P-20 strategies gain tighter focus

by Mark McGowan

A second day-long summit of educators on P-20 - the initiative to promote a pre-school through graduate school perspective - has pinpointed five areas for concentration.

Chief among them: to keep talking about ways to improve schools.

"What we definitely heard is that we need to continue," said Sherry Eagle, superintendent of schools in West Aurora District 129 and one of the conference moderators.

The group, including nearly 100 representatives from elementary and secondary schools, two- and four-year public and private colleges and universities and education-related agencies, spent April 23 at NIU-Naperville in active conversation concerning the vital role of communication and collaboration across the system to improving student performance.

Speakers from a wide variety of school-university partnerships came to tell their stories, share their ideas and contribute to the discussion that began earlier this year among deans from the state's public universities.

"We really do have to reason together, to use our expertise and share our ideas and best practices, if we're going to be part of the solution. Let's accomplish something, even if it's small," NIU President John Peters told the group at the day's beginning.

"We share a profound belief that there is excellence in our schools. Our system is promoting wonderful opportunities for learners of all ages," he added. "I can't claim to be an expert in your area, but you are. I'm going to listen hard today."

Rear Admiral Ann E. Rondeau, commander at Great Lakes Naval Training Center and a doctoral student in the NIU College of Education, energized the participants with her keynote address on the Navy's strategies and successes in training tens of thousands of sailors each year.

"We grow our own," Rondeau said. "We invest in who we're going to promote."

Naval leaders concentrate on a learning process, seeking the answer to how learning occurs, and consider aspects of "factors-thinking" and "operational-thinking" in their planning. Factors include motivation, intelligence, class size and teacher quality, while operations include learning, learning productivity, cumulative experience and knowledge.

They also contemplate questions of training vs. screening, Rondeau said.

The Navy is moving from screening to "identifying" - looking for the ability to learn continuously, or the ability and nature to tap into curiosity - and from testing for placement "in" to placement "out."

Morning sessions also featured numerous examples of partnerships, including the fruitful collaboration between West Aurora School District 129 and Aurora University (see sidebar) and stories of alternative certification teachers.

Participants received an update on development of the AAT (associate's degree in teaching) from Virginia McMillan, executive vice president of the Illinois Community College Board.

Sixty-six percent of all newly certified teachers from public universities have had some community college work, McMillan said, and 44 percent have had at least one year of community college.

"Community colleges had to be a major partner with what was happening with teacher education," she said. "Illinois received, and is a partner with, a federal grant that looks at the role of community colleges in teacher education."

The ICCB has pulled together representatives from community colleges and universities who recommend the AAT comprise at least 60 to 62 hours, she said, and that the general education core requirements are those accepted in the AAT degree. An additional 60 hours at the university level would be required to earn the initial certification.

Afternoon sessions divided the partners into several work groups charged with developing the strategic action recommendations:

Resource sharing - find ways to locate and share resources to meet critical needs.

Resource sharing

• Develop mechanisms to identify needs, institutional strengths, and potential partnerships; e.g. data bank, partnership fair, Web site.
• Adopt a covenant or compact model between higher education institutions and P-12 schools with principles that are mutually beneficial.
• Create a data bank of best practices and innovations in the region; e.g. retention of teachers and school improvement plans.
• Support continuous improvement activities for partnerships and effective teams that focus on learning.

Ensuring success of AAT programs

• Identify resources for AAT programs, especially for rural community colleges; e.g. faculty, online courses.
• Recruit students for AAT programs through outreach to middle schools, high schools, paraprofessionals and other adults.
• Seek funding for AAT scholarships and other incentives.

Regional P-20 Dialogue - Reach consensus on over-arching issues with legislative and institutional policy implications.

Influencing public and legislative opinion

• Define a common agenda and articulate common messages.
• Marshal existing mechanisms for influencing public opinion and legislative action.
• Collaborate on collective regional action to influence policy-making.

Institutionalizing "Thinking P-20"

• Examine alternatives to fragmented governance of education at the state level.
• Structure ongoing P-20 dialogues at the regional level.
• Identify roles that each constituency should play in raising all students to the level of meeting standards, as required by "No Child Left Behind."
• Establish leadership academies to help "grow your own" leaders.
• Recommend ways to reward innovation in meeting standards.
• Recommend institutionalizing rewards for partnering.
• Promote intra- as well as inter-institutional collaboration.

Content Articulation - Convene faculty groups by disciplines to align curricula and instruction with standards across levels.

Connecting disciplinary faculty - K-12, community college and four-year

• Convene P-20 faculty groups by discipline.
• Define operational implications of content and pedagogical standards and disseminate results.
• Develop mechanisms to assess and report implementation.
• Identify strategic content issues that will attract outside resources.
• Develop future-focused assessment practices that are diagnostic, drive instruction, and match teaching to student potential.
• Generate HR development models for professional growth of educators.
• Devise a process to assess progress of educator candidates toward meeting standards and report aggregated results.
• Align college expectations and IAI with high school exit expectations specified in the Illinois Learning Standards.

Participation in the AAT development process

• Participate in AAT work groups for math, science and special education degree programs, including faculty and other stakeholders from all levels.

Data Warehouse - Determine questions that need to be answered from a data warehouse.

Some issues for questions:

• Tracking individual students, teachers, and programs.
• Assessment of candidate progress toward meeting standards.
• Data-driven models for professional growth of educators.
• Policy data for legislators and stakeholders.
• National data network to validate standards.

Think Tank - Design a new P-20 educational system.

• Examine models from the military and other sources.
• Identify elements of new models already in operation in the region.
• Include ways a P-20 system can promote diversity among students and faculty and provide a learning environment that is sensitive to diversity.
• Create alternative models for review by stakeholder groups.
• Report viable options for a new system design.

5-12-03