The Saint Paul Public Schools instructional model that Achievement Plus employs for its curriculum is the Project for Academic Excellence (PAE). PAE supports instructional reform in the classroom with comprehensive, continuous professional development opportunities for district personnel engaged in every facet of education, administrators and teachers alike. It draws administrators, principals, and teachers together in a pioneering reform effort for the entire district, based on proven methods of standards-based instruction.

Nine Principles of Learning, developed by the Institute for Learning at the University of Pittsburgh, serve as the pedagogic underpinnings of Achievement Plus.

1. Organizing for Effort: An effort-based school replaces the assumption that aptitude alone determines academic success. Accordingly, everything within the school is organized to support the belief that sustained and directed effort can yield high achievement for all students. High standards are set, and all students are given as much time and expert instruction as they need to meet or exceed the expectations.

2. Clear expectations: Clear standards of achievement and gauges of student progress toward these standards offer real incentives for students to work hard and succeed. By clearly and consistently encouraging high achievement, expectations for success become embedded in the thinking of parents, educators, and ultimately the students themselves. Descriptive criteria and models that meet the standards are displayed in the schools, and students refer to these displays to help them analyze and discuss their own work.

3. Fair and Credible Examinations: Tests, exams, and classroom assessments must be aligned to the standards of achievement for these assessments to be fair. Further, grading must be done against absolute standards rather than on a curve so that students can clearly see the results of their learning efforts. Assessments that meet these criteria provide parents, teachers, and students themselves with credible evaluations of academic success and areas that require improvement.

4. Recognition of Accomplishments: Clear recognition of authentic student accomplishment is a hallmark of an effort-based school. Progress points are articulated so that, regardless of entering performance level, every student can meet the criteria for accomplishments often enough to be recognized frequently. The celebration of work that meets standards or intermediate progress en route to goals provides examples for future student development and incentives for continuing achievement.

5. Academic Rigor in a Thinking Curriculum: In every subject, at every grade level, instruction and learning must include commitment to a knowledge core, high thinking demand, and active use of knowledge.

6. Accountable Talk: Accountable Talk means using evidence that is appropriate to the discipline and that follows established norms of good reasoning. Teachers should create the norms and skills of Accountable Talk in their classroom.

7. Socialized Intelligence: Intelligence comprises problem solving and reasoning capabilities along with habits of mind that lead one to use those capabilities regularly. Equally, it is a set of beliefs about one’s right and obligation to make sense of the world, and one’s capacity to figure things out over time. By calling on students to use the skills of intelligent thinking-and by holding them responsible for doing so, educators can “teach” intelligence.

8. Self-Management of Learning: Students manage their own learning by evaluating feedback they get from others; by bringing their own knowledge to bear on new learning; by anticipating learning difficulties and apportioning their time accordingly; and by judging their progress toward a learning goal. Learning environments should be designed to model and encourage the regular use of self-management strategies.

9. Learning as Apprenticeship: Learning environments can be organized so that complex thinking is modeled and analyzed in apprenticeship arrangements. Mentoring and coaching will enable students to undertake extended projects and develop presentations of finished work, both in and beyond the classroom.