On Thursday, December 8, 2011, over 300 educators met for a forum on competency-based education sponsored by the Iowa Department of Education, REL Midwest and West Wind Education Policy Group. The forum consisted of whole-group presentations and breakout sessions. The intent of the forum was to develop a common vocabulary for participants, define and describe competency-based education, hear success stories from those already implementing, and addressing some of the barriers to implementation.

The forum had a wide array of speakers, both locally and nationally known in the field of competency-based education. As a leader of a district considering competency-based education, Iowa ASCD President-Elect, Jason Ellingson, shares some of his "take-aways" of the day's forum.

• First, we need to understand that competency-based education is "anytime, everywhere" learning. Content is no longer owned by the teacher; rather it is facilitated by an educator so the learning can be owned by each and every student. Competency-based education seeks to eliminate time and place as barriers to learning, so there is no limit to how far students can go in their learning.
• Second, we need to consider the work involved in transforming our current system into one that supports competency-based education. The presenters stressed that the Common Core, Iowa Core, and the universal constructs of the Iowa Core must continue to be the content focus. We can no longer have a curriculum that can be Googled; rather, there needs to be strong support for critical thinking. We also learned that the Characteristics of Effective Instruction provide direct connections and strong support for competency-based learning. For educators, we will need to change how we think about learning and student performance. We will need to spend time focused on defining proficiency and validating our assessments to measure proficiency.
• Third, the State of Iowa and the Iowa Department of Education must support our transformative efforts. The state is working to identify the current barriers to implementing a competency-based education system. The state is also looking to support innovation by presenting legislation to remove some of the barriers. It is also working to connect buildings and districts to share ideas. Further, the state continues to provide us with research and practical examples from other districts across the country already implementing.  

There is much work ahead for any school or district engaging in this transformative work. Thankfully, there are districts, legislators, and the DE supportive of our efforts. With much work comes much opportunity. We must remember that competency-based education is fundamental to personalized learning, and it challenges almost all of our assumptions about our present education system.

If you are interested in learning more about the forum or its speakers, here is the website that contains all of the forum's presentations: www.bridgeevent.ning.com. Further, consider the work of iNACOL (www.inacol.org) or the state of New Hampshire (www.education.nh.gov).

Dr. Harold Hodgkinson is the "go-to" person for those interested in demographics and its impact on education. As a researcher at the Center of Demographic Policy at the Institute for Educational Leadership, he continues to pen articles that pique interest and sometimes even shock educators.

Using the census data of 2000 he wrote an article titled,  "Leaving Too Many Children Behind: A Demographer's View on the Neglect of America's Youngest Children." He examines forces such as poverty and instability and how they work to prevent equality of opportunity in school and life for the nation's youngest children. Specifically he states,

Long before children knock on the kindergarten door - during the crucial period from birth to age five when humans learn more than during any other five-year period - forces have already been put in place that encourage some children to "shine" and fulfill their potential...while other forces stunt the growth and development of children who have just as much potential.  

Hodgkinson questions why in the wealthiest nation in the world, we invest such a "pitifully small percentage " of our resources and concern in our small children. He believes one of the biggest issues is the reluctance of Americans to feel any responsibility for the children of the poor. Perhaps we don't realize that as our population ages we will have fewer and fewer "throw away" kids; all kids will be needed to provide the workforce of the future, especially since they will have to help support the benefits of 70 million Baby Boomers.

Even more disturbing, Hodgkinson delineates a group that will never even get to the kindergarten door. Infant mortality rate for babies under 1 year of age was 681 per 100,000 in 1998. On the day of their birth, infants are ten times more likely to be murdered than on any other day. Newborns are killed early on by their mothers, and as time passes by their fathers or stepfathers who resort to shaken baby syndrome.

Even with the same statistics of death as newborns, more visibility is given to teen homicides than to the killing of our vulnerable children. An individual who murders or abducts a teenager is viewed as a threat to the larger society, whereas the death of a baby is too often hidden or covered up. "While teen deaths are front page news, invisibility surrounds the data on infanticide."

Hodgkinson goes on to talk about other topics that highlight the strong need for early childhood education: Changes in Race and People, Population Concentration, Changes in Population Age, Transition from Child Care to Kindergarten, and Head Start. He refers to Head Start as half of the jewel in the crown of America's efforts to educate all children.

In 2005, as a keynote speaker at the National Leadership Summit on Improving Results for Youth, Hodgkinson again emphasized, "Much of what goes on in the first few years of life will determine everything else." To access the full article on children at risk go to http://www.iel.org/pubs/manychildren.pdf.

Across the state of Iowa, teachers and administrators are engaged in discussions relating to the changes in mathematics instruction that will occur as a result of the State's adoption of the Common Core State Standards. Known in Iowa as the Iowa Core, the standards represent an integration of the Iowa Core Essential Concepts and Skills and the Common Core State Standards whose development were sponsored by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governor's Association.  

The newly developed standards promise to bring clarity and coherence to instruction of mathematics and allow Iowans the opportunity to participate in the national discussion around mathematics reform. Both content standards and standards of mathematical practice are included in the document.  

At a recent regional meeting of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, a common theme emerged revealing that the standards of mathematical practice outlined in the Core are perhaps even more important than the standards of mathematical content. Without the standards of mathematical practice, the depth of understanding of the content will not likely occur. How will school districts effectively make the changes necessary? How will teachers begin to understand the importance of the standards of mathematical practice? How will school districts make wise choices as new curriculum materials are reviewed and selected? Fortunately, many resources are beginning to emerge that can assist in acquainting teachers with the intent of the standards as well as providing examples of quality instruction around the standards.

The website of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is a comprehensive resource for professional development ideas, books, teaching ideas and newsletters all relating to the implementation of the Common Core State Standards.

The Mathematics Common Core Coalition has launched a website, which features links to various websites of interest along with professional development ideas and opportunities.

At  http://www.insidemathematics.org./, visitors will find classroom examples of innovative teaching methods and insights into student learning, tools for mathematics instruction that teachers can use immediately, and video tours of the ideas and materials on the site.

If you are thinking about changing your math curriculum but want to make sure that the new curriculum truly aligns with the Iowa Core, an analysis tool has been developed. At www.commoncoretools.wordpress.com, the tool can be accessed, and teachers or administrators can join Bill Bush in a blog about the Common Core State Standards. At this website you can also find the latest work with learning progressions in all of the domains of mathematics.

Many school districts are hiring math coaches to assist them in the implementation of the new mathematics content and practices. At  http://www.mathleadership.org/, resources for math coaches are reviewed.

The Hunt Institute has developed a series of YouTube videos which explain the Common Core State Standards and give insight into teaching practices. The videos and additional information can be found at  http://www.youtube.com/user/TheHuntInstitute#g/u 

Many more resources will emerge as the national discussion continues. Iowa ASCD will continue to be "The Source" for information around the implementation of the Iowa Core in mathematics.

All elements of the continuous improvement process (i.e., needs assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation) clearly support completing program evaluations across years for each initiative. The program evaluation standards (utility, feasibility, propriety and accuracy) help focus program evaluations. Additionally, educators can further focus evaluations by knowing and understanding the specific purpose(s) of their program and program elements or phases and the interaction among these phases across the program and the system. Knowing and understanding this helps educators to determine the quality and set a clear direction for continually improving programs by adhering to all elements of the continuous improvement process. And here is the bottom line; we conduct program evaluations to assure improvement in student outcomes. AEA 267's Schools in Need of Assistance (SINA) program evaluation provides such an example.

Starting in the 2007-2008 school year and continuing every year thereafter a program evaluation has been completed for the SINA process. Each year program changes were made that improved the process. Yearly changes included improving the information presented in the implementation and evaluation phase, limiting the number of actions a school incorporated into their plan and adding formative and summative coaching/evaluation questions for teacher implementation and students outcomes for each action. Additional changes included placing more emphasis on root cause analysis, providing only centralized training, building an AEA 267 SINA/DINA website where all materials presented to LEA SINA teams are provided in the order they are presented, changing the role of AEA staff and matching up quantitative and qualitative data from high and low performing SINA schools. These changes probably would have never happened without completing an annual program evaluation. The result is a more focused continuous improvement process with results on student outcomes to show impact of those changes.

The new quantitative analysis piece added this year to the qualitative part of the program evaluation consists of four parts. The first three parts utilize Iowa Assessment (formerly referred to as ITBS/ITED) data. The first part focuses on the question are you producing a smarter third grader and compares the current third graders' average national standard score (NSS) to the weighted average NSS score for the two years schools were on the NCLB watch list. This piece addresses changes schools are making around curriculum, instruction and assessment from kindergarten through some or all of third grade.

The second quantitative part (Are out students growing at an above average rate?) compared the students' growth across NCLB testing years in the building (e.g., 3^rd to 4^th and 4^th to 5^th grade) to the average growth achieved across the nation.

The third quantitative part (SINA Designation) utilizes the percent of students scoring proficient and incorporated the growth model into the equation and represents the current SINA designation of a building. Schools earn points by falling into one of three categories. They are: 1) 0 points because they continue to the next SINA year of identification; 2) 1 point for going into delay; and 3) 2 points for going off the SINA list.

The fourth quantitative part (Supplemental Educational Services) represents the percent of students that are participating in supplemental educational services compared to the total students eligible for such services. Only schools designated as year two and beyond qualified for this part. The four part analysis was conducted on all schools in each academic area and schools earned a total score.

Schools were arranged into four categories.

• Schools identified as year one math schools had scores that ranged from 11.63 to 1.78.
• Schools identified as year two plus math schools had scores that ranged from 7.15 to -2.79.
• Schools identified as year one reading schools had scores that ranged from 17.38 to -0.07.
• Schools identified as year two plus reading schools had scores that ranged from 3.74 to -4.28.

Top performing and lower performing schools were identified from these data. The above data provides the scores top and bottom performing schools achieved based on student outcomes data and supplemental educational services provided. You might consider triangulating data sources in your school to evaluate progress with an initiative, much like we have done with the SINA process.

The qualitative data from an 18-item electronic survey filled out by SINA team members were also analyzed for all schools and then disaggregated by top performing and lower performing schools identified from the above quantitative analysis. Analysis from the perceptual data for all schools revealed that the vast majority of respondents strongly agreed or agreed that each phase of the SINA process was adequately covered and that the LEA SINA teams adequately understood the concepts taught, utilized the information in each phase, believed the tools shared in each phase were helpful, adequately captured the key elements in each phase, and thus produced a quality action plan. This met our expectation.

However, having received these marks for the past couple years has allowed the AEA 267 SINA support team to focus our analysis on the differences between high performing and low performing schools on student outcomes data. This analysis has revealed that high performing schools focused more on system-wide teacher implementation data and student predictive and outcomes data, looking towards the future, and recognized the necessity of having a quality leader to focus their consistent and productive SINA meetings, thus keeping them on track throughout the year. Further analysis also revealed that top performing school had had one or in a few instances, two fewer subgroups.

Outlining this progression of program improvements clearly demonstrates how utilizing program evaluation data to make systematic program changes positively influences the quality of a program, which in turn should positively influence student outcomes. Sure, we all should get better at doing programs over time, but savvy educators can use the results of program evaluations to expedite improvement. Being savvy, how can you apply this information to improve your program evaluation, which can and should in turn improve student outcomes?

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Iowa ASCD is the source for developing instructional leadership. Serving more than 750 educators - teachers, principals, superintendents, directors of curriculum, technology specialists, college professors, AEA staff - Iowa ASCD strives to develop the collaborative capacity to impact the learning of each and every student in Iowa.