The information contained on this page has been codeveloped with the Ohio Department of Education, but due to the changing nature of this work, all plans and project information on this page should be considered a DRAFT

 

Proposed Technical Assistance in Ohio: Year 1

 

Overview of Planned Work

The proposed technical assistance work detailed in this plan is a direct response to the federal and state policies and educational reform efforts in Ohio. Much of the work planned for Year 1 is new for the Great Lakes Comprehensive Center. Only the High School-Higher Education Alignment project carries over from the Great Lakes East Comprehensive Center (2005–2012) to Great Lakes Comprehensive Center (2012–2017). Each of the six projects requires knowledge of current research and national models of implementation from other states and districts.

Project 1: High School–Higher Education Alignment

The high school–higher education alignment project is funded through Race to the Top. The project is organized around 14 regional consortia composed of high school general education and career-tech staff and higher education faculty. The Race to the Top project provides funding to these consortia for three years. The action steps and outputs detailed in the following text link to activities described in the regional consortia plans. Great Lakes Comprehensive Center is represented on the statewide advisory council that advises this work and will be a part of site visits to consortia planning meetings.

The Ohio Department of Education (ODE) has requested that Great Lakes Comprehensive Center and partners work closely with the regional consortia and advisory council to codesign tools and processes that will support high school–higher education alignment and readiness. Great Lakes Comprehensive Center will collaborate with the College and Career Readiness and Success Center to identify best practices and apply research to the design of tools and processes.

The high school–higher education alignment work has been informed by the work of David Conley, Ph.D. He is the founder and chief executive officer of the Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC) and director at the Center for Educational Policy and Research (CPRE) at the University of Oregon. Some of Dr. Conley’s influential publications include: College Knowledge: What It Really Takes for Students to Succeed and What We Can Do to Get Them Ready (Conley, 2005) and College and Career Ready: Helping All Students Succeed Beyond High School (Conley, 2010).

The Great Lakes Comprehensive Centers objective for this project is to build ODEs organizational capacity to support regional collaboration and implementation of practices that will prepare students for college and career success.

The strategies for technical assistance that Great Lakes will use for this project include: 

• Assisting ODE in working closely with regional consortia and advisory council to design tools and processes that will support high school–higher education alignment of expectations. 
• Collaborating with the College and Career Readiness and Success Center to identify best practices and apply research to the design of project tools and processes.

Project 2: Simultaneous Credit

Simultaneous credit is an emerging term that denotes an award of both academic credit and career and technical education (CTE) credit for the same high school course or coursework and also the course credit that results from dual enrollment in college and high school. The push toward awarding academic credit for career-tech coursework comes in part from the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act of 2006. The act seeks to integrate rigorous and challenging academic and CTE coursework. But there are other factors at work in recognizing academic credit for career-tech coursework. Increased graduation requirements focused on college preparatory courses have limited the availability of elective courses like those offered by career-tech. Students who drop out also cite irrelevance of classes and boredom as reasons for not staying in school. As an alternative, career-tech courses offer engaging, real-world learning opportunities for these students.

Simultaneous credit work in Ohio may lead to the development and adoption of state policy that provides criteria and a process for awarding academic credit for CTE coursework; offers guidance for teacher qualifications for such coursework; and generates assessments that can measure both student competencies needed and demonstration of academic knowledge and skills.

There are two publications that have been influential in guiding ODE’s thinking about simultaneous credit. The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), in 2012, published a summary of state policies entitled Conditions for Awarding Academic Credit for Career/Technical Courses. The other article is by the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE), in 2009, entitled The Emergence of State and Local Policies to Support the Recognition of Academic Credit for CTE Coursework. The work also will be informed by Great Lakes Comprehensive Center’s previous national policy scans, provided that some updates on the research and policy review may be necessary to inform the Ohio work.

The Great Lakes Comprehensive Centers objective for this project is to build ODEs organizational capacity to strengthen existing state policy supporting simultaneous credit, to facilitate a working group of career-tech superintendents and associated school districts that designs criteria and a process for awarding simultaneous credit, and to convene an internal working group that supports awarding simultaneous credit.

The strategies for technical assistance that Great Lakes will use for this project include: 

• Assisting ODE in working closely with the CTE district working group to establish criteria for awarding academic credit for CTE coursework.
• Collaborating with the Center on Standards and Assessments Implementation.

Project 3: Professional Learning for Educator Growth Based on Evaluation Results

In December 2011, the Ohio State Board of Education adopted the framework for the Ohio Teacher Evaluation System (OTES). This system defines an approach for evaluating the effectiveness of teachers based on multiple observations of classroom performance and student academic growth. Performance evaluation of teachers aligns to the Ohio Standards for Educators. ODE led a pilot of the evaluation system with 138 local education agencies in early 2012. In June 2012, regional training and credentialing of teacher evaluators began across Ohio. Local boards must adopt an evaluation policy by July 1, 2013, and districts begin full implementation of OTES in 2013–14.

The stated aim of OTES is to “support teacher growth and development.” For teachers who receive an ineffective rating, an improvement plan will be developed. For teachers who receive a developing or proficient rating, professional learning will be provided based upon performance evaluation results. To realize the aim of OTES, tools and processes need to be made available that help district and school administrators align and plan for systemwide professional learning and growth based upon evaluation results.

The Great Lakes Comprehensive Center will support the identification and dissemination of professional learning delivery models that are supported by research. The writings of Charlotte Danielson, educational consultant and founder of the Danielson Group, have informed the design of OTES and have served to focus on the importance of using the evaluation system to support professional growth. Influential publications include: Enhancing Professional Practice: A Framework for Teaching (Danielson, 2007) and Evaluations That Help Teachers Learn (Danielson, 2011).

The Great Lakes Comprehensive Centers objective for this project is to build ODEs organizational capacity to support districts and schools as they design and implement professional learning opportunities based upon trends and patterns in teacher performance evaluation results and create a process for reconciling rating inconsistencies between performance evaluations and academic growth measures.

The strategies for technical assistance that Great Lakes will use for this project include: 

• Assisting ODE in designing state guidance to districts and a model for aligning and planning for professional learning based upon evaluation results. 
• Collaborating with the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders to align professional learning with evaluation results using Ohio as a case study and to conduct a review of state processes that address inconsistencies between performance evaluations and academic growth measures and apply that knowledge to an Ohio process.

Project 4: Ohio’s New Learning Standards and Support for Diverse Learners

Ohio’s new learning standards include mathematics and English language arts common core standards as well as newly revised science and social studies standards. These new standards are more rigorous in terms of the depth of knowledge to meet these standards and include a greater emphasis on problem solving, project-based learning, and construction of new knowledge. It is widely acknowledged that instructional shifts are necessary, just as shifts in assessment are needed, to realize the power of these standards to produce students who are college and career ready. But with this increased rigor, there also is a greater sense of urgency about meeting the needs of struggling students, students with disabilities, and English learners.

Both Race to the Top and the ESEA Waiver focus on closing achievement gaps and increasing the graduation rate of students. ODE has been proactive in developing model curricula for teaching to the new learning standards and has supported regionally based professional learning for teachers transitioning to implementation of new learning standards. ODE has also implemented alternative assessments developed by AIR. Targeted professional learning is needed to support instruction, formative assessment, and accommodations for diverse learners.

The work of Elise Frattura, professor of education at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, has been influential in shaping systems of support that focus on improving access and achievement among diverse learners. The work of NCEO also has informed Ohio’s response to curriculum, instruction, and assessments for diverse learners. NCEO published a synthesis report that focuses on diverse learners entitled Educating Struggling Learners: Reflections on Lessons Learned about Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment (Kurizaki, 2011). Another paper by NCEO that will inform conversations in Ohio is entitled Opportunities for Students With Disabilities From the Common Core Standards (Thurlow & Quenemoen, in press).

The Great Lakes Comprehensive Centers objective for this project is to build ODEs organizational capacity to support district and school implementation of research-based supports for diverse learners in the context of Ohio’s new learning standards.

The strategies for technical assistance that Great Lakes will use for this project include: 

• Assisting ODE in designing a blended approach to providing professional learning supports to teachers and administrators.
• Collaborating with NCEO to assist in identifying research-based practices in the context of Ohio’s new learning standards and accommodations and interventions that support diverse learners in accessing these more rigorous standards and demonstrating knowledge and skills needed to meet these standards.

Project 5: Support for PK–3 Students and Interventions in Reading

Ohio’s Senate Bill 316, passed into law in June 2012, states that students who enter third grade in 2013–14 or after must pass a minimum score on Ohio’s reading assessment to advance to the fourth grade. This law is based on a similar reading guarantee in Florida.

Diagnostic reading assessments are given at the beginning of each school year for Grades K–3. Students who are not reading at grade level receive intensive reading interventions and a reading improvement plan that is unique to each student. Students who fail to pass the minimum reading score in third grade are held back and receive 90 minutes of reading instruction each day as well as instruction from a high-performing teacher or a teacher with specific credentials, such as a reading endorsement.

ODE has requested assistance from the Great Lakes Comprehensive Center in defining effective reading interventions and helping to design a monitoring process for the effectiveness of these interventions. ODE also has requested assistance in the design of regional town hall meetings to communicate with district and building administrators and teachers about implementation of this policy. Great Lakes Comprehensive Center will collaborate with the Center on Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes.

The Great Lakes Comprehensive Centers objective for this project is to build ODEs organizational capacity to support districts as they conduct diagnostic reading assessments, develop reading improvement plans that include research-based reading interventions, and monitor student growth in reading through formative and summative assessments.

The strategies for technical assistance that Great Lakes will use for this project include: 

• Assisting ODE in supporting districts to implement key activities under the Third Grade Reading Guarantee.
• Collaborating with the Center on Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes to ensure that early learners are provided high-quality reading instruction and intervention.

Project 6: Aligned and Coherent State System of Support and Two-Way
Communication With Districts

The Great Lakes Comprehensive Centers cooperative agreement includes the following language on building capacity: “…building staff expertise within those [internal] structures to ensure that districts and schools are provided high-quality services and supports, and better aligning programs and policies through strengthening connections among different work streams” (U.S. Department of Education, 2012, p. 2).

ODE's organizational structure reflects both programmatic and funding streams, multiple offices and centers provide support to districts. An efficient system of support requires coordination and effective communication strategies. Coherence, coordination, and effective communication with districts not only increase efficiency but also strengthen performance of the organization.

The Great Lakes Comprehensive Center will collaborate with BSCP Center staff and with an internal ODE leadership team to identify work that is overlapping and incoherent. This internal leadership team will review internal structures and internal communications and work to build cross-office and cross-center planning and communication structures. Great Lakes Comprehensive Center also will work with Ohio as part of a collaborative benchmarking process with other states focused on organizational coherence and communication and support to districts and will also collaborate with the Office of Communications to create consistent messaging to districts and effective communication and feedback loops with districts.

The Great Lakes Comprehensive Centers objective for this project is to build ODEs organizational capacity through realignment and programmatic coherence and institutional adoption of effective internal and external communication strategies.

The strategies for technical assistance that Great Lakes will use for this project include: 

• Assisting ODE in reviewing internal communication and coherence as well as forms and effectiveness of communications with districts and develop improvement plans for needed internal changes and modes of communication.
• Collaborating with the BSCP Center to work with ODE as a partner in a multistate collaborative benchmarking best practices process.