Wisconsin Record of Service

October 2011

Great Lakes West State Manager: Anna Koelln

Response to Intervention

Planning has begun for Wisconsin's new role as an intensive state from the National Center on Response to Intervention (NCRTI). Wisconsin officially became an NCRTI intensive state in December 2010. As a result of the new assistance, NCRTI and Great Lakes West are collaborating to provide continuity of response to intervention (RTI) services to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI). An initial planning meeting was held on March 16, 2011, between Great Lakes West, NCRTI, DPI, and the Wisconsin RTI Center to discuss specific supports for Wisconsin in implementing RTI. One of the keys to Wisconsin's selection as an intensive state was DPI's release of Wisconsin Response to Intervention: A Guiding Document in November 2010. The guiding document is being used as a roadmap for coordinated RTI implementation activities.

Educator Effectiveness

Great Lakes West is supporting DPI in creating a new statewide educator effectiveness system that will include improved teacher and principal evaluations. In December 2010, DPI created an educator effectiveness stakeholders group to discuss the new systems approach to educator effectiveness. The purpose of this group is to (1) design an educator effectiveness system for the state of Wisconsin, (2) create a regulatory framework for implementing the system, and (3) make recommendations to local education agencies (LEAs) on methods to support improvement and recognize performance. To conduct this work, the larger stakeholders group consists of a workgroup and a design team. The workgroup includes key stakeholders from the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators, the Association of Wisconsin School Administrators, the Wisconsin Education Association Council, and representatives from colleges and universities. The workgroup will provide data, research, and contextual information to support the design team. The design team includes leadership from each participating organization and is charged with planning the next steps for the work. The design team will make final decisions based on data and research collected by the workgroup. Great Lakes West is providing facilitation support to the workgroup and design team monthly meetings. Great Lakes West is also collaborating with the National Comprehensive Center on Teacher Quality to provide the most recent and relevant research for the educator effectiveness stakeholders group.

Wisconsin Common Core State Standards

Since Wisconsin's adoption of the CCSS in ELA and mathematics, Great Lakes West has continued to work with DPI on planning and implementation activities. A regional meeting was held January 24–25 in the Chicago area for SEA staff to meet with their peers from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. Great Lakes East, Great Lakes West, and REL Midwest sponsored this meeting.

Since the regional meeting, Great Lakes West has taken a two-pronged approach to supporting DPI in a regional manner and a state-specific approach. Great Lakes West is assisting DPI staff to build and sustain continuous systemic support for standards implementation by providing resources, models, meeting facilitation, processes, and thought partnering throughout the CCSS implementation process. Great Lakes West is also coordinating and facilitating workgroups among all five states so that a comprehensive, collaborative approach can be developed for states to share their ideas and resources at the regional level. Wisconsin DPI is participating in four workgroups that are supported by Great Lakes West and Great Lakes East: leadership, communications, alignment, and teaching and learning.

Wisconsin Pacesetter Initiative

Work is underway for the second cohort of the Academy of Pacesetting States. The Academy of Pacesetting States is an initiative sponsored by the Center on Innovation and Improvement (CII) that began in 2009. As part of this initiative, the Wisconsin team of nine Title I staff will participate in a series of meetings and distance-learning opportunities throughout the year. Wisconsin began with an orientation for distance learning on December 10, 2010, and the other team activities are as follows:

• Participation in distance-learning sessions for cohort I

• Participation in distance-learning sessions for cohort II

• Attendance at monthly meetings with the Great Lakes West liaison

• Development of a statewide system of support operations manual

• Attendance at Great Lakes West and CII monthly meetings

Great Lakes West is providing direct support to DPI staff before, during, and after the distance-learning sessions so that new learning and dialogues from each session can be applied to current work and initiatives in Wisconsin.

Early Childhood

DPI has recently requested support from Great Lakes West to provide research and facilitation to a small stakeholders group consisting of DPI staff and other Wisconsin education organizations in early childhood. Great Lakes West is researching early childhood development licensure systems in other states to help DPI gain an understanding of these licensure systems. DPI has also requested that Great Lakes West facilitate two meetings in April and May. The first meeting will focus on understanding the issues related to K–12 licensing and childcare licensing and presenting the results of the research conducted. The second meeting will focus on ways Wisconsin could modify early childhood licensing in light of the information shared at the first meeting.