Current Projects
TMG Partner Katy Anthes Leading Educator Effectiveness in Colorado
In August 2011 Katy Anthes was appointed Executive Director for Educator Effectiveness at the Colorado Department of Education. Katy and her staff are charged with implementing Colorado's landmark teacher and principal evaluation law (S.B.10-191) which shifts the focus of educator evaluations to demonstrated effectiveness based on professional standards and student academic growth. With this shift, educators' effectiveness drives hiring, promotion, professional development, retaining probational status, dismissal, and contract renewal. In addition to writing the rules for the new legislation, Katy and her team are developing a model evaluation system that will include application documents, rubrics, training resources and associated assessments to inform the evaluation process. See the CDE website for the latest information and progress on educator effectiveness in Colorado.
Katy will continue to devote a small portion of her time to ongoing TMG projects. She can still be reached at kanthes@thirdmilegroup.com.
Association
of Public Land-Grant Universities SMTI Project
Also this year the Mathematics Teacher Education Partnership was created toward the goal of significantly increasing the effectiveness of secondary mathematics teacher candidates, and ensuring that candidates can promote mathematical excellence in their future students, leading to college and and career readiness. The partnership, comprised of institutions of higher education and K-12 schools, districts, and other organizations working collaboratively to redesign secondary mathematics teacher prep programs, will be developing guiding principals and model practices for secondary mathematics teacher preparation programs and work to build consensus around these principals and practices. The partnership also will provide coordinated research and development efforts for secondary mathematics teacher programs in order to meet the challenges of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and to embody research and best practices in the field. The National Science Foundation is supporting initial planning efforts and activities. Click here for more information about MTEP.
APLU's Science and Mathematics Teacher Imperative has also been invited to join more than 80 other partners—from NASA and Google to the New York City Department of Education, Stanford University, and Teach for America—in an effort to respond to the national imperative to prepare, deploy and support 100,000 excellent STEM teachers over the coming 10 years called 100Kin10. The partners are unified by a single, ambitious goal: to prepare all students with the high-quality science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) knowledge and skills needed to address the most pressing national and global challenges of tomorrow. The effort is led by Carnegie Corporation of New York and Opportunity Equation.
The fourth
annual SMTI National Conference will take place in Alexandria, Virginia, June 6-8. The program offers meeting participants a collaborative environment to
learn about cutting-edge programs and share their own experiences with science
and mathematics teacher preparation approaches. Registration is open to faculty
and staff from APLU member institutions and university systems.
Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education (WICHE)
TMG Partner Cathy Walker is serving as project manager and research analyst for the WICHE Interstate Passport Initiative. The two-year pilot project, launched in October and funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, seeks to improve graduation rates, shorten time to degree and save students money by addressing the two-year to four-year institution transfer problem at an interstate level. The project will focus on forging general education core transfer agreements based on learning outcomes between 28 institutions in five partner states—California, Hawaii, North Dakota, Oregon and Utah. The Interstate Passport Initiative will allow the Western states to work together to better serve the needs of their students and may provide a model for other regions, and ultimately the nation, to adopt. See the WICHE website for more information on the project.
Jefferson County Public Schools
TMG is a
subcontractor with the American Institutes for Research to evaluate the
Jefferson County Public Schools Strategic Compensation Project. The pilot
project is designed to reward teachers for student growth and demonstrated
leadership in improving teaching expertise. In this first year of the
five-year project, AIR and TMG worked with district staff to
identify the various components of the project, develop the evaluation plan and
instruments for each component, and
formulate research questions. This fall TMG partner Cathy Walker was
one of two evaluators to visit 10 schools to hear from
teachers and principals about the project. The full evaluation team will
conduct another round of site visits,
interviews, focus groups and surveys from selected
schools next spring. Jefferson County Public Schools is the largest
school district in the
state, with 84,000 students. This project is supported by a federal Teacher
Incentive Fund grant.
Fountain-Fort Carson School District Eight
Third Mile Group Partners Katy Anthes and Cathy Walker, in partnership with Robert Palaich and Kathryn Rooney of Augenblick Palaich and Associates, are in the third and final year as evaluators of two Department of Defense Education Activity grants awarded to Fountain-Fort Carson School District Eight (FFC8). The grant activities are intended to improve student achievement, teacher effectiveness and school climate through specific interventions and diagnostic assessments that target the needs of military students. The evaluation team will visit the district again April 2012 interviewing teachers, principals, district staff and others to learn about Year 3 activities, successes and challenges. The project's final report will be submitted to the district and to DoDEA at the end of July.
TMG is also
the evaluator for a third DoDEA grant, Mastering Math by Making Connections, which is in Year 2 of a
three-year term. A new math curriculum, which effectively integrates
instruction with technology to improve content knowledge, has been rolled out
in all elementary schools in the district. Teachers are receiving assistance with the new curriculum and training in using technology. The project sponsored Summer Math Camps last summer, in which 80 children participated for hands-on instruction in mathematical concepts and processes. TMG’s Year 1 evaluation report was submitted to the district and to DoDEA in October.
TMG
continues to work with the Wyoming Afterschool Alliance (WYAA) by
providing assistance in assessing and
evaluating its afterschool professional development programs. Over a
three-year period and in partnership with the National Institute for
Out-of-School Time (NIOST), TMG is assessing data on afterschool
professional
development and program quality. In spring 2011 TMG created and
administered an online survey of stakeholders, programs, funders and
policymakers on the current quality of
afterschool programs in Wyoming, the needed services to improve the
quality of afterschool
programs and the data that policymakers want to see to support
afterschool
programs. TMG's analysis of the survey results, along with NIOST's
assessment of afterschool providers, will help WYAA develop into a
sustainable
provider and advocate for professional development activities for
expanded
learning opportunities across Wyoming. Additional data collection and
analysis are underway.
University System of Georgia
TMG continues to assist the University of Georgia System, Division for Educator Preparation and Innovation in the development of new teacher programs at specific campuses within USG. Over the next 14 months TMG partner Charles Coble will provide advice and expertise to institutions seeking to establish initial licensure programs or redesign advanced degree programs in education. Coble will also provide assistance, as requested, to Lynne Weisenbach, USG Vice President for Educator Preparation and Innovation and Angela Coleman, USG Director of Teacher Preparation.
Colorado Department of Education
BEST Grant Application Process
This past summer TMG assisted the CDE Division of Capital Construction in assessing the BEST grant application process. Established by legislation in 2008, the BEST grant program provides an annual amount of funding, in the form of competitive grants, to school districts, charters and BOCES for the construction of new schools as well as general construction and renovation of existing school facility systems and structures. Toward the goal of improving and streamlining the application and selection process, TMG developed and administered an online survey to 2010 BEST applicants seeking information on what aspects of the process are problematic and could be improved. Findings and recommendations were presented to the BEST Board in September.
School Leadership Academy Board
In the spring TMG wrapped up its staffing work for the CDE School Leadership Academy Board, however, the school leadership academy is now under the purview of the newly appointed Executive Director for Educator Effectiveness -- Katy Anthes. CDE is actively looking for ways to fund the SLA, and has hopes that it can be the support structure for educators across the state as they take on the challenging tasks of implementing new standards and evaluation systems. Until funding is secured for the Academy, CDE will continue to refine the design so that the state will be ready to move forward on development and implementation.
Colorado
Expanded Learning Opportunities Commission
TMG wrapped up its work as staff to the Expanded Learning Opportunities Commission in June 2011. Supported by the Colorado Legacy Foundation and the Colorado Department of Education, the Commission worked for almost a year to learn about best practices and promising programs – in Colorado as well as throughout the country – that effectively use the school day to fully engage and enrich all students, as well as to foster collaboration and partnerships among teachers, schools and community partners. The Commission examined a number of schools and programs and visited many sites to see programs in action. The Commission's final report of findings and recommendations, released in September, encourages education systems to use time, partners and technology in new ways to achieve greater long-term outcomes for students.