Iowa ASCD

Iowa Resources

Organizations

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
Iowa Parent Information Resource Center
Learning First Alliance
Learning Forward Iowa (Formerly, Iowa Staff Development Council - ISDC)
Professional Development for Iowa's Leaders
School Administrators of Iowa

Census and Demographic Data Helpful When Preparing a Grant

State Government

Area Education Agencies

Sites to Push Your Thinking

: This legislative agenda was shared in January, 2011, with the United States Senators and Congressmen of Iowa. It was also shared with Iowa Department Director of Education, Jason Glass. A new legislative agenda will be available in February, 2012.

National Standards - Common Core

Common Core State Standards Initiative
The Common Core Curriculum Mapping Project: Common Core’s Curriculum Maps in English Language Arts translate the new Common Core State Standards for Kindergarten through 12th grade into unit maps that teachers can use to plan their year, craft their own more detailed curriculum, and create lesson plans. They were were written by public school teachers for public school teachers and are available free of charge to anyone who would like to use them. The maps are flexible and adaptable, yet they address every standard in the CCSS. Any teacher, school, or district that chooses to follow the Common Core maps can be confident that they are adhering to the standards. The maps are undergoing revision based on suggestions received during a month-long public comment period conducted in the Fall of 2010. A final version of the maps will be released in early 2011.
Now What? Imperatives and Options for Common Core Implementation and Governance: This Fordham Institute publication--co-authored by President Chester E. Finn Jr. and VP Michael J. Petrilli--pushes folks to think about what comes next in the journey to common education standards and tests. Most states have adopted the Common Core English language arts and math standards, and most are also working on common assessments. But...now what? The standards won't implement themselves, but unless they are adopted in the classroom, nothing much will change. What implementation tasks are most urgent? What should be done across state lines? What should be left to individual states, districts, and private markets? Perhaps most perplexing, who will govern and own these standards and tests ten or twenty years from now?

Fisher and Frey (Featured at Summer Institute - 2011 and Fall Institute - 2011)

Focus - Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning by Mike Schmoker

Join the Focus Book Study Group on ASCD Edge
ASCD Study Guide for Focus by Mike Schmoker

Formative Assessments

Formative Assessments and Standards Based Grading - with Bob Marzano
Intel Teach Elements: e-Learning - Assessment in 21st Century; free on-line learning around assessment, including multiple examples of formative assessments.

Iowa Core

Iowa Core - Iowa Department of Education
Iowa Core Co-Op (edited by Jason Ellingson, Iowa ASCD Board Member)
Characteristics of Effective Instruction (CEI): Interactive Class designed by Waterloo Community School District to assist teachers and administrators in understanding and implementing the five Characteristics of Effective Instruction as outlined in the Iowa Core Curriculum.

National Reports

ASCD Legislative Report for 2011 The Legislative Agenda is the guiding tool for ASCD's policy work and has never been more important than in this pivotal year with the looming reauthorization of the Elementary Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
Return on Educational Investment: A District-by-District Evaluation of U.S. Educational Productivity This report is the culmination of a yearlong effort to study the efficiency of the nation’s public education system and includes the first-ever attempt to evaluate the productivity of almost every major school district in the country. In the business world, the notion of productivity describes the benefit received in exchange for effort or money expended. This project measures the academic achievement a school district produces relative to its educational spending, while controlling for factors outside a district’s control, such as cost of living and students in poverty.
The School Turnaround Field Guide: The Obama administration is embarking on an ambitious effort to turn around the nation’s 5,000 lowest performing schools. But what, exactly, does “turn around” mean, who is to carry it out and how? This timely examination provides a detailed overview of what’s known, and what’s not, about “turnaround.” It identifies key players in the field, ranging from school districts to unions, charter school managers and organizations that focus specifically on turnaround. It also lays out the roles of the full range of actors connected to turnaround, and details the significant challenges facing the field, including a lack of programs that have succeeded on a wide scale and a dearth of teachers and principals trained specifically in turnaround skills. The paper ends with lessons from earlier efforts, an exploration of gaps in knowledge and other areas, and recommendations on steps that key players could take to increase the likelihood that the current turnaround efforts work to serve large numbers of schools and students. (Wallace Foundation)
How the World's Most Improved School Systems Keep Getting Better: This report examines 20 systems in action - making a unique contribution to the critical global agenda of "raising the bar and closing the gap." Building on their 2007 study but with much more precision, this 2010 McKinsey report focuses on districts that went from poor to fair, fair to good, good to great, and great to excellence and shares the interventions that worked in each cluster within given contexts. What is recognized in all is that "it's a system thing" that must be addressed through a small number of critical factors that go together to create the chemistry of widespread improvement.

RTI

Response to Intervention - Improving Education for All Students
Introduction to Response to Intervention - What, why, and how valid is it? by Fuchs and Fuchs
Response to Intervention (RTI) - A Primer for Parents by Klotz and Canter
Response to Intervention - State of Washington
Instructional Decision Making (IDM) - Iowa Department of Education
National Center on Response to Intervention