Race to the Top Background for Working Groups

1. Race to the Top Background for Working Groups September 22, 2009

2. Race to the Top: Guidance from Joanne Weiss, Program Director, USDOE • $4.35B competitive fund grant to encourage and reward states making dramatic education reforms, especially in the four statutory ‘assurance areas’: • Standards and assessments that prepare students for success • Data systems to support instruction • Great teachers and leaders • Turning around struggling schools • We are looking for ambitious strategies and reforms from states to: • Drive substantial gains in student achievement • Improve graduation rates and college success • Close the achievement gap

3. Race to the Top: Guidance from Joanne Weiss, Program Director, USDOE • To support states in these efforts, Race to the Top will focus on: • Creating conditions for innovation and reform (legal/regulatory) • Enabling system-wide approaches to continuous improvement (practice) • We encourage state leaders to: • Design a unified state effort around ambitious reforms • Support districts’ reform efforts: Identify effective practices, replicate and disseminate those practices, and hold districts accountable for outcomes • Repurpose and align ARRA and other funds to have the most dramatic impact

5. * Vision* Mission* Background* Strategic Performance Indicators* Critical Success Factors and Corresponding Initiatives* Notes/Observations from Design Team Discussions* Working groups* Timeline OREGON RACE TO THE TOP PRELIMINARY STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK

6. * Background and timeline * March 2009: US Department of Education announces plans to make $5B+ available for states to pursue educational reformMay 2009: Oregon Department of Education and Meyer Memorial Trust begin planning a Race to the Top Design Team. Team members are jointly selected.July 24, 2009: Race to the Top guidelines and criteria published for review and commentSummer 2009: The Oregon Race to the Top Design Team holds three meetings to discuss the state’s application. Design Team creates four Working Groups to address the four core reforms of RTTT September-October 2009: Working Groups will meet to develop initial recommendationsEarly October 2009: Expected date for revised regulations; applications due within 60 days of publicationOctober-November 2009: Design Team will finalize recommendations for completion of the formal application. December 2009: Phase 1 applications due to USDOE. * Due to the legal requirement to distribute and spend stimulus dollars quickly, the Race to the Top application process is compressed. Therefore, the process for soliciting input and reviewing recommendations has to be streamlined.

7. * Race to the Top Design Team * Vickie Fleming, Superintendent of Redmond School District, Project ManagerSusan Castillo, Superintendent of Public InstructionEduardo Angulo, Executive Director, Salem Keizer Coalition for EquityJulia Brim-Edwards, Director of Government Relations, NikePat Burk, Faculty, Portland State UniversityMatt Coleman, Director of Secondary Education, Springfield School DistrictEd Dennis, Deputy Superintendent of Public InstructionMichael Geisen, Teacher, Crook County Middle SchoolJoyce Harris, Director, Equity Program, Northwest Regional Education LaboratorySue Levin, Meyer Memorial Trust FellowMarjorie Lowe, Education Policy Advisor, Office of the GovernorDena Hellums, parent leader, Stand for ChildrenJim Mabbott, Superintendent, Northwest Regional Education Service DistrictColleen Mileham, Assistant Superintendent, ODECarlos Perez, President, Oregon Association of Latino AdministratorsBill Porter, President, Education First ConsultingGail Rasmussen, President, Oregon Education AssociationKate Richardson, Economic Recovery Executive Team, Office of the GovernorDoug Stamm, Executive Director, Meyer Memorial TrustCourtney Vanderstek, Assistant Executive Director, Oregon Education AssociationJoann Waller, retired, former president, Oregon Education AssociationDuncan Wyse, Executive Director, Oregon Business Council

8. * Race to the Top - Selection Criteria * Four ‘reform areas’ plus an overall view of the state’s education ‘climate’:1. Adopting internationally benchmarked standards and assessments that prepare students for success in college and the workplace 2. Recruiting, developing, retaining and rewarding effective teachers and principals 3. Building data systems that measure student success and inform teachers and principals how they can improve their practices 4. Turning around the bottom 5% of low-performing schools * For each of these criteria, there will be a review of Reform Conditions (what’s been done to date) and Reform Plan (new proposals)* In addition, the guidelines ask for states to comprehensively address the four reform areas—the application must “describe how the State and participating LEAs intend to use Race to the Top and other funds to implement comprehensive and coherent policies and practices in the four education reform areas”

9. * Race to the Top - Application priorities * Comprehensive approach to the four education reform areas. (Absolute priority. Applications that do not meet this standard will not be accepted.) * Emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). (Competitive preference priority: potential for additional points awarded.) * Expansion and Adaptation of Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems. (Invitational priority: No preference awarded.)* P-20 Coordination and Vertical Alignment (Invitational priority.)* School-level Conditions for Reform and Innovation (Invitational priority.)

10. --Joanne Weiss, USDOE, 9/10/09 USDOE Questions – Race to the Top • In each of the four reform areas, what legal and policy conditions has each State created—already—that are conducive to education reform and innovation? • For each of the four areas, what plans does each State propose implementing over the next four years that it believes will lead to the most dramatic improvements in student outcomes? How do these plans build on and connect to States' existing efforts and assets? • How will States ensure that they—and their LEAs—can execute against those plans? This is about capacity-building—it's about having the leadership and the teams, the support plans and the operational infrastructure that are needed to successfully deliver on proposed plans. • And the culminating question, what is the impact on student outcomes, statewide, that these plans will have? In the end, it's all in the service of increasing student achievement, increasing high school graduation rates, narrowing the achievement gaps, and preparing our students for success in college and the workforce.

11. --Joanne Weiss, 9/10/09 • I urge everyone—when we get to the application stage—to color outside the lines, to think differently. Don't assume there's something we want to hear and parrot that back to us; and don't assume that any counterproductive constraints under which you operate are immutable. --Joanne Weiss, USDOE, 9/10/09

12. Criteria

13. Guidance from Joanne Weiss, USDOE • Standards and Assessments “Themes” • Adopting common standards that prepare students for college and careers and are internationally benchmarked • Developing common assessments that measure what students know and can do, as defined by the standards (covered by the Standards & Assessment carve-out) • Supporting districts in implementing the new standards and assessments by creating and disseminating curricular frameworks, lesson materials, formative and interim assessments, professional development, etc

14. Criteria

15. Guidance from Joanne Weiss, USDOE • Data Systems to Support Instruction “Themes” • Ensuring that the data in statewide systems is accessible and used to inform and engage stakeholders • Supporting districts in adopting instructional improvement systems so they can implement cycles of data-driven continuous instructional improvement in classrooms, schools, and districts • Improving knowledge about the effectiveness of instructional materials, strategies, and approaches by opening data access to researchers and practitioners

16. Criteria

17. Guidance from Joanne Weiss, USDOE Turning Around Struggling Schools “Themes” • Turning around (at least) the bottom 5% of the school in improvement, corrective action or restructuring • Ensuring conditions for innovation in turnaround schools • Autonomies– ability to select staff, organize/expand learning time, control spending • Providing districts with ‘school turnaround’ partners and providing parents with public school choices: • Charter schools – strong charter accountability coupled with favorable charter laws regarding caps, funding and facilities

18. Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, comments • There are about 5000 chronically underperforming schools. About half are in big cities, maybe a third are in rural areas and the rest in suburbs and medium-sized towns. This is a national problem. • States and districts must be ready to institute far reaching reforms, replace school staff and change the school culture fundamentally. We cannot continue to tinker in schools where students fall further and further behind year after year • When superintendents have the authority to tackle the lowest performing schools by replacing staff and shaking up the school culture, they will have the ability for the first time to close or remake the dropout factories that are at the root of our nation’s dropout problem. • This only works with the full support of the community– the faith-based, the political, the social service agencies, the police, the boys and girls club. A principal can’t do this alone. • America needs high-energy, hero principals to take over these struggling schools…and they will need great teachers who are willing to do the toughest work in public education.

19. Criteria

20. Guidance from Joanne Weiss, USDOE Great Teachers And Leaders “Themes” • Knowing which teachers and principals are effective, as judged in large part by multiple measures of student achievement and growth • Ensuring that local decision-makers are able to use this ‘effectiveness’ information to inform key decisions such as evaluation, compensation, tenure, promotion and dismissal • Rewarding excellence and attracting effective talent to the schools and subject areas where it’s needed most • Shining a light on which credentialing/preparation programs best prepare teachers and principals for success

21. Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, comments • “A recent report from the New Teacher Project found that almost all teachers are rated the same. Who in their right mind really believes that? We need to work together to change this.” • “Test scores alone should never drive evaluation, compensation or tenure decisions. That would never make sense. But to remove student achievement entirely from evaluation is illogical and indefensible.” • “Too often, teachers don’t have good data to inform instruction and help raise student achievement.” • “When principals are able to identify their most effective and their least effective teachers, it makes it easier to place teachers where they are needed most and provide struggling teachers with the help and assistance they need.” • “[In Chicago] with the help of teachers, we designed a pilot performance compensation system…based on classroom observation, whole school performance and individual classroom performance, measured in part by growth in student learning. The rewards and incentives went to every adult in the school—including custodians and cafeteria workers—not just the individual teachers.”

22. --Joanne Weiss, USDOE, 9/10/09 Four Reform Areas • In each of the four reform areas, what legal and policy conditions has each State created—already—that are conducive to education reform and innovation? • For each of the four areas, what plans does each State propose implementing over the next four years that it believes will lead to the most dramatic improvements in student outcomes? How do these plans build on and connect to States' existing efforts and assets? • How will States ensure that they—and their LEAs—can execute against those plans? This is about capacity-building—it's about having the leadership and the teams, the support plans and the operational infrastructure that are needed to successfully deliver on proposed plans. • And the culminating question, what is the impact on student outcomes, statewide, that these plans will have? In the end, it's all in the service of increasing student achievement, increasing high school graduation rates, narrowing the achievement gaps, and preparing our students for success in college and the workforce.

23. --Joanne Weiss, 9/10/09 • I urge everyone—when we get to the application stage—to color outside the lines, to think differently. Don't assume there's something we want to hear and parrot that back to us; and don't assume that any counterproductive constraints under which you operate are immutable. --Joanne Weiss, USDOE, 9/10/09