October 22, 2010, Education Stakeholders Forum

It's good to see you. It feels, sort of like back-to-school night because we haven't ñ
havenít been together in a while. But we are delighted to have you out of the Department
this afternoon on what's a beautiful day. Thanks for coming in. My name is Massie Ritsch.
I'm the Deputy Assistant Secretary for External Affairs and Outreach. And we do these forums
periodically to talk in greater depth about what we've got going on at the department
and we have quite a lot going on, and itís a real varied program today, and then to take
your questions and get your comments as well. So we look forward to that discussion. Our
secretary will be joining us shortly to speak for a minute and also to take your questions.
So let me just outline the agenda for us. It's a full one. I will try to get you out
of here at 4:30 sorry--4:00 today, 4:00. We've got--up first, we'll have--hear from Judy
Wurtzel who's our Deputy Assistant Secretary in the policy office talking about the technical
assistance plans for Race to the Top. We've got two guest presenters today: from Achieve,
Matt Gandal, and from the State of Washington, Joe Willhoft, who will join us by phone. He
is the Assistant Superintendent for Assessment there. Theyíre going to be briefing us on
the plans for the two state-led assessment consortia, and that's of course a key component
of Race to the Top in our larger K-12 agenda. We'll move on to Promise Neighborhoods, after
that. Larkin Tackett will talk about that initiative and update us on their recent grantee
announcement for planning grants. And then we'll finally wrap things up with the TEACH
Campaign, our new effort to recruit the next generation of terrific teachers, and Brad
Jupp will take us through that. You got a couple of--you got a little homework here.
We have a relatively new publication called Built for Teachers. This is sort of the ESEA
Blueprint that we released in the spring through a teacher lens. It's written by our Teaching
Ambassador Fellows who joined us from the classroom here in Washington and tries to
address some of the questions we've been hearing from teachers since we've--since we released
the Blueprint back in March. So take a look at that. It's also available online in both,
you know, searchable and copied form as well as a PDF. And you can always order it from
ED Pubs which is our service for providing departmental publications. So our special
guest has arrived. Don't sit down, right? So to sort of kick off this forum series for
the new school year and to update you on what's to come, our Secretary, Arne Duncan.
Sorry for being late. I'll be quick. Do you want me to take questions or not? Or?
Yes.
So I'll be very quick and take a couple of questions. Obviously, it's been a pretty extraordinary
year and a pretty extraordinary 18, 19, 20 months. And we've come a long, long way. I
couldn't be more proud of the progress. I don't need to go through the litany of things
that have moved. But having said that, we have a long, long way to go and we're really
trying to start to think through what those next steps are. I just want to--want to walk
through a couple of those so that, you know, just sort of--what I'm thinking about as we
move forward. First, whatever happens in the next ten days politically is we want to move
forward with ESEA reauthorization. And we want it to be in a bipartisan way. That's
been the design, the intent, my belief from day one. And I think what the American people
are looking for is who's ever still standing after November 2nd. I think folks want us
to get something done and get something done together. And I actually can't think of anything
better than education for folks to come together behind and actually do something better for
America and for America's children. So that thing could blow up and I could be totally
wrong on this or off base, but I actually think we have a pretty good chance. And I'm
actually, today, pretty optimistic that we can move forward with reauthorization. I'm
happy to take any questions about the policy or the politics later. Secondly, I don't think
we've done enough on the early childhood side. And as you probably know, we have requested
$300 million in our FY11 budget to start to play there. We've had a great partnership
with HHS, and Secretary Sebelius has been fantastic. But I just think this is so important
to our long-term agenda. We need to have real money and we need to be planning here in trying
to increase quality, increase access. And so it's a big request. Haven't seen--we've
basically done nothing historically. But frankly, for me, this would just be simply a starting
point. We'd love to grow that number, you know, in years after that. But I just think,
you know, getting our three and four-year-olds, getting our babies off to a good start coming
into kindergarten is absolutely the right thing to do. So we want to play pretty seriously
there. Third, we are thrilled, obviously, with the Recovery Act saving jobs, you know,
last school year. We were ecstatic to get $10 billion leading into this school year
and a lot of folks in this room were extraordinarily helpful in helping us do that. And a lot of
other folks thought we were crazy and it would never happen and we were able to prove people
wrong. It's totally the right thing to do. In all candor, I think it's very unlikely
that we get another one next year. If you asked me, that would be a tough, tough lift.
And so I think the practical reality is, going into next school year, in the fall, we're
it's easy to say, hard to do. We're all going to have to do more with less, and really having
up front honest conversations about productivity, about efficiency, how we all think about this
together and not start scrambling in April and May and June, but, you know, starting
in January and February really having a national conversation. And, as you guys know, folks
have been cutting budgets for the past couple of years, most districts, most states. So
this is not an easy one. I do think it's reality. And the smarter we can be, the more we're
sharing information, the more we're working together, the better we're going to do. On
fourth, we had a great session last week in Tampa, Florida, at the Hillsborough County
school system, with the--Randi Weingarten, head of the AFT, Dennis Van Roekel, head of
the NEA, and, you know, a really innovative teacher contract there, doing lots of creative
things that 96 percent of teachers passed. And New Haven's got a fantastic deal that
I think 95 percent of teachers passed. And right here in D.C. they have a really interesting
deal that 80 percent of teachers passed. So I'm on a roll until I get to Baltimore, and
that didn't pass last week. But we're hoping--they're going to come back at that, I think, November
12th. But for me the larger context is, we are starting to have a series of places that
are doing some really creative things that are great for adults and great for children.
And those two things don't have to be in conflict. And as much as we've moved states around Race
to the Top and raising standards and better assessments, and, you know, removing barriers
to innovation, that has been a phenomenal movement, I would love in this next school--next
calendar year to really think about labor management agreements, and can we break through
and do some things in some fundamentally different ways. And, again, this stuff can be hard or
challenging or politically difficult, but I think there's a real appetite out there.
And what's--the reason I've been so motivated on this is because the teachers are overwhelmingly
asking for this. And I think none of us have done a good enough job of asking what--teachers
what they want. And I think where folks are providing it, in some theoretically tough
or controversial hard ways, teachers are loving it. It's what they're--it's what they want.
And so the question is, can we work together with management, with labor, and with, sort
of, local board chairs, board presidents, to think about the next pick a number, 25,
50, 75, 100, 200, I don't know what the right number is the next number of districts who
are willing to move in a very fast pace and do some things in a different way. And for
me the analogy is the movement we did around standards, where folks thought that was impossible
to get folks to talk about standards. And basically in six months we got 36 states to
move on this. So, you know, moving very fast, again, sort of really challenging sort of
political or conventional wisdom, but breaking through. And so I would love to try and do
that. In the new year we would like to have a--sort of a national conference January
-- January or February, early in the year, with a series of districts that are showing
a commitment and a willingness to move and see how that conversation goes. And then,
finally, we've had obviously huge progress at the start of, you know, Race to the Top,
and the start of investing in innovation, the start of Promise Neighborhoods, but we
have to implement. We have to really make sure we're executing behind this and that
we're providing great service to states, to districts, to community groups. As much work
as folks did, that has actually been the easy part of the job. As all of you know, the tough
part of the job is implementing really well. How do we better support them? How do we build
a team here? So thinking through even our own sort of internal management structure,
and we hope to put together what we're calling a service delivery unit that will help these
folks implement impeccably. We're still, you know, putting that together and thinking it
through, but we have some extraordinary candidates here who are going to help to lead that; who
have become this idea of much better partners, much less focused on compliance and filling
out reports, but really helping people execute against the great plans theyíve laid out,
and holding ourselves accountable for being a better partner. So there are lots of other
things we are thinking about, but those are sort of the couple at the top of my list.
And I think if we can see some fundamental breakthroughs in those, as good as the past
year has been, I think this next year could potentially be even better. I'll stop there.
Do we have time for questions? Am I over time or...
I think we have time for some questions. So we've got two microphones. We've got one there,
we've got one there. We are videotaping and transcribing this, so we do want you to use
the microphones. Speak really directly into them. Give us your name and any organization
that you are with. And we will take a few minutes for that. Any--any takers? Right over
here.
Hi, Secretary Duncan. Thank you so much for being here and taking my question. I believe
my boss, Maureen Levees, briefly spoke with you at the private the non-public--conference
that we had earlier last month I guess it was, and just--I'm interested in your thoughts
about the early education and your plans to expand that. And just speaking from the private
school aspect, there are a lot of private schools that already have great preschool
programs, and I'm just curious to know how you would best implement--I guess, work with
them and collaborate with them as you expand early education?
So Jacqueline Jones is our point on this. She is doing a great, great job. I encourage
you or anyone else to reach out to Jacqueline. She is going to really help us drive this.
But my simple thought is there are a lot of disadvantaged children around the country
who don't have access to quality preschool programs, and that if we're serious about
closing achievement gaps we need to level the playing field. And having our babies enter
kindergarten ready to learn and ready to read is the best thing we can do long term. And
so what I would love to do is create very high quality seats in communities that are
historically and today really underserved. And so that--sure, I mean, we would have to
figure out how we do it, and maybe sort of a Race to the Top type situation on the early
childhood side. But the outcome, my goal would be to have a lot more children, who desperately
need these kinds of high quality opportunities, to have access. And we'd love to have the
conversation with, you know, faith-based, privates, whoever, think about how we do this
work together.
Great. Thank you.
Next, right here.
Hi. My name is Christina Weeter with the National Youth Employment Coalition, and I'm curious
about how any plans for dropout recovery might be encouraged in the upcoming either reauthorization
and other efforts by the Department as a way to increase graduation rates for high school
overall.
So the--increasing graduation rates for high school overall is like at the heart of all
of our work. The dropout recovery work is obviously integral to that. You have that
piece of it at one side. You have the other side I think of doing a lot more around, you
know, AP and dual credit, which I think is, in my mind is actually dropout prevention
strategies. So we would love to have, you know, have more conversation on that. There
is some interesting stuff in our blueprint around that in ESEA, our ideas around ESEA
reauthorization for supporting those alternative schools, supporting those places that are
doing a great job of going back and getting those children off the streets and out of
the street, you know, out of their homes and back into school. That work is hugely important.
You may have seen, just recently, Baltimore came out with some very interesting numbers
of pretty significant improvements in those numbers, and whatever we can do to support
those efforts at the local level we want to try and do. So it's critically important work,
and whatever we can do, either through our FY11 budget or through reauthorization that
helps us get to the President's goal. Critical. Thank you.
We'll make Rob our last question.
Mr. Secretary, Robert Mahaffey with the Rural School and Community Trust. Thank you. We
are having a lot of conversations, as you know, around our formula fairness campaign
and looking at Title I within the context of reauthorization. From your seat at this
juncture, how probable do you think it will be that the formula will be looked at closely
during reauthorization? And has the Department moved forward in looking at some plans around
that regard?
It is absolutely being looked at. Whether we will change it or not, I don't know, but
weíre having lots of conversations around that. So whether it is Carmel Martin or Thelma
Melendez or John White , you know, as we move forward we are going to look at lots of different
things, and that is absolutely in the mix. So I can't tell you we are going to move or
not move, but is that part of the conversation? Absolutely. As recently as earlier this week,
we were talking about it.
Good. Thank you.
The one thing before I sneak out, that I would like to just add, if you haven't seen, we
have this new website, teach.gov, and weíre trying to launch this national campaign to
recruit a million new teachers as babyboomers retire. Please take a look. Please give us
feedback about what you like, don't like, but weíre going to try and do everything
we can to recruit this next generation of extraordinary talent into education. And,
obviously, our ability to attract and then retain that talent over the next couple of
years is going to shape public education for 30 years. It's this absolute generational
shift. So some real challenges, huge opportunity. But the launch of the Website was just the
start of that campaign. I'm going to go out across the country this year and do a series
of what we call reverse commencements, where I'll be talking to freshmen and sophomores
in college, and even juniors and seniors in high school, to get them to think about going
to education. We want great talent. We want to significantly diversify the talent coming
into education. I'm increasingly concerned that our students look--don't look like our
teachers, and we need to make sure we have many more teachers of color, many more men
coming into education, and weíre trying to deal very openly and honestly with those issues.
And if we just keep doing the same thing, those proportions, those differences, are
just going to get worse, not better. There are some real challenges, but a huge opportunity.
But please check out teach.gov, and any feedback you have as we get this rolling will be extraordinarily
helpful. Thanks for your hard work. Thanks for having me.
Thank you, Arne. And of course we will hear more about teach.gov, and you will see some
features of the site as our last segment. So let's move into our program. We are going
to start with Judy and Matt, if they could come up here to the table. We are going to
talk, as I said, about the technical assistance, to start with, that we are providing to our
Race to the Top grantees. We don't consider giving out the money the end of that program,
by any means. Thereís quite a bit more work for us to do, and certainly quite a bit of
work for the states to do, and Judy is going to take you through that. Wherever you like.
Yes.
Good afternoon. It's a good thing this moves down. So let me see if I can make this work.
So thank you very much, Massie. It's a real pleasure to be here. Let me just start by
taking a moment to acknowledge the truly extraordinary context that Race to the Top has created.
Eleven states plus the District of Columbia are Race to the Top grantees, and they have
committed to ambitious reforms that have the potential to transform student outcomes for
millions of students for years to come. Twenty-one states those 12 grantees and nine additional
states are Race to the Top finalists, or were the Race to the Top finalists. They put together
strong and credible plans for reform. And virtually every state 46, plus the District
of Columbia developed Race to the Top plans. They brought together their stakeholders and
had hard and important conversations about how theyíll reach their goals to prepare
more students for college and career readiness. As a result, all of these states are better
positioned to move forward. But, as Arne just said, thatís the easy work. Now it's really
rolling up your sleeves and doing the hard job of implementation, identifying promising
practices, building teacher and leader capacity, and strengthening the capacity of schools
and districts to implement reforms. Against this backdrop, weíre committed to supporting
state efforts to advance the reforms that have been sparked by Race to the Top. So as
states work to advance reforms in the four assurance areas; standards and assessment,
great teachers and leaders, data, and turning around low performing schools, states also
need to build their own capacity to better support school districts and schools and educators
in these reforms. So as Arne said, we are beginning to build a new approach to supporting
states as they move forward to implement their reforms, and a key part of this is a new Race
to the Top technical assistance network that weíre launching. The goals of the network
will be to build the capacity of states to accelerate reforms, build their capacity to
work effectively with their school districts, their schools, and their education communities,
to identify and share promising practices across all states, to promote collaboration,
so that states can work together effectively in a problem-solving mode, and to support
transparency and appropriate use of taxpayer dollars. Just last month the Department awarded
a contract to support this new Race to the Top technical assistance network. You can
see the participating organizations and the contract listed on the slide. I should note
that this is not an ordinary technical assistance contract, so first, itís funded at a total
of $43 million over the next four years. Second, the contract includes a $5 million performance
bonus based primarily on results. So to help align the contractor's goals with the goals
of the grantees, the performance bonus is based on the Race to the Top state's achievement
in terms of increasing student outcomes, the state's implementations of their Race to the
Top plans, and, of course, delivery of high quality and relevant services. Our hope is
that this creates a new dynamic in the provision of technical assistance that aligns expectations
and rewards for all involved. So whatís the design of this technical assistance network?
So the network obviously should meet the needs of states and their districts, so the network
aspires to be demand-driven and flexible. We know that the educational landscape is
changing very rapidly, and that we can't predict now what the needs of states and districts
may be two years, three years, or four years out. So the network will be designed to adapt
over time and be itself a kind of learning organization with continuous improvement built
in. And in the design we have built in support to Race to the Top states, but also supporting
reform across all states. So that's a key ingredient of what weíre planning. So what
will this network do? The intention is to partner with Race to the Top states and also
help all states move forward. We are at the very beginning of developing a work plan,
and as part of that we are gathering information from Race to the Top states about their needs
to inform what takes place. However, there are some general areas in which we expect
to provide support. So, in supporting the Race to the Top states to advance reforms,
we see that weíll be identifying common needs across grantees as well as individual state
needs. Weíll be developing communities of practice across states, so that states can
share knowledge and engage experts. We know that states can learn a lot from each other,
and that no state, no district, wants to reinvent the wheel. Everywhere in this country someone
has solved the problem, but we haven't learned how to share and spread great work. We also
will be focusing on, to use a consulting phrase, knowledge management tools. Basically, how
do you find those solutions? How do you put them in a format that makes it easy for other
people to use them? How do you access high quality research? The case studies that are
going to give people the practical information about how to move forward, and tools and protocols
that states and districts can use to advance their work. Weíre also, as I said, committed
to helping all states move forward, so that means that we will be working intensively
with Race to the Top states, but also sharing lessons learned and all of the materials that
we've created with the Race to the Top states, with all states who are interested in using
them in their reform activities. So identifying and documenting best practices to support
continuous improvement will be something that will, we hope, benefit all 50 states and D.C.
Weëll have a Race to the Top Website where much of the new information and materials
that are being shared will be developed, and that will be not just materials developed
by the contractor, but, as you know, the states with the Race to the Top grants will all be
moving forward and developing professional development modules, perhaps curriculum materials,
formative assessments. There will be a wealth of materials developed under these Race to
the Top grants. And we want them to be available to anyone in the country who wants to use
them, and weëll be working very hard to make sure that they are accessible to others. Weíll
also be having convenings for all states and other vehicles to provide support. Weíre
starting off with a meeting in December in Chicago, which will be for leaders of all
state education agencies, that will bring state education agency leaders together to
have in-depth and practical conversations about how to move forward across the assurance
areas, and really frank conversations about how you build state agency capacity to move
forward and partner more effectively with districts and other stakeholders. So as Arne
often says if he--when he speaks, when you sit in a state or in a district, as he did
before he came here, the words, "Iím from Washington, Iím here to help," are not always
words that are particularly welcome or credible. So we recognize that the Department has, shall
I say, room for improvement in providing really high-quality technical assistance that can
help states and districts meet their most pressing challenges. We also know that much
of the expertise lies within states and districts, and that promoting meaningful collaboration
is in itself a form of support and technical assistance that can help all of us get smarter
as we do our work. So we are launching this network that I have described with great hope,
but also with humility. And weíre looking forward to a productive partnership with the
states as we move forward in this effort over the coming months and over the four-year course
of this network. Thank you.
Thanks, Judy. Questions for Judy? Again, microphones there and there. Speak clearly. Give us your
name, your organization. Jim is the first out of his seat.
As always.
You bet. Jim Kohlmoos from Knowledge Alliance. And congratulations on this technical assistance
network. It's really a vital part of trying to sustain the innovations that are going
on both inside the Race to the Top states and beyond. I was just wondering, though,
about how you are going to reach out and involve the rest of the states. Is it through convenings?
Or is there an effort to try to push the technical assistance through the existing technical
assistance networks, or what?
So, it's a great question, Jim, and thank you for asking. So, as I said, weíre really
at the very beginning of designing this, but there are a couple of things on our minds.
So, obviously, convenings and websites are a piece of what we need to be doing, and that's
sort of our first piece that we are getting started on. But as you know, as well as anyone
in this room, the Department funds networks of the lab, the regional laboratories, of
comprehensive centers, of other technical assistance centers, that provide support to
states and districts around the country. And ultimately, weíre going to be working on
better connecting this network to those other technical assistance entities that we fund
to ensure really high levels of quality and some sharing of practices and information
across those multiple organizations. And as I am sure Jim know, and as some of you, as
you all saw on the prior slide, several of the organizations that house labs or centers
are part of this contract, which is a step in the right direction for knowledge-sharing
and collaboration.
Great. Thank you.
Thanks, Jim. Any other questions for Judy? All right.
Great.
Thank you, Judy.
Thanks.
So, in September, the Department awarded two grants totaling $330 million to the Partnership
for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, known as PARCC, and to the SMARTER
Balanced Assessment Consortia. We've got representatives from both here today, one in person. We have
Matt Gandal from Achieve, and on the line we have Joe Willhoft from Washington State.
We'll hear first from Matt, and then from Joe, and then we will take questions after
both of them. Matt? Here, if you like. Are you ready?
Thank you. Thank you, Massie and Judy. Good afternoon. I'm very pleased to be here, and
I want to also congratulate you and the Department on the direction you are moving in to that
previous presentation. As a group that works with states every day, we think theyíll greatly
appreciate that change in strategy here and working as a partnership. Speaking of a partnership,
we--Achieve is pleased to be part of one of the two consortia that got funded for Race
to the Top assessment grants, and we were thrilled to see the Department provide resources
for measurement of the common core standards. As amazed as we all were at being part of
an effort to try to get states to come together around a common set of standards, and as big
an accomplishment as it was to have the vast majority of the states already adopt a common
set of academic standards, we all know, we've been working in this field, that if these
standards aren't measured they won't have impact. So it was a great thing, we thought,
to have a little bit of money put aside to help states continue the spirit of cooperation
and move in that direction around assessment systems. And I'm going to tell you--talk for
a few minutes about the group of states that is part of what is called PARCC, Partnership
for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, and I know you'll get a few minutes--in
a few minutes, hear about the other major consortium that was funded. Hereís the map
of the states. There are two types of states in this consortium; one, governing states
in the dark blue; the other, called participating states, and this is all part of the governance
design for the consortium. The governing states have taken on greater commitments, will put
more skin in the game, and ultimately are very committed at the end of this process
to using this assessment system that gets built, and therefore, have more decision-making
authority. The participating states are also very active in shaping the assessment system,
providing input, but have slightly less in terms of decision-making. And in some of these
cases youíll find some of these light blue states are in both consortia that youíll
hear about today, because the Department allowed, and possibly even encouraged, states that
weren't sure what direction they wanted to go in to participate in more than one, and
it was -- but it was clear that if you are participating in more than one you can't really
have a governance role in either. So youíll hear this discussed, I'm sure, over time,
and I wanted you to see the states. This is a list, again, of the states. Two quick things
to point out. The Governing Board elected a chair, and that's Mitchell Chester, the
Commissioner of Education in Massachusetts who will be chairing the governing board.
And Florida was elected to be the fiscal agent, so the grant from the U.S. Department of Education
goes to the State of Florida to be administered on behalf of the consortium. Last point about
the states is this truly is a state-led effort. We've been very pleased to see the approach
the Department has been taking to these both consortia. Itís been very much a partnership,
very much leaving the decision-making in the state--in the hands of the states around everything
from what would be measured, how do we measure it, how to structure the consortium. There
were some very helpful guidelines put in the RFP, but a lot of flexibility for these consortia
to decide how to go about this in the most strategic way, because it is a very, very
complex undertaking. Sorry, some of these slides will be bigger than the screen. But
in any case, this is just a quick--each consortium was required to have a project management
partner, a third party organization that would help coordinate and facilitate the work of
the consortium. Again, I think this was a wise move on the Department's to know that
itís very difficult for a group of states to have the infrastructure across the states
to run a complex partnership and collaborative. So they required some kind of additional organization
to have a role. Achieve was lucky to be selected by PARCC to be that third party project management
partner. We've had some experience in helping to put the common core standards together
in launching consortia of states around assessments--shared assessments and other policies in the past,
and are very thrilled to have the opportunity to assist the PARCC partnership. So I'm going
to take the rest of the time to tell you very briefly a little bit about the assessment
design thatís envisioned, and then the work with other stakeholders to make sure this
is more than building a great set of tests. Important that--to know, these states, first
of all, Iíve been amazed at the level of collaboration that we've seen, both in putting
the proposal together and also in the initial stages of the work. These are very different
groups of states with different backgrounds, politics, you name it, but they really are
coming together to work as one and to let go of their differences as best they can.
And one reason is they've set a very ambitious goal that is, again, about much more than
building a set of tests. Theyíre all driven by getting more and more kids, all kids, ready
for college and careers, and they want the assessment system to be a means to that end,
not an end in and of itself. They've--they worked very hard on a set of outcomes, a theory
of action, which you can see up here. And I just want you to understand some of the
drivers. The first driver, as I just mentioned, is college and career readiness. They want
the assessments to measure college and career readiness. They want the results to indicate
college and career readiness. They want it to be anchored at the end of high school in
that goal, and they want every grade level of the assessment system to tell students
and families they are on track by the end of high school to be ready for their next
steps. And thatís a very different way to think about an assessment system; than what
most states have in place today. Second, they want this to be a driver of excellent instruction
and that will--that has led to a very different design for the assessment systems. They want
the information to come back in a more timely manner to teachers. They want it to be more
useful, and they want the assessments themselves to measure a richer, more complex set of skills,
and to actually model effective instruction in the classroom. Again, many of you would
realize we haven't gotten there today with our existing assessment systems. Third thing,
they're in this together. They will use the same assessments across this consortium, and
they will agree on the cut scores and what it means to be proficient. So it can get us
beyond this question of whether South Carolina's proficient score is higher than Massachusetts,
it's higher than California. At least within each consortium--within this consortium, they
will set those up together and use them in common. All of the states in the PARCC consortium
are very committed to robust accountability systems. Many of them were the Race to the
Top winners, and they very much want this newly designed assessment system to support
a very robust accountability model. And lastly, as I mentioned earlier, college and career
readiness is a driver and an ultimate goal, so this partnership is very serious about
higher education being at the table, and ensuring that the assessments are not only valuable
to the K-12 system but also are very meaningful to higher education post-secondary systems.
And I will talk about that more in a moment. A couple of things about the tests themselves,
at least the design. As I mentioned, the goal here is to measure the common core state standards
which are very rigorous and robust. And all of the states agree you're going to have to
have a richer approach to assessment in order to pull that off. Mix of item types, no longer
relying only on multiple choice, for sure. Performance tasks that can't be dealt with
in a one-hour sitting, and very much a reliance on technology to try to achieve some breakthroughs
in how knowledge and skills are measured. The assessments will be fully online in every
state, computer-based when theyíre given except possibly in the earliest grades, grades
three through five, where there's some discussion about whether the time is right to start that
way or whether it will take a little longer to get there. But this is a huge thing for
this group of states. Many of whom do not have infrastructures yet. They're established
to support this, but all of whom thought it didn't make sense to invest in an assessment
system based on how things are done today, or even frankly yesterday, for most young
people, it needed to really look ahead and be prepared to lead. So it will be a completely
computer-based assessment system in all the states. And that will lead to a very--as I
said earlier, interesting way to look about--look at how tests are given and how they're scored,
maximizing artificial intelligence, for example, when possible. And we can talk more about
that in another time. Last picture of the assessment system and last difference is the
assessments will not only be given at the end of the year. The goal here is to build
what are called through course assessments, so that throughout each grade there are components
of the assessment system given. As you can see in this model, measuring parts of the
standards that are considered really important for that part of the year, providing immediate
feedback to educators, students, and families, so that the results can be useful in a continuous
improvement model throughout the school year. There will still be an end of the year test.
This enables it to be shorter, more focused, and allow for richer performance tasks to
be spread throughout the year. In addition to -- all of what I have described is the
summative assessment design, so all of those through course would be rolled up into a summative
assessment score. It would be used for all the purposes that these states are intending
to use summative assessments. So that's a big change, important change, and driven by
a lot of agreement about what the current assessments are not enabling schools to do.
Here's some additional tools that this partnership will build to go beyond summative assessments,
some formative tools, a text complexity tool which should be very helpful in schools and
classrooms, K through 2 formative assessments in English and Math, and then a set of--a
set of tools around guiding curriculum, curriculum framework, sample items and even more, and
that will all be done in an online platform, so that it's widely accessible. And last,
I just want to talk about something very important to this consortium, which is how to--how to
involve all of the key players in this work in a manner that sometimes doesn't happen
when building testing systems. There's been a lot of discussion about how to involve educators,
school leaders at the K-12 level, how to involve higher education as a true partner, as I mentioned
earlier, and how to make sure parents, students, and the public are involved and know what
is coming, because this could be a very significant change, and hopefully a welcome one. This
will give you a flavor on teachers. There are very--a number of points along the way
in the development of these assessments when teachers from each state will be plugged-in
into the process and given formal roles. And this is continue--this is a work in progress
to sort this out, but the key here is it's not all going to be done in the back room
either in a national setting or in the state agencies. This has to be done somewhere--as
transparently as possible and involve as many teachers as possible, so they feel comfortable
with what's being built, itís going to work for them, and they ultimately can become ambassadors
with their fellow teachers for why these kinds of changes are so important. By the way, there
are--you'll see mentioned here professional development tools. Part of the grant will
support the development of professional development modules for teachers that states can use around
the new system. Higher education, I mentioned earlier higher ED is a key partner in this
consortium. The department had a competitive priority in the proposal. If consortia wanted
to bring higher education on as a partner, they could, they weren't required to. And
the maximum points could be achieved if you had higher education systems and institutions
representing 30% of the direct matriculation students across all the states in the consortium.
PARCC felt this was a very high priority to these states, and by the end of the few months
of the proposal process, got 90% matriculation students represented by all the systems and
institutions that signed on. So the vast majority of public two and four year systems and institutions
across these 26 states signed on to be part of this work, which was a much greater number
than anyone expected. The system--this work plan will be designed so they're at the table
helping to shape the high school assessments, the high school cut scores in those assessments,
so that ultimately there's a college readiness score that all students will get, and that
score will be honored by postsecondary institutions as indicating that you are ready for credit-bearing
courses. And the goal here, ultimately, is to use this as a ladder to get many, many
more kids into college, better prepared, and out of college on time with degrees, which
we know is a big national goal. And the last point, Judy mentioned implementation. It is--even--all
the states are realizing how difficult it's going to be to implement the new standards
and certainly the new assessments that have come on board. And we are taking steps, as
a consortium, to plan for that. We're very happy that the department recently provided
an extra supplemental grant of $15.86 million to each consortium for these purposes because
we knew that the original grant was mostly for developing the system and not really for
assisting in its implementation. Very rich conversations going on right now among the
states about how to best utilize these dollars in terms of planning for the implementation
of common core standards, what are the kinds of tools that will be needed in classrooms,
what are the kinds of cadres of educators and others that will have to be built to understand
how to use these tools and these standards, how do you pave the way for a transition to
a brand new very different kind of assessment system. So we're very excited about that new
opportunity and we think it is going to go a long way to help with the challenge that
Judy mentioned earlier. And the last thing I want to show you is the timeline. It's a
very ambitious timeline for those of you who know anything about assessment development,
considering itís an entirely new system. The first year will be design and finding
the right partners to help develop the assessments. The second year will be development. The third
and fourth years, this consortium decided to have two full years of field testing of
these new exams so that they can really work out the kinks and understand what's going
to work, what's not going to work, and give teachers as early an indication of what's
coming as possible. And then, by 2014-15, the new system will be given in full across
the partnership states. Sorry, that was a mouthful, but I wanted you to see all of the
great work that's underway. As I said earlier, it's a very committed group of states. We've
been honored to be part of it, and really amazed at how quickly they put aside their
differences and are rolling up their sleeves to get this done, not only on their behalf
but behalf of the country. So we are very excited and happy. If there's a minute or
two for questions?
Well, we'll hear from Joe, and then...
Great. Questions for both of you.
Terrific. Thank you.
Thanks, Matt. So now we'll go to Washington State, where the Assistant Superintendent
for Assessment and Student Information, Joe Willhoft, is on the line. Joe welcome. And
I've got the clicker here, so just give me instruction, and thanks for talking to us
about the SMARTER Balanced Consortium.
just a confirmation, can you hear me?
We can hear you.
Very good. Okay. Well, knowing that I'm remote, first of all, my apologies that I cannot be
there in person but, you know, from Washington to Washington itís a little bit of a haul.
And--so I can continue to have--it's your responsibility to be here, but I am happy
to be able to be online. I do have a few slides, probably not as--certainly not as complex
or detailed as Matt's--but knowing that I was going to be remote. But I think I have
about nine slides here summarizing the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium. Go to the
first slide, please or slide number 2, which is the map. So I did not see what Matt's map
looked like. It probably looked very similar to this. I think we have different color coding,
looks like slightly different. This is the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium. The
purplish states are those that are the governing states and Matt already described what the
role of a governing state is, in one of these consortiums. And the blue states are our--what
we're referring to as advisory states and what PARCC refers to as its participating
states. But the nature of their role and engagement with the consortium is similar to that in
PARCC, namely the governing states are engaged in the decisions and the ongoing design of
the system, and the advisory states do assist us in our work groups, and were very engaged
in the development of our proposal which we submitted to the department and continued
to be engaged in our work. While we're looking at this map, just a brief word that-- actually
this effort started all the way back in October as folks from Washington and Oregon, and Idaho,
and Utah got together and started thinking about what a consortium might look like that
would develop a new set, a new kind of summative assessments. In about that same timeframe,
folks in Wisconsin and Iowa, in Missouri, and Kansas, and Nebraska were also developing
their Race to the Top applications and thinking they wanted to form some kind of a consortium
that would develop around formative assessments that would complement the Race to the Top
application that each of those states was engaged with. Those two developments very
quickly ended up having a very--much of an overlap of states engagement and we got together
and formed a coalition if you will, to work together both on a formative design and simultaneously
on a summative design. In about a parallel timeframe, many of the New England states,
those in the New England comprehensive assessment program, plus West Virginia and some other
folks, were working on what they were thinking of as a balanced assessment consortium which
would balance both what we might think of as a more traditional test. We've tested--used
more extensive assessment tasks and events that might take place over a number of class
periods over several days. And at a meeting in early May, the balanced group and the SMARTER
group decided that, well, let's all get together here and the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium
grew out of that. So from the very start this has been very much a state-led activity. We've
had countless hours and hours of conference calls. We met face to face on several occasions
and we're very happy and proud of the work--the work that we are doing. Let me go to the next
slide here if I can, which is the listing of the 31 states in the SMARTER Balanced Consortium.
And so this is just essentially a replication of the map that you've seen. The governing
states do have an Executive Committee which comprises the folks from Washington, Idaho,
Oregon, Utah, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Maine. We have a representative from a higher education
that's yet to be selected and that group represents the Executive Committee of the consortium
that makes essentially more regular decisions with regard to the ongoing business of the
consortium. Like PARCC, we do have a management partner and we are happy to say that that
is WestEd which whom--with whom we worked in the development of our proposal, and they
submitted a response to our request for proposals for a permanent management partner and were
actually selected and had a very, very strong proposal for that. You'll note on this slide
that our Fiscal Agent is Washington State, and I guess I'm speaking to you on behalf
of--on behalf of the consortium, partially by virtue of being in that role. So the procurements
will occur through the State of Washington, but through a memorandum of understanding
between the consortium and our chief school officer, Superintendent Dorn. Essentially,
he will be awarding the contracts but on behalf of the SMARTER Balanced Consortium, and be
doing that work on the behalf of the consortium. We'll go to the next slide and, again, I haven't
seen Matt's presentation, but my guess is we're saying much of the same thing here.
This is really an interesting challenge, isn't it? On the one side there what we've got are
the common core standards. Theíre a high quality set of standards and they do clearly
propose much higher rigor and expectations for students through K-12 with the ultimate
goal of students being college and career ready. The question really is how do we get
from that place out to all students leaving high school, college and career ready? And
with regard to SMARTER Balanced, how does an assessment system help with this? The next
slide, slide number five shows the first stage in that, and that is our summative assessment.
Our summative assessment, through our proposal is going to make use of what's called adaptive
testing technology. Adaptive tests are tests that ask each student a question based on
how they've answered the previous questions. So that allows for a targeted testing, if
you will, of each individual student. It does in fact mean that different students see different
items and actually, in fact, take different tests. But for our most high performing students,
the very quickly-- the adaptive system can find where they are and start asking them
questions right at the place where their achievement level is. Likewise, for some of our students
who are struggling in schools, the testing can move to where they are and ask them questions
that push their limits of their performance. Adaptive testing is used very widely in industry
through certification exam--examinations and is used to some extent in schools. And many
states already use some adaptive technologies for what might be benchmark or interim assessments,
but rarely are they used in large state testing programs. Part of the reason for that is quite
honestly a scaling question. It's--to do this right, you need a lot of test items. And by
virtue of being able to pool our resources as a consortium, and through the opportunities
of the grant process, we are going to be able to do this and, I think--and our estimates
are something like 80,000 items or something like that, that will be part of the adaptive
assessment system. It's important in anything that talks about students progressing towards
college and career readiness to have a sense that we are getting good, precise measurement
of where students are. I think this assessment developments at the federal level through
each of the states participating in the consortia is moving from a testing system that I like
to think of in the past, as being sort of a too-bad-for-you assessment system. Too bad
for teachers, they get a test at the end of the year, see how their kids did, and those
kids are gone. And another crowd is coming in the next September. And for the students
as well. Well, you know, you take a test at the end of the year, and it's just sort of,
well, that--isn't that a shame? You didn't do well, next grade is coming up. We're developing
and proposing an assessment system that can integrate what's going on day-to-day in the
classroom with the results that students and teachers can see. And an important part of
that is what the adaptive system will afford, which is a very good and precise measurement
at the end of the year. So that, when we get results for the next year, we know whether
the student has--is on--merely treading water, moving forward, at what rate they are moving
forward, and are they progressing towards college and career readiness. The next slide
takes us to a second of three legs on our stool, and that is interim assessments that
are flexible and open. This is perhaps a distinguishing feature between SMARTER Balanced and the PARCC
design. And you heard Matt discuss in the PARCC design the true course assessments,
which roll up to a accountability score for the end of the year. By virtue of using adaptive
systems, the end-of-the-year test in the SMARTER Balanced can be somewhat shorter, which means
we can use assessments that we use in the middle of the year and have them be publicly
available and open for teachers to examine and for students to examine. So they will
be on the same scale as the summative assessment, but teachers can score them on their own,
or they can send them off to be scored professionally, and they will be open for examination, so
that students can see what's expected of them on these assessments, what does it mean to
meet standard on this particular learning progression. And they can then respond to
that and perhaps correct some instruction or see if it really--if the student really
is ready to move forward. Theyíll also be flexible with regard to the particular content
sections that are assessed in the interim assessments, so that teachers can choose which
standards to assess at which time of the year and move forward with that. The next slide
takes us to the third leg of the stool, which is formative tools and practices that will
be available in a web-based environment, also linked to the interim assessments and linked
to the summative assessments. These will be model lesson plans, instructional strategies
for students who are perhaps falling behind, supplemental strategies for students who are
moving ahead, and so on. The next slide shows simply that these are all interconnected.
The formative tools are linked to the interim and the summative assessments in terms of
the types of items and tasks that we present to youngsters and that teachers can use in
the classroom. We will have a high degree of engagement with teachers in the development
of all of our tasks and items. Washington happens to be a state where 100% of the--of
items on our, all of our assessments are written by teachers, reviewed by teachers, and then
identified by teachers as whether or not that they should go on our exam. We have a long
tradition of teacher scoring in our state, and we have a long tradition of using multiple
choice items in addition to performance tasks on our state assessments. And a lot of states
have that same tradition, and we hope to engage that with all of the states in the consortium.
Again, I can't see the kinds of looks that you have on your faces with all of this, so
I think I'll stop right now with the last slide which is slide number nine, and thatís
a web link to how you can find out more about the consortium. Again, my apologies for not
being able to be there, but I'll close by kind of looping back to Judy's comments at
the beginning with regard to the technical assistance network. Congratulations on that,
Judy. And if this effort is anything like the quality of the technical assistance you
provided both to our consortium and the other consortium in the development of our proposals,
and the extent to which you listened to the technical community and to the states with
regard to how to put together the proposal that we responded to, I'm sure that the new
effort will be very successful. So I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for that,
and let everybody know we look forward to the work ahead.
Thanks, Joe. Thanks for those kind words. Thanks also to Matt. Questions at these microphones
for--about the assessment consortia, we have just a couple of minutes that we can spend
on that. And Joel is up and making his way to microphone number one.
Hi, Joel Packer with the Raben Group and a whole bunch of education groups. So a question,
really for both Matt and Joe, neither of you mentioned at all how these assessments will
include or impact students with disabilities, English language learner students. So I was
wondering if you can say a little bit about that--those issues.
Matt, do you want to take that?
Sure. It's probably the case in both consortia--for both consortia and I know it was part of the
process with the grant proposal. It was very important to the department. It's important
to both consortia that in both cases those--the assessment systems are designed in a manner
that will be appropriate in looking forward, and the best way to measure results for both
ELL students and special ED students. Though-- I know in the PARCC consortium, there will
be a concerted effort to think that through from the beginning. Particular work groups
put together during the design phase, to ensure that that's done well and that everyone is
learning from best practices in that area and not just repeating exactly the way it's
done now, and even learning from other consortia that have been formed outside of this to do
that work. So some of it is connecting those dots and it's also just making sure it's a
focus and a priority.
Joe, anything to add quickly to that?
Quickly, the--in the departments' application notice, they indicated that these assessment
designs were to address the needs of all students, except for those with the most significant
cognitive disabilities, what are colloquially referred to as sort of that 1% assessment
group. So both consortia did respond to that and have designs that do address the needs
of students across the entire spectrum, and both consortia do include translations for
students who are English language learners. But we did note that the department did not
call out in particular whatís sometimes referred to as that 2% assessment and instead required
that these responses address the needs of those students. And those are, perhaps, what
might be referred to as, like, the resource room kids and, you know, with special needs.
So the assessments are supposed to, by design, address the needs of those students. Both
consortia use universal design with regard to the design of items and test questions,
and we now have a lot of experience on how to do this right, and looking forward to doing
it right from the beginning rather than trying to catch up. One final quick word and that
is this notion of accommodations across states. There are a number of features that are going
to require collaboration between the two consortia and accommodations for students who are English
language learners and special needs students really should be common across all states.
There is no need for us to have 50 different solutions to things like test accommodations.
Joe, your answer was so thorough. People have been sitting down as you've addressed different
aspects of their questions. So thank you for that. Judy?
I just want to add very quickly that in addition to asking these two consortia to really seriously
address the needs of students with disabilities, the English learners in the development of
these assessments; we have also separately, through a different competition, funded two
consortias to develop assessments for what's commonly known as the one percent students.
It's those students with significant cognitive disabilities who are assessed against alternate
standards. And those two consortia will be doing that work in coordinating with these
two, so that we'll have a complete set of assessments for all students.
And there's more information on that announcement on ed.gov. Lela?
Yes. Lela Spielberg, National PTA. I was just wondering if either of you could speak a little
bit more on how you're engaging parents in the development of assessments or perhaps
the evaluation of, you know, their effectiveness.
Matt?
Sure. Well, I'm glad you spoke up, because your organization, we think, can be really
important. I'm not just saying that. I feel because [interruption from the audience ñ
partnership Ö.. ] we watched how impressive a role the national PTA has taken in common
core standards, not in writing the standards, I don't think that's probably the place that
many parents would think that they add the value; but in helping to think through the
impact the standards could have, the value add, and frankly, communicating their importance
across the country. And very impressive job the PTA has done on the common core standards.
We, at least in our consortia, hope that we can build off of that model and work--help
the states work with the national and the state PTAs to make parents greater partners
in this effort, and not just recipients of something when it's finished. We think this
is only going to be successful if the broader public understands what's coming and why it's
so important. It's going to be a big change; and there could always be pushback if you're
not thoughtful about who you engage along the way and make sure they understand why
it's beneficial. So that would be the hope.
I wondered how you were tackling the sort of idiosyncratic problem where many times
minority students and students who are--who speak English as a second language, when given
the opportunity to answer all the questions, they answer the really hard questions well,
and perhaps miss the easy questions. And in an adaptive system that has ranked questions
similarly and normed against English-speaking students and other students, they don't get
the opportunity to get to those really hard questions that they might get the answers
correct on. So I was wondering how you were tackling that problem.
Joe, I'd like to throw that one to you.
Sure. You know, actually, we've done some research on those issues here in Washington
State with regard to our ñ our in-state test system and also have found, in agreement with
the comment, that for youngsters of color and students who are non-English speaking
students, they tend to do better thanóthan the -- actually, than the white students or
actually the boys on questions that are more contextually-based. In other words, they have
more context around the question as opposed to what you might just call a raw item, like
a straight-ahead math question that's just a straight, you know, formula, multiple choice
question. Interestingly enough, the boys and the white kids tend to do better on those
kinds of questions. So what we have found is that actually having a balanced assessment
where you have all kinds of questions available for youngsters is probably the closest stroke
towards being--having a fair assessment, giving every opportunity for youngsters from different
backgrounds to respond. So the adaptive system that we'll be building will actually present
youngsters with different kinds of questions of--with different features that--then giving
students an opportunity to show what they know and can do in different contexts.
Thanks for the question, Beth. Next question?
Can I just ask youÖ
Yes, Matt?
Just to be clear that the PARCC consortium will be computer-based assessments, not computer-adaptive.
So that has actually a difference between the two--the two approach.
Thank you, Matt. Yes.
Yes, ma'am.
Hi. Edith Bartley with UNCF. Quick question, are there going to be efforts to engage private
institutions of higher education in these assessments and particularly minority-serving
institutions or Historically Black Colleges and Universities or Hispanic-serving institutions
and our tribal colleges?
Matt, you mentionedÖ
Great question.
Öa lot on higher ED.
That's come up already in our consortium, and there are some states where those institutions
have already signed on even though that wasn't--the outreach wasn't directed to them, because
they were interested. And I think what we are going to find is in many states, the private
institutions want to be part of this, and hopefully, the historically black and other
institutions serving minority students in particular will want to be part of this. I
think the doors will be open even if it wasn't a requirement from the beginning, because
the more institutions that want to be part of it, we think, the better.
Thank you.
Thanks. Joe, anything you want to throw in there?
No, you probably have other questions. SoÖ
All right. We've got one more.
Hi there. My name is Cindy Morgan-Jaffe with the Internship Institute. My question is really
if you could speak to the career readiness assessment, how you are approaching that whole
concept and like, also the measurement of experiential learning activities; and also
bringing in any kind of employers or, you know, the workforce in the stakeholder conversation?
Matt, first to you.
Sure. Very important question, difficult one to get at. The short answer is the common
core standards we believe did a very good job identifying knowledge and skills necessary
for college and career readiness. And both consortia, I know, and certainly the PARCC
consortium is really focused on measuring those standards well. So as we get to the
high school assessment model, the question is going to be what's the most effective way
to measure all of those skills? When we look at how the results are going to be used, there
are going to be a lot of uses for high schools; but in this consortium, there's a very strong
desire to have the results be utilized by postsecondary institutions, broadly defined,
to suggest students are ready. The goal is to get away from taking high school tests
so you can leave the K-12 system, and then taking postsecondary tests so you can enter
or be placed into your next destination. Weíre trying to change that equation and say there's
an effort to work together on a common set of measures that could tell you you're ready
to leave one and succeed--and begin and succeed at the other. And it's going to be hard, but
we as I said earlier, we have a lot of the right institutions around the table. I think
your point is a valid one. The business community needs to be very much a part of this as well,
so that doesn't just become college-oriented; and I think that's an ongoing goal and challenge.
Joe, anything to add before we say farewell?
Matt, I--yes, thank you, Massie. I might just add that the '13-'14 is going to be a very
interesting year; lots of things are going to be happening kind of simultaneously there,
and we'll all be moving forward towards that end. And there's--NCES through NAEP is currently
working on a design and implementing what they're referring to as a 12th grade preparedness
study, which will use a number of different methods and approaches to try to get a sense
of the preparedness status of students as they exit high school across the country.
So, of course, you know, 12th grade preparedness for postsecondary sounds an awful lot like
college and career ready, and so how all of these efforts come together will be something
to watch carefully, and something that I think we all look forward to engaging in and participating
in.
Great. Thank you, Joe. Thank you, Matt. Thank you, Judy. We are now moving quickly--we're
running behind--from the state level right down into the community level. To talk about
the Promise Neighborhoods Program, the Deputy Director for that program is here, and his
name is Larkin Tackett. Larkin?
Good afternoon. Good Friday afternoon. Promise Neighborhoods in about five minutes.
How about three?
Three minutes. The vision the operative word in this slide is "and." Both ñ both great schools and great education
programs and strong systems of family and community support, so a recognition that both
matter. We were happy to award 21 grants, 21 planning grants last month to organizations
in 12 states, plus the District of Columbia, in 19 cities. Interestingly, you can see the
different colors. There is one grantee in a tribal community in the Northern Cheyenne
reservation. There are two rural grantees. We are really excited about the different
types of organizations that are prepared to do this work, including institutions of higher
education and community-based organizations that are serving very diverse populations
around the country. Promise Neighborhoods is a key part of the Blueprint to reauthorize
ESEA. It is central, especially this recognition that communities and community partnerships
matter in improving educational outcomes. And finally, I just want to share with you
an exciting initiative the department has been working very closely with the White House
Office of Urban Affairs, as well as Departments of Health and Human Services, Housing and
Urban Development, and Justice. It's called the Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative.
Promise Neighborhoods is a centerpiece of that program. I would encourage you to Google
it and check out the document. It's really an attempt at the federal level to break down
silos that exist between our funding programs that impact local communities, recognizing
that local communities are breaking down the silos. They don't have a choice. Students
show up with housing challenges and safety challenges in their neighborhoods, and health
challenges; and schools and teachers are really the first line of defense. And so, we are
recognizing that in working together to come up with a new federal framework for providing
funds that are more flexible, are interrelated, and that focus on a core set of results. That
was a quick and dirty overview of Promise Neighborhoods, and I'm happy to answer questions.
Thanks. This is a fantastic, exciting, cross-cutting program that could take an entire forum and
maybe we will do that at some point, but wanted to get some quick questions, if there are
any, for Larkin. Did you give the time table forÖ
I will.
Implementation?
I will. So we have requested $210 million for a set of implementation grants and a new
round of planning grants. Our hope is that we will go out with that competition early
next year. If you were a community that applied but did not receive a planning grant, you
are still eligible to apply and receive or apply for and receive an implementation grant.
So we had many more high quality applications than we had funds available to award to those
communities, more than 300 applications for just 21 grants. We are really encouraging
communities to continue to do the work around the country, and we want to know how we can
be supportive of that.
Great. Thank you, Larkin, who wins the award for respecting the five-minute rule. If we've
learned anything at these forums is that people have to get a refresher on what five minutes
is about, right? Brad Jupp, here to talk about the TEACH Campaign. Very exciting. And I will
tell you, folks, in his presentation, there is a movie. So, look forward to that. Brad,
our Senior Advisor to the Secretary on many things teacher-related.
Thank you very much. That's not my presentation.
No? No? Keep clicking.
Keep clicking.
We can put all of these presentations on ed.gov, so you can share these and see what you missed
on some of the presentations.
Clearly, Larkin was planning on talking about much, much more. There's 52. There we go.
Okay. Brad Jupp in the Office of the Secretary. After 24 years in Denver public schools, 20
as a middle school science excuse me, middle school language arts teacher, and five--four
or five years in the office of Superintendent Michael Bennett, I do many things that are
related to teaching, but perhaps none as simple and important as this one. And I think after
an afternoon like this one where you've heard so much, it's important to end on a simple
single note, which is that we really do need to think about how we bring the very best
people into the nation's classrooms for the next generation; how we get the next generation
of people to join those already committed to improving learning for our kids to become
part of the next generation of America's teachers. And to that end, here at the Department of
Education, we've created the TEACH Campaign. Very simple, TEACH. And its purpose really
is to hold on is to bring in the next generation of America's teachers where we need scale,
we need diversity, and we need to address areas of critical demand. We know that as
a nation, in a normal year, we hire 200,000 new teachers a year. That's not all the total
movement. That's closer to 500,000 teachers. In a single normal year, we hire 200,000 new
teachers a year. In the slowest years, like the last year, it's between 80,000 and 120,000
teachers a year. It's a rate that is accelerated by the retirement of baby boom teachers; but
it's a rate that is part of a steady rate that we can count on for the next 8, 10, 12
years; one where we can say to ourselves, "We're going to bring on board 1.8 million
teachers in the next 10 years, or half the total teaching workforce." And what we need
to do with this opportunity is to begin to ask ourselves two or three really tough questions.
The first is how can we attract likely successful people into the profession? How can we begin
to attract them to places of greatest need; Science, Technology, Math classrooms, Special
Ed classrooms, English language acquisition classrooms, classrooms in our big cities,
classrooms in our rural communities, and how can we increase the diversity of the teaching
workforce so that, frankly, we have a teaching workforce that begins to look a little bit
more like the students who are in our classrooms. The Department of Education doesn't want to
have a single solution to this; but we do think we can add to the solution for this,
and help our states and our local school districts by intervening in two ways. The first is to
create a comprehensive marketing campaign a comprehensive marketing campaign that inspires,
that engages the next generation of teachers so that they are likely to enter the teaching
workforce. This is an important and difficult effort. It's important for us to realize that
helping people see teaching as a great career is the first step. Helping people who often
have very strong negatives about the teaching career get past those negatives is also an
important part. What we want to do is to, on the one hand at the highest level, have
the kind of marketing campaign that elevates people's eyes by having celebrities and leaders
talk about teaching as a great career. But more importantly, what we want to do, because
we know we have to break through some barriers with young people that are considering teaching,
is we need to get people who are currently in the teaching workforce who are young and
successful to talk directly to teachers. So we have really two levels of this; the first
is marketing campaign. The first is a celebrity campaign that really is intended to inspire
people to think about teaching in a different way as a good job. The second is a teacher-to-teacher
campaign that includes testimonial videos and ground game where we begin to reach out
to people who are considering being teachers. Who's the target that we want to reach out
to first? Eighteen to 25-year-olds. Why? Because frankly, the demand is high now and we need
to activate people's intentions to teach now. But in the long run, we see ourselves not
just looking to 18 to 25-year-olds, but also looking to folks who are 14 to 18, 25 and
older, even 55 and older, because we know in the long run, these are all likely places
where we are going to be finding teachers. In addition to inspiring and engaging people,
we also want to connect them to the next step that they can take on the path to teaching.
So the second part of the TEACH Campaign is a website, teach.gov. Teach.gov is like a
matchmaker that helps you put in a little bit of information about yourself and find
what the right next best step for you is in the path to teaching. If you don't have a
degree yet, it helps you find a teaching program. If you do have a degree, it will help you
find an alternative route. If you have a license, it will help you--excuse me--if you have a
degree, it will help you figure out where to get a license. If you've got a license,
it will help you figure out where to get a job. Anybody who thinks that this is a time
we shouldn't be starting that campaign because there are pink slips around the country, it
might be a hard time to find a teaching job; needs to think even in October, almost November
of 2010, we have over 7,000 teaching jobs posted on the teach.gov website. Those are
7,000 jobs in the United States where kids don't have licensed teachers in the classroom.
The program features a website, and I want to tee up, just by way of closing before we
take some quick questions, a video which I think captures the whole thing in a single
two or three-minute segment. And I know I'm not going to get Massie's five-minute award,
but I am going to get Massie's 10-minute award.
It's still available.
It's a pleasure to be here today to do something which I think we do too little of in the field
of education and that is to celebrate success. As many of you know, historically black colleges
and universities, including Xavier, were established a century ago for the purpose of training
a generation of black teachers. Nationwide, 35 percent of public school students are black
and Hispanic, but less than 15 percent of our teachers are black or Latino. It's especially
troubling that less than two percent of our nation's teachers are African-American males.
Why would you want to be a teacher when you're watching all of your friends disrespect the
teachers? Why would you want to be the teachers when the teachers are not "cool?" Well, that's
why I wanted to be a teacher, because I want to dispel those myths that we, as black men,
are not responsible for educating our own children. See, when we're not in the classroom,
we're allowing other people to educate our children, and that's our job; we are the first
teachers.
I'm a person of action. I believe in change, and I saw that I could make a change.
I have always wanted to be a teacher. I feel that teaching is actually my calling.
I attend Xavier University. And I wanted to be a music teacher.
I'm a graduate of Jackson State University with a degree in education, and I am a second
grade teacher.
Education must be the great equalizer in America. If you care about promoting opportunity and
reducing inequality, the classroom is a great place to start. Great teaching is about so
much more than education. It is a daily fight for social justice.
Teach.
So you begin to get the feel for this, and I think our hope is that this is something
so big everybody can sign on. And frankly, what we would like to do, just by way of closing,
is to invite you to join us in the TEACH Campaign, to join us by putting our logo on your website
and encouraging organizations that reach out and touch people who are considering teaching
as a career, to also put the logo on their webpage, but also to follow us on Facebook
and to actually, to follow us on Twitter and to fan us on Facebook, because we want to
have a got to get it right. We want to have an active social media campaign. I mean, really,
here's the sort of vision I have for this program 10 or 20 or 30 months from now. I
want a kid that's on spring break on South Padre Island to be able to get a text message
on her phone telling her that there's 250 jobs that have opened up for school teachers
in the State of Texas, for her to be able to drill down into that announcement, find
the two that are in Austin and send her resume to Austin Independent School District, to
try and get that job without ever leaving the beach, because she can do so using TEACH
as an information source. I mean, it's that kind of access to jobs that we're looking
for. So we hope that you can join us and get as enthusiastic about this as we are. And
it's 4:00.
Yes. I'm looking forward to seeing the applications as they come in during spring break. Anyone
have questions? Anyone have questions about TEACH? A question over here? You have one?
Yes, ma'am.
Good afternoon. My name is Kimberly Jones. I am with the Council for Opportunity and
Education. We represent TRIO, but today I am here actually as a concerned sister. I
have a younger brother who is a master's degree holding teacher from Hampton University and
has been unemployed for almost a year. And so I'm wondering what--in doing this campaign,
how are you partnering with the states and local school districts to ease the process
for those who are just beginning their teaching careers?
That's great. So for the case that you've described, the TEACH website actually will
help you by--first of all, you just enter your profile. It may be that you've already
got a license in the state, and it will help you see the jobs that are visible in that
state. But it will also help you see jobs that are visible in nearby states that you
might not be able to see. And frankly, you can then walk backwards to figure out what
the licensure requirements are and get yourself ready to take up a job. We normally don't
mention the fact that this is really useful for folks who might have gotten the pink slip;
but at these times, it's actually a really good advantage of this program that you could
think of. So thank you.
Anyone else? All right. Before you leave, leave with us a completed evaluation of this
forum, so we can continue to improve. There are folks at the doors who will take those.
Again, Brad has outlined a number of ways that we would love to have your help on TEACH.
And we certainly appreciate you coming today, and we will see you next time. Have a great
weekend.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
Goodbye. Thanks.