is founded on the belief that there is a relationship between a student’s family life, discipline problems, math achievement, reading achievement, and future goals. Project GRAD seeks to simultaneously address the numerous factors hindering a student’s performance in kindergarten through college.


Our Theory of Change

It is GRAD’s theory of change that if an impact is of significant magnitude in an initial individual feeder, GRAD will spread to other low-performing feeders within the district, thereby becoming “systemic,” and that GRAD will be sustained because of the results it produces, its low incremental cost, and its broad base of support.

Project GRAD’s unit of reform is the feeder pattern, in effect a sub-system within the larger district. A feeder pattern or feeder system consists of all elementary and middle schools that “feed” individual high schools. Most school districts are more or less organized in feeder patterns. Project GRAD serves all schools in low-performing feeder systems, typically 7–15 interconnected elementary, middle, and high schools that serve 5,000–20,000 students.

GRAD combines specific evidence-based curricular and student and family service components into a coherent educational experience for students and school staff. It brings these approaches to all the schools in the feeder and provides the resources necessary to help the existing teacher corps become proficient in their implementation. In addition, to make college enrollment and completion more realistic for typically low-aspiring students, GRAD offers college guidance and scholarships. GRAD is implemented through a partnership between the school district and an independent local GRAD entity that provides resources and technical assistance. An external evaluation that tracks student progress also tracks evidence of GRAD’s impact.


Professional Development

Project GRAD's major investment is in the professional development of teachers, administrators, and parents, all of whom learn to implement proven approaches to teaching math, reading and language arts, and classroom management. In addition, Project GRAD brings social services to its schools and provides supplemental resources to assist teachers with the implementation of Project GRAD's components.