Evaluation of the California Subject Matter Project

Introduction Despite pressures for quick one-size-fits-all fixes to providing teachers with professional development, the California History-Social Science Project (CHSSP) has maintained a focus on providing long-term, subject-specific professional development. The CHSSP has sought opportunities to partner with districts, schools, and teachers so as to help build teachers' content knowledge, academic literacy skills, and professional communities. By doing so, the CHSSP strives to enable teachers to base their instruction on primary sources and historical analysis and argumentation. At the same time, districts across California have been seeking ways to help their teachers gain the skills necessary to deliver rich learning experiences that offer students opportunities to develop advanced skills through a variety of approaches to learning. This case study describes the development of a partnership between one of the CHSSP sites, Exhibit 1), and the Mount Diablo Unified School District (MDUSD; Exhibit 2). This partnership began in the mid-1990s and continues today. We begin by describing the work done in this partnership, starting with the initial collaborative efforts that began the partnership. Next, we illustrate how the CHSSP and MDUSD built on multiple opportunities to expand the partnership and achieved many of its goals. After explaining the evolution of the partnership, we discuss key teacher-reported outcomes as well as the challenges the partnership faced. The work we portray exemplifies some of the work going on among the CHSSP sites, work that is constantly evolving as the CHSSP seeks ways to move forward in an increasingly challenging context. The partnership between the UCB CHSSP and MDUSD stemmed from a common desire to support teachers and improve student outcomes. With that goal, they began working to provide professional development for grade-level groups of teachers. This joint work resulted in strong relationships that would later lead to larger scale efforts. One of the long-term goals of the CHSSP was to build relationships that could provide opportunities for high-quality professional development for teachers. The CHSSP sites sought to expand both the depth and breadth of their work by reaching more teachers, The CHSSP is an organization of teachers, historians, and associated scholars that provides training, teacher development, and leadership opportunities. The CHSSP network is dedicated to increasing student achievement through a research-based approach that addresses standards-aligned content, academic literacy, and the disciplinary skills of history and the social sciences. In addition to the UC Berkeley location, CHSSP sites can be found at California State Universities …