Exercise: Defining Your State’s Role

Objectives

Understand the role that your state plays in supporting standards implementation through: systems of professional development curricular and instructional materials transitions leadership development communications advocacy and coalition building

Identify the real and perceived barriers or challenges within your state education agency to supporting standards implementation.

Levers & Functions

Levers Policy/guidance Funding Capacity-building Monitoring Coordination

Functions for Communications & Advocacy Coordination Planning Delivery Identifying Key Stakeholders

Require that local education agencies, regional service providers, vendors or others adopt or provide the necessary materials and supports, along with strong quality control mechanisms.

Provide materials and supports directly to schools, in partnership with school districts, regional service providers, vendors, institutions of higher education, professional associations, other states or additional organizations.

Guide educators, administrators and other service providers with advice and support on how to make the best use of high-quality, aligned, voluntary resources in their day-to-day work—including by developing examples, templates and models, identifying resource experts, convening and training educators and providing advice on using tools.

Example: Different State Roles for Curricular and Instructional Materials Transition

No one approach will work best for all parts of implementation or for all states

The most effective approach may be to combine strategies, considering: state-level capacity local needs partnerships other resources available

Regardless of the approach, state actions need to be pursued with a clear articulation for how the work helps districts and schools: What are the assumptions about what educators need, and why does the state think its

actions will make a difference? What authority and incentives are in place (or not) to support the effective use of a

particular approach?

States should have a clear “logic model” that undergirds the choices they have made and the resources and tools they invest in to build capacity.

Discussion Questions

How has this lever/function been relied on historically for standards implementation? If it has been avoided, why?

What has it looked like when this lever/function has been used successfully? What made it successful?

What has it looked like when this lever/function has been used unsuccessfully? What lessons were learned from that experience?