Teaching and Leadership

Partners To Lead (PTL) Project

Education Innovation and Research Early Phase (EIR), October 2017 through September 2022
$3,957,144
Staffing: Erika Hunt and Alicia Haller

Partners To Lead, funded by EIR, is focused on increasing principal effectiveness in areas that lead to increases in student achievement, particularly in rural and high-need schools. The project also includes matching grants from the Steans Family Foundation and the Tracy Family Foundation. PTL assists school leaders in establishing on-going organizational routines designed to institutionalize effective practices and establishes a strong professional community with collective responsibility for student learning.

Activities of the project will include:

On-going professional development and coaching for principals
Support for Instructional Leadership Teams and teacher teams

Anticipated outcomes:

Principals increase time devoted to instructional practices
Principals use additional time to engage teachers in cycles of inquiry
Integrated leadership increases teacher involvement and improves instructional practice in classrooms across the school
Classroom improvements lead to significant increases in student achievement

Together Everyone Achieves More Through Integrated Leadership (TEAM Lead) Project

Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED), October 2017 through September 2020 $12,531,235
Staffing: Erika Hunt and Alicia Haller

TEAM Lead, funded by SEED, is focused on increasing principal effectiveness in areas that lead to increases in student achievement, in public and private schools in rural, suburban, or urban schools. The project will help principals increase time spent on instruction, improve instructional quality by engaging teachers in a change process, positively impact student learning, particularly with high-need students, and identify and recruit high-potential teachers for principal preparation programs.

Activities of the project will include:

On-going professional development and coaching for principals
Support for Instructional Leadership Teams and teacher teams

Anticipated outcomes:

Principals increase time devoted to instructional practices
Principals use additional time to engaging teachers in cycles of inquiry
Integrated leadership increases teacher involvement and improves instructional practice in classrooms across the school
Classroom improvements lead to significant increases in student achievement

LEAD Hubs Project

Stone Foundation, November 2017 through October 2019 $60,000
Staffing: Erika Hunt, Alicia Haller and Lisa Hood

CSL Hubs, funded by the Stone Foundation will pilot four CSL Hubs. CSL Hubs are designed to serve as a regional/local connection point that brings the schools, universities, and communities together to attract, place, support, and retain school leaders that are well trained to meet the needs of the whole child within a culturally responsive context that maximizes regional resources, builds regional capacity, and creates a highly successful, sustainable leadership pipeline.

Key focus of the CSL Hubs:

Broaden community and school supports for aspiring and practicing principals around whole child development.
Provide professional development and supports for prep programs and school districts on how to develop leaders who can build and support culturally responsive practices.
Develop regional/local talent management strategies tied to supply/demand and succession planning, including focus on a diverse educator pipeline.

PK-3 Teach Lead Grow Project

McCormick, June 2016 through May 2020 $895,000
Staffing: Lisa Hood, Pamela Rosa, Pam Hillyard and Emilie Shoop

The PK3 Teach Lead Grow Project is a video library with over 70 professional development videos in PreK, Kindergarten, 1st and 3rd Grade classrooms with an emphasis on diverse children and teachers (including race, culture, geography, language, and ability). The videos promote the professional growth of early childhood teachers and administrators in their knowledge of developmentally appropriate classroom practices. The videos can also be used as a benchmarking tool for school leaders to ensure more valid teacher evaluation processes in their schools. At this writing, eleven teachers are highlighted on the website and their videos are organized into “sets” that include six or seven video components that capture the various elements of instructional practice.

The video website is organized around the 2013 Danielson Framework for Teaching clusters and Early Learning Best Practices. The video library is housed at PK-3 Teach Lead Grow website and includes a newsletter, resources, and classroom artifacts that teachers and principals can use to be effective early childhood educators. Each teachers’ videos are planning, instruction, and reflection for the lesson, as well as any accompanying artifacts.

These videos include:

A pre-planning segment with the teacher and administrator discussing the lesson plan and how it connects to the needs of students and the alignment to curriculum, standards, and developmentally appropriate practices.
An observation of the lesson itself to highlight classroom practices in the teaching and learning clusters that focus on student-focused classroom management, classroom culture, effective instruction (including play-based learning), and assessment.
Post-conference debriefing with the teacher, reflecting on the effectiveness of the classroom practice in terms of what worked, what could have been improved, and where the teacher will go next; and
Supplemental content that shows the teacher interacting with families, a classroom tour, and teachers leading meetings with support staff (e.g., teachers assistants, occupational and speech therapists).

Pre-School For All Expansion Grant - Birth through Third Grade Continuity Project

Illinois State Board of Education, January 2015 through December 2019
$973,067
Staffing: Ashley Long and Lisa Hood

The Governor’s Office of Early Childhood Development (OECD) and the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) have partnered with the Center for the Study of Education Policy (CSEP) at Illinois State University (ISU) to manage the Birth through Third Grade Continuity Project. The project is responsible for creating useful and practical tools and opportunities to support participating Preschool Development Expansion Grant communities in Illinois to facilitate their planning and implementation of a birth-through-third grade education continuum.

Some of the specific work includes:

Implementing B-3 Conferences. Materials from conferences can be found on the project’s website
Conducting regional meetings and planning sessions across the state on issues related to play-based learning, family home visits, and family engagement
Hosting webinars on topics relevant to communities’ interests in aligning birth through third grade systems of comprehensive care and education
Meeting individually with communities to assist in their planning and implementation of strategies to ensure preschool-to-third grade alignment

Illinois Partnerships Advance Rigorous Training (IL-PART) Project

U.S. Department of Education, October 2013 through September 2019
$4,600,000
Staffing: Erika Hunt and Alicia Haller

The U.S. Department of Education awarded CSEP a School Leadership Program grant of $4.6M over 5 years. The grant will be used to support the Illinois Partnerships Advance Rigorous Training (IL-PART) project, which represents a collaborative effort between high-need school districts and universities that have come together in formal partnerships aimed at improving the way in which principals are prepared and developed in Illinois.

IL-PART is comprised of 3 qualifying high-need district/university partnership:

East Aurora School District 131 and North Central College
Bloomington School District 87 and Illinois State University
Quincy Public School District 172 and Western Illinois University
The grant also partners with the Center for Catholic School Effectiveness at Loyola University and the Catholic school diocese representing Aurora, Bloomington, and Quincy.

The consortium of partners are collaborating in the effort with three clear goals:

Goal 1 - Prepare highly qualified school principals for high-need Develop a deeper understanding of what the state needs long-term to support the production of more effective school leaders.
Goal 2 - Develop effective partnerships between university principal preparation programs and high-need districts with the supports designed to build leadership capacity in an effort to improve student outcomes.
Goal 3 - Dissemination of IL-PART evaluation findings and emerging best practices in principal preparation and partnership development.

Summary Report

National Board Resource Center

Illinois State Board of Education, July 2002-current
$298,000
Staffing: Kris Mason, Amy Smith and Cindy Funcheon

The National Board Resource Center (NBRC) at Illinois State University is recognized as one of two national centers by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS). The NBRC maintains a National Board comprehensive support system to expand recruitment and candidate support throughout Illinois. The NBRC offers a wide array of services to educators across the state. Services include recruitment sessions; candidate cohort face-to-face sessions, virtual cohorts, assessment center workshops, retake meetings, renewal sessions, the NB Professional Development School program, traditional support programs, a variety of online NBCT mentor trainings, mentor/coach trainings and a selection of graduate courses. Additionally, the NBRC offers graduate courses to support candidates while completing the NB process. The NBRC website provides podcasts, working agenda, PowerPoint presentations, handouts, and resources for all trainings. NBCTs, teacher educators, and professional development providers may access these resources at no cost and improve programs and deliver high quality professional development to teachers throughout Illinois and the nation. At this time one hundred of the 102 counties in Illinois have an NBCT. In 2014, NBPTS began the three year process of revising the NB Certification process. The NBRC combined the whole school concept (piloted for three years) with the new NB revisions to roll out the Illinois NB Professional Development School program. Thirty school groups, including 380 teachers, registered for this program. Illinois has produced 6,300 NBCTs. Illinois ranks third in the nation in the number of new NBCTs and fifth in total number of NBCTs. Chicago continuously ranks in the top three cities.