STC Resources

Matt Smith Presentation on Prepping for VSM

Chris — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 20:16:03 GMT

Matt Smith gave this presentation on April 15, 2009 to help prepare the STC to conduct its VSM.

March 18, 2009 Meeting Packet

Chris — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 06:36:23 GMT

Higher Education Funding Presentation

Chris — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 05:34:18 GMT

Presented at March STC meeting, by Kelly Hupfeld

Retreat Reflections

teske — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 22:41:26 GMT

by Paul Teske

There were a number of insightful comments at our retreat. Two have stuck out in my mind, as both seemed to be "show stoppers" when they were offered for consideration (that is, they were powerful and people needed a minute to reflect, I think, but we had to move on to other topics, too).

I think they are both worth some serious discussion, at least on the blog, perhaps in future meetings too. If we agree that the original comments are mostly correct, then they have profound implications for our work. If we challenge them, it will be well worth the effort to understand why/how they can be challenged.

The first statement was from David Greenberg. David basically said that, in the current system, there are no incentives, none, for adults running the systems to care about the success of students (our broad goal of individual success for the common good). This is a powerful statement (and the reason David himself has put his own efforts into charters, somewhat apart from the "larger system"). If this is true, then we should probably be thinking hard about creating some incentives (and, to our credit, we have done so already, thinking about "rewards" for districts or schools that produce graduates, but obviously we would have to go further, and this should be a foundational point of our work).

But, is it true? There would seem to be some political incentives for adults to care - e.g., elected state and school district board members, and the professional they hire and oversee - if they don't make acceptable progress, political accountability mechanisms should bring in new leadership, via elections. And, that "pressure" to achieve success should also be pushed down the hierarchies to principals, teachers, etc. But, does that really happen? - probably not much or not very directly.

Do SARs, NCLB or the new proposal for accountability in Colorado make any difference, in terms of real incentives for adults to care about students success?

And, what other kinds of real incentives or accountability structures to support student success are built-into today's system? What could be incorporated? Teacher or principal pay for performance is at least aligned with this idea, though our experiments in that domain are just starting, in a few districts. How much do we want to "bet" on an stronger incentives based approach?

The second statement was from Elaine Ganz Berman. Elaine said that merging K12 and higher ed may be impossible because one is a "system" (K12) and the other (higher ed) is not a system. First of all is this true? - is K12 in Colorado really a "system" and is higher ed truly not a system? And, in what sense is that important?

I believe that "discussing" these two issues on the blog will help our thought process, on several levels, relating to governance and finance.

Thanks to David and Elaine for those provocative statements.

Retreat presentation: Governance II

Chris — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:35:45 GMT

Retreat poresentation: Finance

Chris — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:34:13 GMT

Retreat Agenda

Chris — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:34:00 GMT

STC Idea Matrix, generated on October 30, 2008

Chris — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 04:53:11 GMT

This document captures ideas presented by members at the October 30, 2008 meeting.

Conversation 2007: Shaping Educational Excellence in Colorado

Chris — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:11:43 GMT

Report on Activities and Outcomes, February 2008, Civic Canopy and Donnell-Kaye Foundation.

Making Change: How to Build Adaptive Capacity

Chris — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:40:05 GMT

Article from the Nonprofit Quarterly by Carl Sussman.

24/7 School Reform - NYTimes.com article by Paul Tough

cheryl — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 05:16:25 GMT

Written by Paul Tough, a NY Times Magazine editor, "The Way We Live Now - 24/7 School Reform" is dated September 7, 2008.

"The Seven Survival Skills for Career, College and Citizenship" by Tony Wagner

cheryl — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 05:02:09 GMT

Tony Wagner is Co-Director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and can be reached through his website: www.schoolchange.org. This article is adapted from his book, The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach The New Survival Skills Our Children Need—and What We Can Do About It (New York: Basic Books, 2008)

P-20 Council Brief - Transitions into Postsecondary Education

cheryl — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 04:58:20 GMT

This issue brief titled, "Transitions into Postsecondary Education," was prepared for the Governor's P-20 Council by the Colorado Children's Campaign and the Center for Education Policy Analysis at the University of Colorado at Denver/HSC.

Links to resources on the web

Chris — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:37:44 GMT

Resources to download from other sites

Colorado Department of Education's "Forward Thinking" plan: http://www.cde.state.co.us/Communications/download/PDF/ForwardThinking.pdf

WestEd report to CDE on definitions of 21^st century skills, workforce readiness, and career readiness: http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdeassess/documents/OSA/stand_rev/Definitions_Analysis_by_West_Ed_pdf.pdf

Results of CDE surveys and forums concerning definition: http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdeassess/documents/OSA/stand_rev/Final%20Survey%20Report.pdf

McKinsey report on the world's best-performing school systems: http://www.mckinsey.com/locations/ukireland/publications/pdf/Education_report.pdf

CPRE paper: "Summary and Reflections on 14 Years of CPRE School Finance Redesign Work": http://cpre.wceruw.org/papers/SF_redesign.pdf

Website of Possible Interest

Partnership for 21^st Century Skills: http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/

CDE's website on standards review: http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdeassess/documents/OSA/stand_rev.html

P-20 Council main page: http://www.colorado.gov/governor/p-20-council.html

School Finance Redesign Project at the Center for Reinventing Public Education: http://www.crpe.org/cs/crpe/view/projects/3

Education Evolving: http://www.educationevolving.org/

The Seven Survival Skills for Careers, College, and Citizenship

Chris — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:34:50 GMT

Rigor Redefined

The Seven Survival Skills for Careers, College, and Citizenship

By Tony Wagner

Reimagining High School in Colorado

Chris — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:33:19 GMT

This is the report of the Governor's Graduation Guidelines Development Council, May 2008.

Pipleine Facts

Chris — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:29:20 GMT

Datasheet on pipleline issues.

Keeping Students on a Graduation Path

Chris — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:26:14 GMT

Martha Abele Mac Iver, Johns Hopkins University

Presentation to the Governor's P-20

Education Coordinating Council

Aurora, Colorado

Monday June 16th, 2008

GGDC Policy Recommendations

Chris — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:24:37 GMT

This document suggests some policy options that could support the GGDC recommendations.

"Getting At-Risk Funds to At-Risk Students"

cheryl — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:58:27 GMT

This presentation to the Colorado Children's Campaign was created by Augenblick, Palaich and Associates (a Denver-based consulting firm) - Fall 2008.