A centerpiece of the Teacher Leadership and Compensation (TLC) program is collaboration. One of the five state TLC goals is to promote collaboration by developing and supporting opportunities for teachers in schools and school districts statewide to learn from each other.
A common role for a teacher leader is to help create a culture to support shared leadership and collaboration.
Here are some teacher leader roles to support collaboration suggested in “10 Obstacles to Collaboration: the Role of a Teacher Leader” from k12teacherleadership, April 2016.
Encourage teachers to share their ideas and practices by building a relationship to decrease the teacher’s resistance to engage in collaboration.
Educate teachers about the advantages for collaboration and its simplicity.
Clearly communicate the purpose and vision of school-wide collaboration and how it promotes teacher development.
Support the school principal and other leaders in implementing collaboration that impacts student learning and professional practice.
Advocate for time, space, and resources toward collaborative efforts.
Embed professional learning and collaboration into daily practice.
Facilitate opportunities of collaboration to ensure that the experience is positive. Furthermore, collect feedback from all teachers to identify ways to continuously improve collaboration.
Work with teachers to develop group norms and ensure collaboration is open to diverse perspectives.
A collaborative culture is built in teachers’ willingness to share support and explore together. This type of culture will increase teacher retention, improve student learning, and improve professional learning.
For more information, contact Lora Rasey at lora.rasey@iowa.gov or 515-281-6719.
As unpopular as No Child Left Behind was by the time it was ushered off the stage in 2015, advocates for students with disabilities could always point to one aspect of the law that they liked: by requiring that test scores of different student groups be reported separately, the law exposed the low academic performance of students in special education and required schools to do something about it.
The replacement for NCLB, the Every Student Succeeds Act, still requires that the academic performance of students with disabilities be reported, along with other student subgroups.
But the law trades federal mandates for state flexibility on what should happen to a school whose students with disabilities are consistently lagging their peers.
States and some lawmakers have cheered the end of what they call federal overreach. But some advocates worry that the accountability goals states have set for themselves won’t move the needle for a group of students who have long struggled with low achievement. At worst, they worry, states can create rules that allow the performance of students with disabilities to again be obscured by the relatively higher test scores of the general student population.
Lower Goals
“A lot of the really crucial decisionmaking got left to the states,” said Ricki Sabia, the senior policy advisor at the National Down Syndrome Congress. “Our concern was with how they would use this discretion.”
Sabia and Candace Cortiella, the founder of the Advocacy Institute, examined drafts of the accountability roadmaps developed by 37 states. All of the states have submitted ESSA plans to the U.S. Department of Education for evaluation; the department has given its stamp of approval to 14 states and the District of Columbia.
A reading of the draft plans illustrates some of Sabia’s and Cortiella’s concerns. In New Mexico’s accountability blueprint, for example, it set a goal for itself to increase the high school graduation rate of students with disabilities to 79 percent in 2022, up from 62 percent in 2016.
At the same time, however, the plan sets a goal to have 50 percent of students with disabilities scoring proficient on the state’sEnglish/language arts and math assessments by 2022. That’s an ambitious goal—less than 7 percent of New Mexican special education students meet that bar now.
But “it is difficult to understand how [students with disabilities] can be expected to graduate at a rate of 79 percent in 4 years while just 50 percent are expected to be proficient in reading and math,” Sabia and Cortiella wrote in a letter intended to support local advocates.
Plan Omissions
Another concern is that the goals for students with disabilities are too low. New York, for example, is aiming for 63 percent of its students with disabilities to graduate with a standard diploma by 2022, up from 55 percent in 2016. New York notes that its end goal for all students, including students with disabilities, is a 95 percent graduation rate. But it also proposes resetting its goals each year.
Educators didn’t like the 100-percent proficiency goal that was embedded in the old law, Sabia said. “But how do you say that some students aren’t going to be proficient? How do you say it’s OK if 5 percent or 10 percent aren’t? That’s what some of these new plans do.”
The education nonprofit Achieve, in its analysis of state plans, found that 26 states and the District of Columbia set the same long-term graduation goal for all subgroups. Twenty-four states set different end point goals for students with disabilities and other subgroups.
Others have pointed not to what’s in the state plans, but what they believe has been left out. Laura Kaloi is a government relations policy consultant with the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, a group that represents children in special education and their families. COPAA was looking for states to offer specific plans about how to prevent bullying and harassment, discipline that removes children from the classroom, and “aversive behavioral interventions that compromise student health and safety.”
In an examination of the state plans that were submitted this spring, she said, those topics were not addressed.
“We know many, many school districts need work in this area,” Kaloi said.
The plans are light on some details because states were not required by the law to provide them. In March, the Senate overturned some accountability guidelines that were passed during the Obama administration, saying they were too prescriptive and not keeping in the spirit of the law and its focus on state-based accountability. For example, the law requires states to identify a minimum number of students in a particular subgroup that a school would have to enroll in order for that group to be counted in school accountability, known as the N-size. Under the ESSA accountability rules that the Senate threw out, states could select any N-size but had to offer a justification if they chose a number over 30. The Education Department does not require states to provide a justification for its N-size selection.
Some states, such as Ohio, have chosen to provide such justification, however, suggesting that in some cases states are committing to a more rigorous standard.
Ohio is moving from an N-size of 30 down to 15 by the 2019-2020 school year, which means that more schools will potentially be subject to accountability measures. After the change, 86 percent of the state’s schools will have to report on the progress of the special education subgroup, compared to 58 percent that are required to do so now.
Melissa Turner, the senior manager for state policy for the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said her organization is also examining the state plans, with an eye to strong accountability for student subgroups, clearly defined policies that explain how states will help struggling groups of students, and greater use of accommodations and the appropriate use of “alternate assessments.”
ESSA places a 1 percent cap on the percentage of all students who can take alternate assessments. That equates to about 10 percent of students with disabilities. Such alternate assessments are intended for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. Some groups, such as NCLD, have been concerned that schools have steered students to the alternate assessments in the past, instead of providing the teaching and support that would allow students to take the same tests as their peers in general education.
Positive Implications
Turner mentioned some plans that stand out as potentially positive for students with disabilities. Iowa, for example, has organized its ESSA accountability blueprint around “multitiered systems of support,” which are intended to provide research-backed instruction for all students in academics and in social-emotional development.
Turner also singled out New Hampshire for its plans for personalized learning. “That’s something that we applaud. We think that’s a strong opportunity for states to meet the needs of all kids,” she said.
The organization is concerned, as other groups are, about different goals for different student subgroups. If the overall graduation rate goal is 95 percent, it should be the same for students with disabilities, she said.
“We’re really hoping to see that gap narrow in the long-term goals,” she said.
Parents who opted their children out of state exams in recent years became the focal point of major education debates in the country about the proper roles of testing, the federal government, and achievement gaps. Now, under the Every Student Succeeds Act, states have a chance to rethink how they handle testing opt-outs.
So how are states responding in their ESSA plans they submitted to the federal government? In short, it’s all over the place, an Education Week review of the ESSA plans shows.
Keep this in mind: ESSA requires that students who opt out of those mandatory state tests must be marked as not proficient on those tests. Those not-proficient scores will in turn, obviously, impact accountability indicators. So while some states highlight this as their approach to handling testing opt-outs, it’s really no more than what the law requires…
Iowa Department of Education Director Ryan Wise today announced that the third draft of Iowa’s state plan for meeting the federal Every Student Succeeds Act is available for public review and comment. Iowa’s plan will be finalized and submitted to the U.S. Department of Education in September. ESSA is a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965; the update replaces the No Child Left Behind Act. “Iowa has several collaborative education improvement efforts underway, each with a goal of preparing students for success in high school and beyond, and the Every Student Succeeds Act is an opportunity to connect and build on those efforts,” Wise said. The third draft is a final opportunity for Iowans to review the plan; a snapshot can be found here.
The Iowa Department of Education is soliciting feedback on the second draft of its plan to comply with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.
Ryan Wise, director of the state department, said the plan is a step toward implementing ESSA that input is needed “so we land on a final plan that is right for the state.”
ESSA is a replacement for the No Child Left Behind Act and is a re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the key piece of federal legislation that governs public schools.
A third draft of Iowa’s plan is anticipated in August. The new draft uses a template from the U.S. Department of Education, according to a release.
The plan must be submitted to the federal government by Sept. 18. Feedback on the draft will be taken through July 18.
Find a copy of the plan at tinyurl.com/iowaessa. Email comments to essa@iowa.gov or by mail to Iowa Department of Education, Attn: Deputy Director David Tilly/ESSA Feedback, Grimes State Office Building, 400 East 14th St., Des Moines, IA 50319-0146.
After 34 years of teaching math and science at Farragut Community High School in Fremont County, Iowa, Harold Dinsmore officially retired in 1992. Nine years later, he “retired” again, after he was called back to finish out the 2001 school year while administrators found a permanent chemistry teacher. In 2015, he went back again to close out the school’s last semester. This time, there would be no going back to the town’s only high school.
Last summer the school—a fixture in the community, since its creation in the 1920s—was “involuntarily dissolved.”
“It tears me up. It shouldn’t have happened,” says Dinsmore. “I was fortunate to have all my children go to that high school, and I’m very proud of [it].”
Dinsmore says his colleagues were proud of the school, too, and their pride made them active in the school’s life. “We all worked together and all of our school programs were strong,” he says, noting that when there was a game, Farragut’s bleachers were usually filled to capacity. “The school gave everyone a great foundation to succeed in life,” he adds.
Hometown Pride
Farragut is a small farming town established in 1870, and named after Admiral David Farragut—the nation’s first vice admiral to the U.S. Navy. He is remembered for making the cry, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,” (paraphrased) during the victorious 1864 Battle of Mobile.
Dinsmore’s daughter, Marcia Johnson, lives and works in Shenandoah—a neighboring school district—where she teaches third grade and serves as the local president for the Shenandoah Education Association.
We all worked together and all of our school programs were strong. The school gave everyone a great foundation to succeed in life” – Harold Dinsmore
Johnson attended Farragut in the 1980s, and her high school memories are fond. “I loved being in a small school. We were involved in everything,” she says, firing off a laundry list of activities from music to sports, and “all” of the school clubs. She knew everyone, too: classmates and their siblings, teachers and their children.
During Johnson’s era, the school was known for the girls’ basketball team, which traveled to state championship games every year. “That was our claim to fame,” she proudly says.
The classes that followed Johnson’s won state competitions in speech, volleyball, and softball. Trophies filled display cases. And graduates’ academic efforts led them to impressive professions in different countries.
“The kids who graduated from Farragut are all over the world, even though they came from a tiny place,” says Pat Shipley, a former Farragut teacher who has been UniServ director for the Iowa Education Association since 1994. “One of my prior students lives in Taiwan and is an engineer for a major petroleum company.”
Despite the school’s success, the district experienced a slow and painful fall that led to Farragut’s closure.
The Collapse
The school was part of the Farragut district within Fremont County, which houses multiple school districts. In recent years, some of them operated in the red, and struggled to comply with state regulations. Steady enrollment declines made matters worse.
Farragut’s budget was overspent, and the district was noncompliant with the state’s accessibility regulations. To address these issues, the Iowa Education Department advised that the district merge with the nearby Hamburg school district, which was also struggling financially. In Iowa, the practice is called “whole sharing,” and is intended to help keep costs low and schools open.
Harold Dinsmore
The districts agreed. In 2010, they merged sports teams—a big point of contention for the respective communities, which were used to being athletic rivals.
Patty Bredensteiner, a former art teacher, remembers the angst. “Community members didn’t like this change. In their minds Hamburg symbolized Wildcats and Farragut represented Admirals [the schools’ mascots].”
The two districts soon shared programs and students, and there were transfers of entire grades between the two schools. By 2015, seventh through twelfth graders from both districts became part of a new school, Nishnabotna, with a new mascot, new athletic name, and a new identity.
“There was a period of adjustment as the two former rival school districts learned to function as one entity,” says Shipley, who taught at Farragut for five years. “The students made the transition; the communities did not.”
The longstanding pride of the two communities was jeopardized as the two districts worked toward a new identity. The shuffle of students to and from the districts created another dilemma: a dramatic increase in transportation costs. The districts were nearly 20 miles apart.
“It became an issue of travel time and money for gas,” says Shipley.
Not Without a Fight
Despite the additional issues, educators were hopeful that their high school would be saved, and many rolled up their sleeves to join the fight for its survival. They distributed petitions, attended community meetings, wrote letters, and called state legislators.
“Our folks worked really hard,” says Shipley. “They did everything within their power to tell their story to get people to think differently. But you can have the best organizing plan possible, and sometimes the weight of the issues doesn’t allow you to get what you want.”
Farragut’s school district had made some improvements, but it wasn’t enough. In December, 2015, officials at the state education department made the decision to shutter the high school at the end of the school year.
Jane Wilson, a former French and Spanish teacher, remembers the day the announcement was made.
“It was like losing a family member,” she says. “We all gathered at an assembly. When they told us, jaws dropped—and then there was silence.”
The Aftermath
“This was a heartbreaking experience,” Shipley says.
Ball games, band concerts, dances, and graduation ceremonies were gone. For alumni, there would be no more trips to the school for class reunions that had spanned three generations and occurred every five years.
Educators were understandably concerned about employment and health care coverage.
“My husband and I were on Farragut’s health insurance plan,” says Wilson, who taught for 35 years. “Once the school dissolved, we lost our insurance and had to go into the market place. We now spend a third of our income on insurance.”
The dissolution caused some teachers to retire early while others were hired by neighboring school districts. “There was widespread sensitivity from other districts,” says Shipley, “and those who wanted to teach found new places without making huge moves.”
The town itself also suffered. Farragut saw a decline in businesses and a reduction of car and foot traffic. At the local bank and the post office, operating hours were cut in half. Only the gas station maintains regular business hours.
“If you go up Main Street, you’re lucky if you see a car,” says Dinsmore, the thrice-retired Farragut teacher. Today, he is a Hamburg bus driver. “There’s nothing here,” he says.
Typically, when small, rural schools or districts shutter it’s a hard blow to the area. “It usually turns the area to ruins,” says Marcia Johnson.
In Farragut, community members worked to prevent that kind of fate.
Rebirth
Although Farragut Community High School sits empty today, when the district dissolved, ownership of the building transferred to the Shenandoah Community School District, which immediately sought a new owner to take over the property.
An initial attempt to sell the building to an Iowa manufacturing company failed when city council members rejected a rezoning. In December, 2016, success arrived when local business owners Trent and Donna Tiemeyer bought the building for $6,000, and began making plans to convert it into apartments.
People are positive with the new plans. Sometimes you have to think outside of the box to save yourself” – Jane Wilson
For Trent Tiemeyer, the work is personal. He graduated from Farragut in 1987. His grandparents, parents, and aunts and uncles are Farragut graduates, too.
“When my aunts and uncles were here for their last alumni celebration—when they knew the school was closing for good—my aunts were crying, saying, ‘This is the last time we’re going to be able to see the school.’”
Tiemeyer, who recently lost his mother, remembers thinking, “I’m going to do this for my mom. I’m going to keep the building, and not let it go to an industrial building or become vacant and get torn down.”
The Tiemeyers have a few ideas in mind for turning the building into an apartment complex that could draw families back into the community.
“There’s a wide area that was used for the lunch room. It has a kitchen. We’re considering a restaurant. People here drive for food, and if it’s good food, they’ll drive 40-plus miles,” says Tiemeyer.
The family also hopes to open the gymnasium to the community. “Kids could play basketball and tenants and residents could lift weights,” he says.
Local residents are excited about the apartment complex.
“People are positive with the new plans,” says Jane Wilson. “Sometimes you have to think outside of the box to save yourself.”
By creating more of a bedroom community, Wilson is hopeful younger families will move into the area and jumpstart a community that is fighting to stay alive.
President-elect Donald Trump is not the only executive stepping in front of a podium this month. The beginning of a new year also means that the nation’s governors will be celebrating recent successes and outlining new programs and ideas in their annual state of the state addresses. Governors speaking early in 2017 have focused on education accomplishments, including raising high school graduation rates, and presented areas for improvement and transformation.
Oregon: Gov. Kate Brown Shares Top Priority: Raising High School Graduation Rates
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) was clear as bell during her January 9 inaugural speech: her top priority is improving Oregon’s high school graduation rates. Although Brown acknowledged the investments and improvements made in education during her two years in office, she was more focused on unsettling statistics that make Oregon schools “among the nation’s leaders in all the wrong categories,” including highest dropout rate.
To raise the state’s high school graduation rate, which is currently about 74 percent and is the third worst rate in the nation, Brown’s agenda includes a graduation equity fund in the amount of $20 million, reports the Portland Tribune. The fund would replicate best practices from around the state to address chronic absenteeism, aid students who are experiencing trauma, expand mentoring and professional development for teachers, and invest in underserved communities.
“Let’s make sure that every student in Oregon—especially historically underserved students–has the chance to achieve their own dreams,” said Brown.
Georgia: Gov. Nathan Deal Talks Highs and Lows of Georgia’s Education Landscape
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) framed many parts of his January 11 state of the state address with the theme of “accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative,” including in the area of education. He shared the state’s high school graduation rate, which has increased from 67.4 percent in 2011 to the current rate of 79.2 percent, as a great positive improvement.
Deal thanked the educators for this progress saying, “Those who are on the frontlines of this field, who mold young minds every day in the classroom and who answer such a challenging calling are the ‘everyday heroes’ that a successful society requires.”
As for the negative, Deal discussed the state’s 153 chronically underperforming schools, which have increased from 127 two years ago. These schools serve almost 89,000 students, primarily elementary age children. Deal stressed the importance of “reversing this alarming trend early on” and how eliminating this negative would improve reading and math comprehension skills and scores, graduation rates, and the quality of the Georgia’s workforce.
“It should be abundantly clear to everyone, including those in the education community who so staunchly support the status quo, that this is unacceptable,” said Deal. “If this pattern of escalation in the number of failing schools does not change, its devastating effects on our state will grow with each passing school year.”
North Dakota: Gov. Doug Burgum Calls for Modernizing Education for a 21st Century World
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) challenged the basic education model that “dates back to before statehood” during his January 3 state of the state address.
“Most North Dakota students still study isolated subjects, sit in rows of desks for 50-minute periods and wait for the next bell to ring. Yet nearly all of the world’s information is now available online, anywhere, anytime, for free.” said Burgum. “We can’t prepare our kids for the 21st century using a 19th-century model.”
Beyond a shift in model, Burgum said that educators, parents, business people, policymakers, and students are saying that performance on traditional measures is not enough to prepare students for the future. “They need to be creative problem solvers, effective communicators, informed and responsible citizens who are strong collaborators,” he said. “The challenge for our schools is how to equip our students with these essential skills and learning mindsets.”
When it comes to school transformation, Burgum called for superintendents, principals, teachers, and students to be at the forefront, but he also acknowledged the role of parents, businesses, community organizations, and legislators.
“We must also reframe education to be a lifelong endeavor, not something that merely ends with a diploma,” he said.
Other Education Highlights
–Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) dedicated much of his January 11 Inaugural address to argue the case for fully funding education, calling on the imaginations of viewers as he painted a picture of what a fully funded education would look like in the state.
“Imagine schools that can recruit and keep great teachers, with competitive salaries. … Imagine closing the opportunity gap in our state by making sure at-risk kids have extra teaching and mentoring time. … Imagine more students graduating because we have psychologists, nurses and counselors who can help them cross the finish line. … Imagine students learning skills that employers tell us they need right now.”
…Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) is paving the way toward connectivity in the classroom through the EducationSuperHighway, so that “every student, in every classroom, will have affordable, effective, high-speed internet.” His full state of the state address.
…Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R) wants all K-12 students to have access to high-quality computer science and introduced legislation that encourages every high school in Iowa to offer at least one computer science course. Learn more from his January 10 state of the state address.
…Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) emphasized the importance of skills-based training opportunities both in and out of the classrooms, including high school apprenticeships, so thousands of Coloradans can acquire career-focused skills that are transferrable to different industries. More in his January 12 state of the state address.
![[ESSA] State Plan Versions That Have Been Released So Far](https://nnpa.org/essa/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/essa-posts-featured_0060_iStock-460421987-1-1080x600.png)
