Skills Iowa Lessons Learned Moving Forward

1. Skills IowaLessons LearnedMoving Forward

2. Agenda • Welcome • Explanation of Webinar Format and How It Works • Why an Audience of School Leaders? • Lessons Learned • Moving Forward • Governor’s Blueprint • Great Pit Stops in Iowa • Wrap-Up

3. Welcome and Introductions • Margaret Buckton, Partner at ISFIS (margaret.buckton@isfis.net) • Phillip Autrey, Representative from US Skills and Data Guy Extraordinaire • Susie Olesen, School Improvement Enthusiast, ISFIS (susie.olesen@isfis.net or susie@skillsiowa.org)

4. How does this webinar work? • You are muted. We’d love to hear everyone, but it might be bedlam. No different than usual.  • If you have a question, write it in the chat box on the right of your screen and we will try to answer it. • Encouraging SI personnel to use this tool to meet with you, solve problems, make plans, etc.

5. Why have a session for school leaders? • Leadership is second only to classroom instruction among all school-related factors that contribute to what students learn at school. • Leadership effects are usually largest when and where they are needed most. (Virtually NO documented instances of schools being turned around absent strong leadership. Leadership is the catalyst.) • Kenneth Leithwood, Karen Seashore Louis, Stephen Anderson and Kyla Wahlstrom 2004

6. What do effective school leaders do? • Set direction. • Develop people. • Redesign the organization.

7. Skills Iowa Leadership Examples • Skills Iowa School with moderate to low usage. • Enter new principal. • Expects teachers to use Skills Iowa tools. (Sets direction.) • Sees Skills Iowa tools as useful supports (and other school improvement tools as well) and embraces them. In other words, uses available resources. (Redesigns the organization) • Finds time to build collaboration into schedule and expects SI to be part of work. (Develops people.) • Usage and student performance on the benchmarks goes up.

8. Observation of Leadership in Successful Skills Iowa Implementations • Leaders engage in initiative • Attend training • Skills Iowa not optional, part of the school improvement work • Leave nothing to chance, make expectations clear • Expect staff to use data in PLCs or Data Teams • Expect instruction to be planned around student learning needs • Regularly look at Skills Iowa data/monitor progress • Talk more about the outcomes than the inputs

9. Usage Data All Schools

10. Teacher Usage – 4,652

11. Benchmark Results - Math

12. Top Class Results

13. Math Benchmark and Teacher Usage

14. Does Skills Iowa Raise Achievement?

15. Conclusions • Classes that had higher than expected gains on the math benchmark tests had teachers who used all of the components of Skills Iowa more than classes with teachers who had lower than expected gains. • If the most effective teachers chose to use SI more than other teachers, one could conclude that, in general, effective teachers found SI to be a valuable resource in raising student achievement. • Increased usage does not guarantee increased test scores. The “How” SI is used is far more important than the “How much”

16. Moving Forward: Things to Pay Attention to…. • Make the case for change. Is everyone learning? • Set expectations. Use of Skills Iowa and other school improvement initiatives not optional. • Providing necessary support. (SI Tools, Time, Expert Training) • Monitor Progress • Usage • Results

17. Governor’s Blueprint • Great Teachers and Principals • A Relentless Focus on Learning: High Expectations and Fair Measures • A Spirit of Innovation in Education

18. A Next Generation Assessment Framework • Develop new formative and summative assessments aligned with the Common Core Standards for grades three through eight. These assessments will be computer adaptive to reduce testing time, provide instant results, and will be available for both classroom and end-of-year purposes.

19. Skills Iowa • Formative • Summative • On-line • Immediate feedback • Aligned to core • Many Iowa educators already trained

20. Education Meetings • Town Hall Meetings Today, November 15 • Marshalltown, 10 A.M. (HS Auditorium) • Toledo, 11:30 A.M. (Reinig Center) • Cedar Falls, 4:30 P.M. (Linn-Mar Learning and Resource Center Gym) • Friday, November 18 • Sioux City, 10 A.M. (Western Iowa Tech, Cargill Auditorium)

21. Education Meetings • Today, Tuesday, November 15 • Danville, 6 P.M., HS Chorus Room • Pocahontas, 6:00 P.M., Public Library • Osage, 6:30 P.M., Osage HS Cafeteria • Waverly, 6:30 P.M., Public Library • Oelwein, 7 P.M., Public Library • Oskaloosa, TBA

22. More Education Meetings • Wednesday, November 16, 2011 • Maquoketa, 5:30 P.M., Public Library • West Liberty, 5:30 P.M., Public Library • Independence, 6 P.M., Public Library • Thursday, November 17, 2011 • Humboldt, 6 P.M., HS Library • Marshalltown, 6:30 P.M., Public Library Café • Muscatine, 6:30 P.M., Community College

23. Resources • Training and Technical Support • Website • Grant Language: http://www.skillsiowa.org/?q=grantwritingresources • Skills Iowa Booster • School Improvement Booster

24. Great Iowa Pitstops The Hungry Mind Downtown Mason City 16 S Commercial Alley

25. Contact Info Susie Olesen susie@skillsiowa.org 641-745-5284 Iowa School Finance Information Services