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Parental engagement is a well-documented contributor to student success. So much so, that the Texas legislature just added a requirement to the state accountability system that districts make public a self-evaluation of, among other factors, the level of community and parental involvement. Here’s a carrot….the application deadline for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Family Engagement Grants is September 23, 2013. WKKF awards grants of up to $500,000 to organizations, including public schools, that are developing promising models of family engagement in low-income communities. Grants will be awarded for one to three years. WKKF defines family engagement as “a shared responsibility of families, schools and communities for student learning and achievement.” WKKF seeks to fund “on the ground” efforts, including those focused on program design and implementation, policy design and implementation, and service delivery. Selected applicants will be invited to submit a full proposal in October 2013. Selected grantees will be notified of grant awards in December 2013.

Kate Alexander’s piece in last week’s Austin American Statesman carefully examines how the marketplace for instructional materials in Texas has changed in recent years. Alexander explains that implementation of the Common Core State Standards in 14,000 districts nationwide means that even large states, such as Texas and California, with more than 1,000 districts each, now hold less sway in the instructional materials market. She also discusses the effects of Texas legislation passed in 2011 that gives local districts greater control over the materials they purchase. A Texas public school administrator quoted in the article explained that the legislation created opportunities because it allows districts to select instructional materials that have not been through the state review process, but it also created some substantial challenges as districts now must “wade through the torrent of new options.” Alexander references Learning List as a service that will help publishers and Texas educators “navigate the new market.”

As a means to support educators in identifying resources that will meet their students’ needs, Learning List provides periodic updates about grants and funding opportunities focused on improving education. Today’s post highlights some opportunities that are currently accepting applications and proposals. Take a Trip Recognizing that some of the best educational experiences take place outside of the classroom, Target is currently accepting applications from educators for Target Field Trip Grants . The program provides grants of up to $700 to support field trips to museums, historical sites and cultural organizations for K-12 students nationwide. Applications for the 2013-14 school year are due by noon CST on September 30, 2013. Be Creative The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation sponsors an annual mini-grants program for public schools and public libraries. The program provides up to $500 in funding for projects that foster creative expression in diverse communities. Grant applications for the 2014-15 school year will be accepted through March 15, 2014. More information is available on the Foundation website. Get Some Action Research The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is offering collaborative grants of up to $3,000 for pre-service teachers, classroom teachers, and university faculty to conduct action research focused on improving the understanding of mathematics instruction in the PK-8 classroom. NCTM is currently accepting proposals for the 2014-15 school year with a deadline of May 2, 2014. More information about the grant program is available at the NCTM website .

Each year, school administrators are challenged to find meaningful ways in which to engage families in discussions of student learning that support improved outcomes. In the past, discussions of student achievement were often limited to parent-teacher conferences and report cards. However, technology-based tools have created a range of new opportunities that enable administrators, teachers, and parents to engage in meaningful, ongoing communication about student progress. For example, many districts have created websites portals that provide parents with access to information about student schedules, grades, and attendance. In addition, many online instructional resources include progress monitoring tools that allow parents to access student progress reports, and some popular student data management systems allow schools to share student data directly with parents. Recognizing that simply sharing data does not make it understandable or actionable for parents, the Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP) has created a set of tip sheets to guide administrators, teachers, and parents in communicating about student data in ways that support student learning and forge strong partnerships between families and schools. According to HFRP: Many of the tips represent small but significant—and often overlooked—steps in sharing data with families that can make a big difference in families’ ability to access, understand, and act on information about their child’s progress. Some HFRP tips address steps that administrators may want to consider as teachers and students return to school. These tips include: Providing families with an orientation that covers how to access and understand student data, such as benchmark test scores, as well as how to logon to parent portals and other online data sharing tools; Building capacity for data sharing through staff professional development activities focused on effective communication about student data, student privacy requirements, and the use of technology-based data tools; and Ensuring equitable access to data by designating some school computers for parent use and providing data reports in parents’ native language.

For those who had other plans on Saturday evening and thus, did not watch the Patrick-Ratliff debate over CSCOPE, here’s a run-down. The debate, moderated by Scott Braddock, Quorum Report, continued for two hours, and despite trading a few jabs, both men focused their comments on answering questions from two panelists: Dr. Mary Ann Whiteker, Superintendent of Hudson ISD and JoAnn Fleming, from Grassroots America - We The People. The questions focused on such topics as: (1) research base for Patrick’s claim during the legislative session that students in schools that used CSCOPE underperformed their peers in schools that did not use CSCOPE lessons; (2) why the Legislature only investigated CSCOPE lesson plans, and not the other lesson plans used by Texas districts, and (3) issues of CSCOPE’s management and transparency. In their closing statements, both men agreed that the crux of “this debate is a difference of opinion about what local control looks like.” Patrick believes that “local control” is about parents’ right to decide their children’s education, and the Legislature’s number one job is to stand up for the parents and students. He believes that parents do not want CSCOPE lessons to be taught in Texas schools without further vetting by the State Board of Education: “Let’s look at the lessons and see if there’s value there. If there’s not value there, no one should want them.” Ratliff, on the other hand, defines local control as governance by the locally elected school board. He believes that the legislature should not micromanage what’s going on in Texas classrooms. He argued that school boards, not the legislature, are in the best position to decide whether their district should use CSCOPE. Saturday’s debate will not be the end of the controversy over CSCOPE or over the definition of local control.

If you have lived in Texas over the last 10 months, it would have been difficult to escape the debate over the CSCOPE lesson plans. If you are involved in public education in any way, it would have been impossible. CSCOPE is a curriculum management system aligned to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) that was developed by a consortium of the 20 Education Service Centers (ESCs) in Texas. The system has been purchased and used by a majority of Texas school districts for many years. Though a later development, CSCOPE also includes TEKS-aligned lesson plans. The CSCOPE lesson plans came under intense scrutiny during the recently-ended Texas legislative session because of concerns about the content of some lessons. As a result, the legislature passed two bills addressing CSCOPE: S.B. 1406 subjects the CSCOPE lessons to review by the State Board of Education. The bill took immediate effect. SB 1474 requires school districts to adopt a process that solicits teacher, school district employee and public input prior to adopting a major curriculum initiative, including a curriculum management system, such as CSCOPE. Before the legislative session ended, the governing board of the non-profit organization formed to oversee CSCOPE voted to discontinue the CSCOPE lesson plans as of August 31, 2013. However, the lesson plans subsequently were made freely available to districts through multiple sources, including the Texas Tribune . During the July meeting of the State Board of Education, the general counsel for the Texas Education Agency stated that since CSCOPE lessons are in the public domain and there is no law prohibiting school districts from using them, districts may use CSCOPE lessons if authorized to do so by their school boards. Consequently, the controversy over CSCOPE continues, and Senator Dan Patrick, Chairman of the Senate Education Committee and Thomas Ratliff, Vice Chairman of the SBOE, will debate the use of CSCOPE in Texas public schools this Saturday, August 23, at 6:30pm. Senator Patrick has been a vocal critic of CSCOPE, while Vice Chairman Ratliff has been a strong advocate of districts’ right to use CSCOPE lessons. The debate promises to be interesting. You can follow it here: http://clients.streamingmediahosting.com/jlepe/10571.html

As you are preparing to welcome students into your classrooms, you're probably thinking a lot about how you are going to provide the best instruction for your students. Research studies have provided us with the top factors that increase student achievement. Strong teachers and principals with great leadership skills are two factors cited in many studies as central to improving student achievement. A third commonly cited factor in raising student achievement is teaching the standards. That sounds simple but it's not. To teach the standards, teachers must know what students are required to learn and demonstrate. If a teacher does not teach the material to the depth and complexity required by the standards, students may not succeed in that grade or subject, no matter how hard the teacher works. To help educators teach what the standards demand, instructional materials must align to the standards. To be aligned, a lesson must meet the content, context, and cognitive rigor of the standard. In the next few weeks, our blog posts will address these three critical components of the standards.

We are happy to launch Learning List’s blog. Not surprisingly, our blog will focus on selecting and purchasing instructional materials and online courses. More specifically, we hope our posts will help educators review and select the instructional materials best suited to meet their students’ unique needs. Our blog posts will address such topics as: Understanding the standards; aligning to standards; policy trends and changes; and, factors to consider when selecting and purchasing instructional materials. We hope this blog will be a useful information resource for educators and publishers, alike. Please feel free to submit ideas for topics you’d like to see us address.

The Texas legislature appropriated $838.7 million for instructional materials and technology for the 2014-15 biennium. This means that Texas school districts and open-enrollment charter schools can expect $175 per student in instructional materials allotment (IMA) funding over the next two school years. Of the almost 940 education-related bills filed during the 83rd legislative session, several passed that will affect the selection and purchasing of instructional materials. House Bill 5 was the education bill that received the most attention. That legislation changed the state’s high school graduation requirements, reduced the number and impact of high school end-of-course assessments, and restructured the school and district accountability ratings system. The bill also contained several less publicized provisions affecting instructional materials purchasing: Beginning with the 2014-15 school year, school districts and open-enrollment charter schools may use state instructional materials allotment (IMA) funds to purchase college preparatory courses and instructional materials for those courses; and Effective immediately: The commissioner of education is required to notify each school district and open-enrollment charter school as early as practicable during each fiscal year of the estimated amount of IMA funds to which the district/charter school will be entitled during the next fiscal year; The commissioner of education may allow school districts/charter schools to order instructional materials before the beginning of the fiscal year (i.e., before the appropriation for those materials becomes available) and to receive the materials before payment. Districts may not use more than 80 percent of their IMA funds for such orders. The commissioner must prioritize payment for such orders as soon as the appropriated funds become available and must inform publishers of potential delays in payment. Publishers may decline to accept such orders. Though effective immediately, the commissioner may adopt rules to implement these provisions. Stay tuned for future Learning List blog posts summarizing state legislation affecting the selection and purchasing of instructional materials.

It seems like school just let out yesterday. “Back to School” sales are everywhere… children are labeling their school supplies, teachers are already in their classrooms preparing for the new school year, and administrators are carefully disaggregating student data. As a teacher and administrator for many years, I know how hard educators work to provide the best instruction possible for their students. Many wonderful products are out there that will assist you in meeting the educational needs of your students, but how do you know which one is the best for YOUR students? Educators don’t have time, especially at the beginning of the year, to sort through hundreds of catalogs or listen to long sales presentations. So what do you do? Learning List is here to help you quickly find the best instructional materials. No longer do teachers have to be taken out of their classroom to verify that a product’s alignment to the standards is on the mark. Learning List’s team of expert educators does that for you plus provides much information about the product and names of school districts that have used the product. Think of it as Christmas in August for all you educators!

Our goal is to save educators time and money! We hire experienced, certified teachers with expertise in standards alignment.  We train our reviewers to verify a publisher’s correlation and to assess the products’ key features and functionality.  Our editorial reviews draw from our reviewer's feedback and interviews with the publisher and their customers who have personally used the product with students.   The purpose of these reviews is to identify the attributes that make each product unique and distill the information necessary to implement the product effectively so that students get the full instructional value from the product. The reviews on LearningList.com will be accessible to educators nationally via an individual or organization-wide low, annual subscription, starting in August 2013. Additional products in additional subjects will be added on an ongoing basis.

We invite publishers to submit the products they want to sell.  And we review the products for free.  But, since Learning List is designed as a service for educators, we want educators to help fill our library.  Think of us as an extension of your curriculum department. And, if you or your teachers have heard about a great textbook or an online instructional product, go to LearningList.com and request that the publisher submit the product to Learning List for review.  You can also submit open-source instructional materials and online courses for review.  There is no cost for submitting products to Learning List for review.