Curriculum Institute tackles diverse topics

California spends more than $455 million each year to recruit, hire and provide professional development to new teachers, but 22 percent of them leave the profession after their first four years

The remedy is for school districts to focus on continuous improvement of staff development, Ellen Moir, executive director of the New Teacher Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told participants at CSBA’s Curriculum Institute in Monterey July 6-7. Moir urged districts to develop professional learning communities that can “create momentum to encourage excellence” and provide teachers and principals with the support they need to succeed.

Continuous staff development is important for all of the school personnel who affect children’s education, and especially so for the teachers who work with students having special needs, the Curriculum Institute’s other keynote speaker, a nationally renowned expert in special education, agreed.

“I tell [teachers]: ‘How well you teach equals how well they learn,’ ” said Alice Parker, strategic initiatives coordinator for Sopris West Educational Services, a curriculum consultant and education services provider.

Parker offered an incisive and practical analysis of Response to Intervention, a systematic approach to understanding students’ needs based on problem-solving methodology backed up by data-documented results. Parker gave her listeners a thorough understanding of what RtI is—and is not.

“Doing the same assignment over and over is not intervention. If [students] didn’t get it before, they still won’t get it and will get very frustrated,” Parker warned.

Mini-lessons on skills deficits, smaller group sizes, increased amounts and types of cues and prompts, equipping students with alternative problem-solving strategies and changes in course curriculum and methods of corrective feedback were among the examples that Parker cited as alternative successful, effective interventions.

Workshops showcase what works

Just as its keynote speakers offer knowledgeable insights on their areas of expertise, the annual Curriculum Institute’s workshops help to round out participants’ exposure to a stimulating variety of educational topics.

Bill Tollestrup, director of special education at Elk Grove Unified School District, urged his listeners to foster relationships between boards, schools and teachers to “create a climate or culture for learning” that will address and resolve challenging issues.

It was a message that resonated in a seminar on the major changes in California education being driven by the demand for high standards and accountability. CSBA Governance Institute Consultant Del Alberti stressed the need for board members to develop a unity of purpose and set direction by adopting standards, understanding assessment, expecting accountability and involving the community.

Christopher Maricle, CSBA Governance Institute senior consultant, applied the themes of communication and collaboration to professional development, encouraging boards to involve principals and staff in refining the concept. He stressed that continued training must be an ongoing process, observing, “There is no such thing as a professional development ‘day.”

Jennifer Kuhn, director of K-12 education for the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office, reviewed a package of six proposed reforms drawn up for the Legislature that are intended to lower instructional material costs, expand district options and enhance program effectiveness. Those recommendations include streamlining the review process for materials, in part by using fewer sets of evaluation criteria; offering districts voluntary extensions of up to two consecutive cycles for materials that have already been adopted by the state; and shifting the focus back to core materials and away from supplemental wares publishers may bundle into their bids.

The results, Kuhn said, would help ensure greater predictability in materials requirements and keep costs down. Assembly Bill 1148, the Instructional Materials Funding Realignment Program authored by Assembly member Julia Brownley, D-Woodland Hills, would put cost containment provisions of the recommendations into effect.

High tech and fine arts

Two education technology consultants presented a “Framework for 21st Century Learning,” the product of a collaboration of 25 major education and technology corporations working on a unified vision for strengthening American education. Barbie Ross, manager of education policy and strategic initiatives at Apple Inc., and Don Zundel, a K-12 Development executive, led workshop participants in an exploration of the effects technology is already having on students.

Kristine Alexander, executive director of the California Arts Project, and Nancy Carr, a visual and performing arts consultant for CDE, discussed the importance of the arts in schools. They updated educators on two funding programs enacted in 2006, the $105 million Arts and Music Block Grant under Assembly Bill 1811 and the $500 million Arts, Music and Physical Education Grant under AB 1802 and SB 1131.