ILSTOY Recommendations for Illinois Plans for ESSA and Title Funds

ILSTOY Recommendations for Illinois Plans for ESSA and Title Funds

ILSTOY Recommendations for Illinois Plans for ESSA and Title Funds

Presented at ISBE Listening Tours April 18 and 19 and

P20 Council Teacher and Leader Effectiveness Committee April 26, 2016

Submitted by: Dr. Lynn Gaddis, NBCT ()

President, Illinois State Teachers of the Year and Finalists (ILSTOY)

ILSTOY’s mission is to share our collective voices and enable teachers throughout Illinois to share their voices about practice, policy, and advocacy. How wonderful that throughout the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and guidelines for Title I and II funds and the Teacher and School Leader Innovation program funding are statements that value teacher voice and teacher leadership in all aspects of the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of student learning in Illinois schools?

ILSTOY members believe to improve student learning and accountability for their learning; we need to invest in high-impact actions to increase the capacity of the teaching workforce. Who better to contribute their expertise than the thousands of Illinois teacher leaders and expert teachers we have (100 Teachers of the Year and Finalists, 6,000+ NBCTs, teacher leaders in content professional organizations, 1,000s of trained union leaders, instructional coaches, committee chairs, and so many more. They know students’ names, how they learn, the intricacies of the content, the unique context of the school community, and collaboratively work everyday for the common purpose to improve learning and teaching.

This is an opportunity for Illinois to reshape our education systems not just create checklists of requirements. Let’s not mimic the harm that has been done for the past 15 years through NCLB and RTTP by mandating standardized actions for teachers and principals. Let’s build on the expertise of our Illinois educators believe in their commitment to learn. Let’s create systems for teacher leadership opportunities that enable accomplished teachers to impact their colleagues and all our students.

Illinois is ready to move forward because many of our educational organizations and leaders have begun the groundwork to be strategic in supporting teacher impact in our districts and schools: ILSTOY, ITLN, P20 TLEC, NBRC at ISU, IEA, and IFT, ISBE through the Illinois Teacher Leader Endorsement and CTQ Collaboratory, the 20 universities with approved programs for the Teacher Leader Endorsement, researchers, and all the districts and schools with teacher leader roles.

  • For three years, ILSTOY has led in multiple ways: the Illinois Teacher Leadership Network, served as a leader and members of the P20 Council Teacher and Leader Effectiveness Committee, had 10 members serve on the Advance Illinois Educator Advisory Committee, worked on the ISBE CCSSO Teacher Leadership Action Team, attended the National Teacher Leadership Summit, produced reports and two research studies, and worked with NNSTOY on numerous teacher leadership actions.
  • The Illinois Teacher Leadership Network (ITLN) of leaders of 23 organizations have developed a goal, mission, commitment statements, logic plan for multiple years and are working on a definition and vision for teacher leadership in the state and identified priority actions.
  • For two years, P20 Council Teacher and Leader Effectiveness Committee has been conducting research and building awareness of effective teacher leadership (surveys of teachers, principals, superintendents, school board members), webinars, resource posting, meeting presentations with national experts, and a trip to Iowa State Department and school site.
  • Illinois New Teacher Center and Chicago Teacher Center have been working with teacher leaders and administrators to support new teachers through induction and mentoring programs throughout Illinois.
  • National Board Resource Center at Illinois State University trains NBCTs as mentors to deliver professional development to principals and teachers seeking National Board Certification including and aligning to district and school initiatives in their improvement plans.
  • IEA and IFT enable teacher leaders to conduct leadership training through their organizations.
  • ISBE partnered with the Center for Teacher Quality to begin to develop an online platform for teacher leaders to discuss issues about teaching and serve as a means to share teacher voices.
  • Twenty Illinois universities have approved programs for the Teacher Leadership Endorsement.

ILSTOY Recommendations

ILSTOY proposes the following recommendations for the Illinois plans that meet ESSA and Title I and II guidelines in these four areas:

  1. Teacher voice in policy decisions at the state
  2. Shared leadership in schools and districts.
  3. Teacher-led redefined professional development.
  4. Leadership training for teacher leaders and principals.

Teacher Voice in the State ESSA Plan Development

  1. Establish a teacher-in-residence program for teacher leaders to serve as advisors and on committees, task forces, and state initiatives. This may be full-time or in a hybrid role. There is precedence in Illinois in the past and in other states currently.
  2. Teacher leaders should be supported members on all teams of development of the ESSA and Title I and Title II state plans for Illinois.
  3. At key points of development beyond the “listening meetings,” communication should be developed for and distributed to all Illinois teachers about the state priorities and planned actions with opportunities for feedback through organizations and through online systems.
  4. ISBE should continue to grow the number of teachers participating in the CTQ Collaboratory for Illinois Teacher Voice.

Shared Leadership in Schools

  1. Purposefully structured occasions for teacher input and feedback, such as leadership teams, focus groups or surveys, exit slips, and other means for teacher feedback.
  2. Opportunities for teachers to serve on school and district leadership teams, school improvement teams, teacher and principal-led committees for instruction, curriculum, and assessment decisions, school coach/administrator meetings, and teams for unique issues and needs of a school.

Professional Development

ISBE should work with stakeholders to redefine professional development

  1. ISBE should work with stakeholders to redefine teacher-led, just-in-time, and job-embedded professional development that that goes beyond institute days with an outside expert speaking to large groups of teachers one time and includes a coherent professional continuum of teacher leader opportunities that incudes multiple ways of learning for teachers. Professional development led by teachers should not be standardized throughout the state, but the state should establish guidelines in district applications for funding district plans. These roles should be aligned to student learning needs in the unique contexts of the school and district.
  1. Establish funding support for district plans for the following:
  1. New Teacher Induction Programs for two years expanding the number of years over the next six years.
  2. Mentoring Programs for New and Experienced Teachers.
  3. Teacher-led which means the teachers select, design and deliver professional experiences linked to the learning needs of the student and teacher learning in instruction, curriculum, and assessment.

ILSTOY Recommendations (continued)

  1. Establish state guidelines for districts to develop comprehensive plans for teacher leaders leading professional growth experiences that includes the following:
  1. Transparent, public descriptions of the roles, eligibility criteria, and selection process of teacher leaders who have demonstrated excellence in teaching to lead professional growth experiences.
  2. Opportunities for collaboration and released time.
  3. Compensation of teacher leaders.
  4. Opportunities for peer coaching in a defined system of a coaching cycle that includes pre-conference, observation, reflective post-conference, and co-planning.
  1. Establish online means to network new and experienced teachers through social media to mentors and other new teachers.

Leadership Training

Changing culture for shared leadership and a teacher taking on more responsibility and accountability for leading colleagues requires training and collaboration among principals, teacher leaders, and teachers. Training for teacher leaders around their specific role and the related competencies they need is critical for their effectiveness and acceptance by peers. Teacher leadership training should align to the Teacher Leader Model Standards and should be based on performance to competencies and beneficial to the particular teacher leader role.

  1. Leadership Institutes

Develop and implement a leadership institute for teacher leader and principal teams. These teams will attend leadership training as teams with sections of training separated at times by role. Initially this will be one state leadership institute. As more principals and teacher leaders are trained as trainers, these institutes may be expanded and the leadership institutes will be delivered regionally.

  1. Teacher Leader Training

In Illinois, teachers are designated teacher leaders in the licensing system only through an approved program for the Illinois Teacher Leader Endorsement program that are not tied to the unique and diverse roles in schools. Many Illinois teachers serve in formal and informal leadership roles and already have master’s degrees.

  1. Establish rules for showing competence to the Teacher Leader Model Standards.
  2. Design and implement a process for approval of leadership training and performances to be micro-credentialed.
  3. Partner with NNSTOY to deliver teacher leadership training modules for the seven domains of the standards to select districts as a pilot demonstrating standards-based training adapted to the leadership roles and context of districts.
  1. School Leader Training.

Offer school leader training in shared leadership with teacher leader roles and standards.

  1. Teacher training.

Train teachers in how to participate in a collaborative, professional learning community.

ILSTOY is defining a teacher leader as a highly effective teacher who formally or informally influences colleagues and the educational community in practice, advocacy, and policy to collectively improve teaching practices and learning with the aim of increased student learning and achievement.

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