Spread the Word - In New York City, Encouraging Successful Schools to Share and Grow - Performance-based learning in PROSE schools

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Stanley

A feature describes how New York City’s UFT-created PROSE program supports public schools to make contract and regulatory changes through labor-management collaboration. It follows Brooklyn New School teacher Nancy Salomon Miranda as the school shifts toward performance-based assessments for elementary students, inspired by similar consortium work in high schools. The article outlines PROSE participation procedures and typical focus areas such as distributed leadership, expanded learning time, diversity support, peer classroom visits, and flexible scheduling for student grouping.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages7

Reading Time18 min

AccessFree to download

Spread the Word

PROSE program and its purpose

Performance-based assessments in elementary school

How schools participate in PROSE

Common PROSE focus areas

Contract changes and school-based options (SBO)

Spread the Word In New York City, Encouraging Successful Schools to Share and Grow By Jennifer Dubin “W here do you see your school in five years?”The question took Nancy Salomon Miranda, a fifth-grade teacher at the Brooklyn New School, by surprise. Nearly two years ago, she and her colleagues were attending a meeting atthe headquarters ofthe United Federation of Teachers (UFT) to discuss a new program that the union had negotiated with the New York City Department of Education. The program, Progressive Redesign Opportunity Schools for Excellence (PROSE), was created to encourage schools like the Jennifer Dubin is the managing editor of American Educator. Previously, she was a journalist with the Chronicle of Higher Education. To read more of her work, visit American Educator’s authors [index at www.aft.org/ae/](index at www.aft.org/ae/)[ ](index at www.aft.org/ae/)[author-index. The photo above and the ones on the following pages show](author-index. The photo above and the ones on the following pages show)[ ](author-index. The photo above and the ones on the following pages show)students and teachers from the Brooklyn New School and the International High School at LaGuardia Community College. Brooklyn New School to replicate and build on some of the best practices they had spent years putting in place: shared decision making, classroom visits by peers seeking to improve, scheduling changes to allow for more planning time and in-depth student work, and support for diversity in student enrollment. Atthe time of this meeting atthe UFT, the Brooklyn New School was considering applying to the PROSE program, which the UFT and the city’s Education Department had created in 2014. Salomon Miranda recalls that she and her peers thought for a minute before answering the speaker’s question about their elementary school. Then they started talking.“Let’s really do something wild and crazy,” she recalls them saying.“Why don’t we have a performance-based assessment?” Performance-based assessments* are essays, research papers, science experiments, and high-level math problems that the New *For more on performance-based assessments, see “Putting the Focus on Student Engagement” in the Spring 2016 issue of American Educator, available at [www.aft](www.aft). org/ae/spring2016/barlowe-and-cook. PHOTOGRAPHS BY BRUCE GILBERT AMERICAN EDUCATOR | SPRING 2017 25 PROSE enables schools with a proven record of collaboration to make changes outside of the contract. York Performance Standards Consortium, a coalition of about 40 public high schools, uses to engage students and measure their knowledge and skills in a deep and meaningful way over time. Salomon Miranda and her colleagues’ flash of insight was that elementary school students could demonstrate their learning through performance-based assessments, too. Years ago, when her own children had attended a consortium high school, Salomon Miranda had seen firsthand how performance-based assessments challenged them in a way that standardized tests did not. Two years after that initial meeting with the UFT, the Brooklyn New School is now using performance-based assessments to assess what third-, fourth-, and fifth-graders know and can do. Thanks to pitching the idea in its PROSE application—and as a direct result of collaboration between the teachers and administrators—it’s now one of the first elementary schools in New York to engage students in performance-based learning modeled on the consortium’s work. The idea for PROSE, in which more than 140 schools currently participate, came from UFT President Michael Mulgrew. The program provides a structure to enable schools with a proven record of collaboration between teachers and administrators, like the Brooklyn New School, to make changes outside of the contract and regulations to support student learning and teacher development. To participate, a school’s leadership team of teachers and administrators submits a plan to

FAQs

What is the PROSE program, and what does it enable schools to do?

PROSE is a UFT and New York City Education Department program that lets collaborative schools make changes outside the contract and regulations to support student learning and teacher development.

How did Brooklyn New School expand performance-based assessments to younger students?

Inspired by how performance-based assessments challenged her children at a consortium high school, Nancy Salomon Miranda and colleagues proposed performance-based assessments for elementary learning and implemented them for third-, fourth-, and fifth-graders.

What is the process for a school to participate in PROSE?

A leadership team of teachers and administrators submits a plan to a PROSE panel with equal numbers of union and management members.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Stanley