Great Lakes East
Comprehensive Assistance Center

Archive Record of Services

The Great Lakes East Comprehensive Assistance Center state managers work collaboratively with representatives from state education agencies in Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio to provide regular progress updates of current state initiatives regarding No Child Left Behind (NCLB) implementation. Following is the latest record of services in each state, carried out in collaboration with Great Lakes East staff members, subcontractors, Advisory Board members, and state department of education staff members. (Last updated July 2006)

Winter 2007

INDIANA

State Manager: Jayne Sowers, Ed.D.

Evaluating State-Provided Professional Development and Technical Assistance. Great Lakes East has been working with a team from the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE)—consisting of Linda Miller, Indiana assistant superintendent; Dwayne James, policy analyst; and Gary Wallyn, director of the Division of Accreditation, Assistance, and Awards—to develop evaluation forms to be used departmentwide in measuring the effectiveness of state-provided professional development and technical assistance. This working group has developed the professional development evaluation form and currently is field-testing it. The form includes validated probes and questions based on the components of high-quality professional development and designed to be used by multiple providers across IDOE's divisions. The use of the same form across divisions will allow for ease of data collection and disaggregation of data in evaluating state-provided professional development. While this form is being field-tested, the working group will be developing a companion evaluation form for those who conduct technical assistance. When completed, the information from the evaluations will provide IDOE with a critical review of its work as related to the needs of its schools and school corporations.

Providing Research and Best Practices. A second team in Indiana is moving forward in providing an online source of current research and best practices regarding students with disabilities, students learning English, and principal leadership. The team—consisting of Darlene Slaby (director, IDOE Division of Language Minority and Migrant Programs), Olga Tuchman (consultant, IDOE Division of Language Minority and Migrant Programs), Gary Wallyn, Linda Miller, and Jayne Sowers (Great Lakes East Indiana state manager)—selected a frequently-asked-questions (FAQ) format to be placed on the IDOE website. Nine FAQs for educators seeking information about English language learners (ELLs) were developed from common questions received by the IDOE Division of Language Minority and Migrant Programs. The questions include the following:

What are the legal requirements for enrolling ELLs?
What testing is required for ELLs?
What do all the acronyms—LEP, ESL, ELL—mean and when should I use them?

With the assistance of the Center for Applied Linguistics (a Great Lakes East subcontractor), the answers to the FAQs are being written in a style free of jargon for the educator or administrator who is new to this group of learners. Links to the Language Minority and Migrant Programs website will be provided. There the educator will find a wealth of well-developed details and specific information concerning each FAQ. The team will spend the next several months completing this work before moving on to developing similar online sections concerning students with disabilities and principal leadership.

Assisting Districts and School Corporations in Corrective Action. Originally focused on developing state policy aligned with NCLB sanctions for school corporations (districts) in corrective action, this working group is moving from developing the policy to implementing the policy through providing technical assistance to the corporations. The team consists of LeeAnn Kwiatkowski (director, IDOE Division of Compensatory Education [Title I]), Jamie Miller (associate director, IDOE Division of Compensatory Education [Title I]), Doug Walker (RMC Research Corporation, a Great Lakes East subcontractor), and Jayne Sowers. Throughout October and November 2006, the team read and critiqued each corporation's required improvement plans. From reviewing the plans, the team created a draft of a pyramid of state-provided, tiered technical assistance for corporations in Year 1, 2, 3, or 4 or more of improvement or in corrective action. The initial step of technical assistance is providing corporations in Year 4 with information regarding the research on district improvement and instructional approaches for making adequate yearly progress within student subgroups, disaggregating student data, and backward planning—using the research to determine which practices, programs, and services would be most effective with students. On January 18, 2007, nine school corporations met in Indianapolis to receive this technical assistance from IDOE staff representing the Division of Compensatory Education (Title I), the Division of Exceptional Learners, the Division of Language Minority and Migrant Programs, and facilitators from Great Lakes East. In addition, a March 2007 meeting is being planned for those school corporations likely to be placed in Year 1, 2, or 3 status of district improvement as IDOE seeks to assist them proactively long before they are termed to be in corrective action. This proactive approach demonstrates IDOE's commitment to assisting students and educators in struggling schools and school corporations across the state.

MICHIGAN

State Manager: Gary Appel

Increasing Teacher Quality. The teacher quality team continued to interact and learn more about the experiences of other states in designing and implementing professional learning plans for teachers. The team consists of Flora Jenkins (director, Michigan Department of Education [MDE] Office of Professional Preparation Services); Catherine Smith (supervisor of Program Preparation, MDE Office of Professional Preparation Services); Donna Hamilton (professional development consultant, MDE Office of Professional Preparation Services); Darren Woodruff and Amy Klekotka (American Institutes for Research), Doug Walker (RMC Research Corporation), Gary Appel Great Lakes East Michigan state manager); and Constanza Hazelwood, Amy Colton, and Claudette Rasmussen (Great Lakes East staff). Deb Hansen (Iowa Department of Education), provided an in-depth look at Iowa's approach to professional learning plans and walked the team through the rich array of Web-based support materials available to Iowa teachers as they plan their professional learning. She helped the team explore how to structure the professional learning plans to encourage collaborative learning among teachers. A series of professional development stakeholder meetings is being designed for late February and March to enlist key state organizations, such as Michigan Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers–Michigan, in the design and implementation of the professional learning plans. The work of the team includes assisting MDE in moving forward the broader agenda of the Michigan Professional Learning Strategic Plan 2006–2010 passed by the state board of education in early 2006. The individual professional development plans are central to the strategic plan. Once a process is drafted, the Great Lakes East working team is planning to pilot it with teachers in at least two school districts.

Special Education. With assistance from Great Lakes East, the MDE Office of Special Education and Early Intervention Services convened a team of professionals in special and general education to form a Disproportionality Community of Practice.

Among several purposes, the Disproportionality Community of Practice core team was created to serve as a forum for state education agency staff, intermediate school districts, local education agency staff, and technical assistance providers to propose, discuss, and develop strategies that engage school districts in assessing disproportionate representation of minority students in special education.

The group is studying how this problem relates to local policies, practices, and procedures—especially, how the revision of existing culturally responsive self-assessment tools (e.g., National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems [NCCRESt] self-assessment rubric) and how their implementation might be revised and used with school districts. The ultimate goal is to eliminate disproportionate representation of student subpopulations in special education programs.

The team is supported by an experienced group of consultants, including Darren Woodruff (American Institutes for Research) and Beverly Mattson (RMC Research Corporation) as well as invited guests, such as Shelley Zion (associate director, Urban School Alliance, which houses the National Institute for Urban School Improvement and NCCRESt).

Supporting English Language Learners (ELLs). In fall 2006, Mazin Heiderson and Roberto Quiroz (ELL consultants, MDE Office of School Improvement: Curriculum and Instruction), contacted Great Lakes East seeking technical assistance in support of ELL across the state. Great Lakes East staff Constanza Hazelwood, Asta Svedkauskaite, and Gary Appel as well as subcontractor Grace Burkhart (Center for Applied Linguistics) participated in MDE's annual ELL directors' meeting in November to better understand the state's needs and the current landscape regarding ELL students. Based on those initial conversations, a new area of work is emerging focused on building the capacity of ELL directors in the state's school districts and helping the state's two ELL-related professional organizations (i.e., Michigan Association for Bilingual Education and Michigan Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) design and provide professional development to ELL educators in the field.

OHIO

State Manager: Mark Mitchell

Special Education Licensure and Preparation. On November 1–4, 2006, representatives from the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) special education task force attended the Center for Improving Teacher Quality forum, "Building Partnerships: Collaborating Across General and Special Education," in New Mexico. Among the representatives were Michele Lehman (director, ODE Center for the Teaching Profession), Sue Zake (consultant, Northwest Ohio Special Education Regional Resource Center), Lucy Ozvat (consultant, ODE Entry Year Principal Mentor Training), Tom Lather (associate director, ODE Office for Exceptional Children), and Linda Morrow (professor of education, Muskingum College). Mark Mitchell, the Great Lakes East Ohio state manager, also attended the forum and joined the group during their state planning time. The forum provided a good opportunity for the Ohio group to exchange ideas about special education licensure and preparation with other states, such as Pennsylvania and Connecticut, and to hear from experts representing academia, professional groups, and the government.

This sharing of research, ideas, and experiences at the forum led to a rethinking of earlier work by the task force. The original goal and scope of the work was expanded to include the notion of blended or collaborative programs to prepare general education teachers with rigorous preparation to meet the needs of students with disabilities in their classrooms. Great Lakes East representatives on the task force include Beverly Mattson and Chuenee Boston (RMC Research Corporation) and Stacy Rush (American Institutes for Research).

As an outgrowth of the work in New Mexico, the ODE Center for the Teaching Profession invited general and special education faculty members from teacher preparation colleges in Ohio to a statewide forum on January 19, 2007, titled, "Collaborative Programs in General and Special Education," which was cosponsored by ODE and Great Lakes East. The statewide forum featured two nationally prominent speakers and facilitators: Marleen Pugach, Ph.D. (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee), and Linda Blanton, Ed.D. (Florida International University). The speakers gave an overview of collaborative teacher education models, including how these models differ, considerations for implementing the models, and how the models relate to the Highly Qualified Teacher requirements. Higher education faculty had an opportunity to engage in a self-assessment of their teacher education programs and curricula to determine where they were situated along a continuum from discrete (separate general and special education) to integrated programs and curricula. As a result of this statewide forum, ODE has recommended inviting new members to the existing task force to represent additional general and special education faculty members from higher education institutions.

Statewide Data System. This statewide data system known as Data Driven Decisions for Academic Achievement (D3A2) is a long-term initiative with many working committees comprising multiple stakeholder groups. This system will provide educators with access to item analysis data, tools to help interpret data, and online links to educational content. It is also a data infrastructure that enables more efficient and coherent warehousing and reporting of student achievement data. A Great Lakes East team, consisting of Linda McDonald (RMC Research Corporation), Mark Mitchell, Arie van der Ploeg (Learning Point Associates), and Darren Woodruff (American Institutes for Research), has participated on the professional development committee since May 2006.

Within this professional development committee, the participants are focused further on two primary work subgroups: professional development for teachers and professional development for central office staff (e.g., superintendents, curriculum coordinators). The committee has met monthly during the last quarter: October 19, November 16, December 21, and January 18. These monthly meetings enabled the two work subgroups to share and solicit feedback about their ongoing work. Between these monthly meetings, the subgroups met individually to do the work. For example, on November 9–10, 2006, the teacher subgroup met for an intensive work meeting in Columbus, Ohio, to draft two professional development modules: "Overview of D3A2" and "Understanding Our State Testing System." To ensure universal access to these modules, the subgroup, along with a larger committee, thought hard about a blended approach regarding their delivery. The "Overview of D3A2" module is designed to be delivered on a CD-ROM or online in a self-tutorial format. Other modules may include a mix of online facilitated courses or train-the-trainer approaches.

On December 20, 2006, the central office staff subgroup met to discuss the technology standards for school administrators and alignment with an emerging tool "Questions to Assist Superintendents & Central Office Staff in Creating a Data Culture." At the January 18 combined meeting, Carol Daniels (senior research associate, College of Education, The Ohio State University) presented the latest work of this subgroup. The work includes a self-rating instrument for use by superintendents to gauge where their district is at in relation to establishing a data culture and a guide that provides questions and resources focused on low-impact areas identified in the instrument. The work of the teacher and central office staff subgroups has been informed by professional development surveys administered by Hezel Associates. Results from the surveys have led to implications for what kinds of professional development are needed in the field.

In addition to the two subgroups, work continues on the Learning Point Associates Data Primer, seen as another tool that will help novice data users better understand and use data. The Data Primer tool was presented to the entire working group on October 19 to solicit any feedback about how the Data Primer modular design might be adapted to meet specific data user needs in Ohio. On November 16, 2006, Mark Mitchell led a group process to generate specific comments about the Data Primer. These comments, along with those generated on October 19, helped guide the retooling of the Data Primer screens that users see. Further iterations of these screens were shared at the December 21 and January 18 meetings. The next step will be to develop the narrative and questions that reinforce the screens and that model questions users can ask about data. A revised version of the Data Primer will be shared on February 15, 2007, before the full committee.

As an outgrowth of the D3A2 work, a new area is emerging that focuses on a decision framework support process. Staff members from ODE, The Ohio State University, and Great Lakes East have discussed this process and how it will integrate with D3A2 and the Comprehensive Continuous Improvement Plans. The initial conversations took place on November 20, December 11, and January 12. They focused on the need for a decision-making framework and systems of support to help district and school leaders make informed, data-driven decisions in support of a rigorous comprehensive school improvement process. Possible approaches include the design of essential questions that link to the tiered system of support for school improvement in Ohio.

Professional Development Credentialing. This work is focusing on building the capacity of regional service providers to deliver high-quality professional development and school improvement support to local schools and districts. An initial conference call was held on December 11, 2006, with Claudette Rasmussen (Learning Point Associates), Stephen Barr (associate superintendent, ODE Center for School Improvement), Linda McDonald (RMC Research Corporation), and Mark Mitchell. An orientation meeting regarding the work was held on January 17, 2007, at ODE. Next steps include convening stakeholders (both from ODE and the field) to bring clarity to key questions, such as the following: What content and knowledge of adult learning is needed for regional service providers in mathematics, in reading and literacy, and in school improvement? How will such providers become credentialed, and who will grant the credential? How will professional development and school improvement support to schools and districts be evaluated?