Saint Paul's Project for Academic Excellence (PAE) is a comprehensive academic reform initiative to enhance teaching and learning in Saint Paul Public Schools.

PAE was developed to draw together administrators, principals, and teachers in a pioneering academic reform effort for the entire school district. Introduced in the summer of 2001, PAE provides a unified direction for curricular reform across all schools. What began in selected elementary schools has now expanded to include every elementary and middle/junior high school.

PAE is rooted in the district's deep commitment to standards-based education and professional development opportunities for all Saint Paul Public School instructional and administrative staff. It is designed to dramatically improve how - and how well - students learn. It does so by transforming the way the core skills of reading, writing, mathematics, and, soon, science are taught in Saint Paul Public Schools, and by effectively and efficiently providing in-depth, ongoing training to teachers and administrators. These are the core elements of PAE:

• A foundation of standards-based curriculum and instruction
• Standards-based assessment to monitor progress
• Focus on a small number of core academic skills
• Extensive, continuing professional development to support quality instruction
• Demonstration sites to promote replication
• Provision of essential materials
• Sustained on-the-job coaching of teachers, principals, and district leaders
• A multilevel network of teachers for peer support
• Principals as instructional leaders
• District-level instructional leadership
• Increase to scale across the district

As the driving force behind the implementation of Saint Paul Public's Schools comprehensive standards-based reform effort, PAE is a lever for academic reform in every school across the district.

The Center for Academic Excellence
A comprehensive reform effort such as PAE, requires tremendous capacity and coordination. Yet, at the same time, efficiencies are imperative to allow the resources to be dedicated to the best training and trainers, and not to duplication of effort.

Saint Paul Public Schools addressed this capacity need through the creation of the The Center for Academic Excellence. The Center coordinates and manages PAE, and supports it both as a training facility and as a base for continued research and development into the expansion and refinement of the standards-based efforts.