Michigan ASCD Board of Directors Meeting
April 16, 2004

President Sara Shubel welcomed Richard Weigel, he is new to our Board as a representative of Michigan Association of State/Federal Program Specialists.

Special Guest – Chuck Allen, President of Michigan Council of Teachers of Mathematics

Update on Grade-Level Content Expectations
• All the textbook publishers are very interested in the new GLCEs
• Olga Moir, Executive Director, is representing MASCD in working with MDE on dissemination; there is confusion regarding the GLCE’s – these are really related to assessment. Barbara Markle and Olga are on another committee working on dissemination.
• At the March 30 MSU conference, a form asking participants what they need as the next step was distributed and over 900 responses were received.
• The Professional Development committee Olga and Barb are on, funded by the NDEA Foundation ($80,000), is designed to have higher education work more effectively with K-12.
• MVU has received the state technology money; every teacher will have easy access to five hours of professional development on–line through Learnport.
• The first five hours are free. After those are completed, the district pays to continue the teacher membership for professional development.
• MIClimb, Scope and the Michigan Teacher Network will also be available, but all need to be realigned with the new GLCE.
• Under NCLB, we had to move to grade-level testing, so we had to develop grade-level content expectations on a very fast timeline.
• A final proposal was approved on November 5, 2003, and taken to State Board on November 23.
• Chuck asked Kathleen Strauss about the idea of doing a survey, which MASCD, the Michigan Council of Teacher of Mathematics, and the MAISA coordinated. He presented preliminary feedback at the December State Board meeting.
• Feedback regarding alignment of new GLCE’s and current curriculum in districts indicated there were a lot of mismatches.
• MCTM will have ten sessions scheduled over the next two months to help work with local districts and determine where alignment issues are.
• The content expectations are statements about what the state will test. There’s a lot of curriculum work that has to come before this.
• There are lots of questions from the field about when these will be tested. Ed Roeber, from MDE, has invited MCTM to make recommendations regarding this and to invite development of prototype items.
• These new GLCEs are a few steps ahead of many of us, e.g., asking eighth graders to recognize the vertex form of an equation. This is a stretch. We won’t hold kids liable for these concepts right away when we test in 2005-06. Some things just aren’t part of the curriculum at certain levels, so right now, we’re trying to identify the core at each grade level that all kids should be able to do. Other items will be put into a sample and tested on that basis, without being scored against the student or the school for purposes of AYP. The higher expectations will be implemented over time. MCTM will make recommendations to the MEAP office.
• MCTM is assembling a vocabulary list by grade level of the words/terms kids will see on the MEAP test so teachers know. The draft list is out, but Chuck wants to wait for the actual test items before finalizing the list, which is on the MCTM website.
• We have to look at new GLCEs and MiAccess to see what items need to be recoded or added for Special Education students.
• The State Board per Olga will begin grade level testing in 2005-06, not 2004-05 as previously stated.
• GLCEs will come out in two different formats – one will be the five strands and the breakdown after that changes depending on which you look at. One breakdown follows the strands by grade level and the domains, which is really helpful for assessment purposes. The other version, which may be most helpful to teachers, breaks out the five strands by topics for teachers by grade level and helps with instructional program planning. They’ve dropped the charts that indicated approximate time to be spent on each concept.
• Barbara Markle brought up issue of testing in fall or spring. Olga said MDE staff has recommended to the State Board that MEAP be moved back to fall, and that they would test the previous year’s material. Carol asked if that doesn’t really test second through seventh; and how will that compare our scores state to state. Barbara said commonly, fall tests are for diagnostics and spring tests are used for accountability. Jan VanGasse asked about the eleventh grade tests given in the fall even though it would cover content kids haven’t yet had. How can we do three years of curriculum in two years?
• Chuck served on national advisory committee for ACT several years ago. Content was created through surveys of senior HS teachers and early college teachers. One of the problems Chuck sees with the current proposal to move from MEAP to ACT; ACT is a very different test than the MEAP. This may split the kids into two populations – those that take both the ACT Workkeys and the ACT.
• The ACHIEVE Project, which created the MS Math project is essentially the basis for our GLCEs. They are currently working on the HS math expectations.
• Bill Schmidt had an excellent article in Education Leadership last month regarding a national curriculum.
• Pilot will happen in fall of 2004-05 for MEAP with anticipated fall testing in 2005-06. This means our local common assessments are even more important.
• Work has started to put sample test items into MI Climb. They’re working on model core curriculum. Many of us never learned mathematics the way we’re now being expected to teach it. We don’t know how to integrate the strands. We were taught at a lower level, a discrete item analysis level.
• Ilene MacDonald talked about the importance of using professional development money to develop lesson studies that can be on-line so all teachers can benefit and understand how to teach these new math expectations. Ruth Ann Hodges is the new Mathematics Consultant at MDE, but has few resources available.
• Mike Bugenski suggested that we move testing to fall. We may find that every school in state may not meet AYP. Nebraska is doing performance assessment/portfolios – and their plan is approved under NCLB.

President Sara Shubel thanked Chuck for coming and for sharing all his hard work.

Feedback Regarding “Highly Qualified”
Barbara Markle asked for feedback regarding whether to require or make testing in your minor for “highly qualified” for secondary teachers.

Board members responded that student teachers don’t know they should test to be marketable since they’ll probably need to teach in more than one area to be hired. They also need the curriculum depth to be able to teach the new GLCEs that will be tested. Testing in the minor will actually help districts have stronger elementary candidates if it carries to K-12 expectations. Look at collapsing some of the teaching major/minors, such as Psychology. Barbara will share our input with the committee.

Approval of Minutes
Minutes from February meeting need to be formatted and changed; Linda just received a draft and will have it for the next meeting. Let the record show that Ilene had them done in record time.

Treasurer’s Report
No Treasurer’s Report today due to Pat’s absence. We will have a full report at the next meeting.

President’s Report
• The ASCD Conference was well attended with record numbers from across the county although Michigan’s numbers were low.
• Mike Bugenski shared NCA conference in Chicago was up 20 percent but Michigan representation was 50 percent less than normal – a true reflection that our economic times and lack of funding are making a huge impact.
• Michigan was very active in all the ASCD committee work – Sara and Olga were both involved in various committees Wednesday through Sunday, so Michigan was well represented in that regard.
• Sara took books about Michigan to the Books on the Bayou Reception. Our decision not to host a reception was the right decision, even though people missed it. We will plan to have a reception next year when ASCD is in Orlando, as we have two sponsors already signed up.
• Olga made the front page of the ASCD Conference News based on her work of cochairing the ASCD Influence Education Working Group.
• Pat is representing us on the MEAP Advisory Group; Narda subbed for Pat at the last meeting. Sara is representing MAISA on the same committee.
• We did retreat planning at our last Executive Board meeting and will continue that discussion today.

Action Items
Olga reported that Kathleen Strauss will be honored at the Anti-Defamation League Conference. We were asked if we would like to put something in the program congratulating her. Cost for one line is $50. Karen Mlcek moved that we do so, seconded by Carol Swingle. Linda asked if we could use our Influence Grant. Bill Bushaw referenced Kathleen’s interest in collaborating with other groups. Judy Schaftenaar referenced Dan DeGrow’s advice. Why not a quarter page with more information related to MASCD? The motion did not carry. Patti McLaughlin made a new motion to purchase a quarter page ad with MASCD mission statement and thanking Kathleen for $250.00 out of our Influence Grant. Seconded by Karen Mlcek. Motion carried.

The K-16 Coalition for Michigan’s Future would like us to join their group and help disseminate information about what’s happened to schools since passage of Proposal A. They’re working with EPIC MRA. We need to talk about the problems and the factual issues. Mike Bugenski said NCA is definitely going to be a part of this – it’s a critical informational campaign that has to happen to help legislators and the public understand how Proposal A has worked. The economic advantages of property taxes being raised versus higher sales tax rates are not understood. Motion by Ilene MacDonald to become a member of the K-16 Coalition. Seconded by Patti McLaughlin. Judy Schaftenaar suggested if we could have a subcommittee to discuss curriculum and staff development needs that haven’t been met since Proposal A has passed to present to this committee. Motion carried.

Executive Director’s Report
• The Tri-County Alliance has proposed a major study about what resources are needed to provide a K-16 education – which is a mandated duty of the State Board of Education.
• The State Board is also undertaking a study of Universal Education. Olga is part of the study committee. They want to use the work of the committee and ultimate position paper as a policy screen for future grants.
• State Board decided to change lowest level on MEAP to Apprentice.
• Many states (29) are looking at adding on a margin of error to scores to eliminate false negatives, which Michigan will do, too. It amounts to having two more students added into your passing scores. This would allow 69 more schools to receive AYP status.
• Sara, Olga, and Ilene are going to ASCD Legislative Conference in Washington DC, and they will be meeting with Legislators.
• Collaboration continues with U of M on the graduate program in curriculum. It’s really working well and is being proposed for presentation at ASCD next year.
• MEAP vs. ACT will be introduced in Senate on Tuesday, with comment opportunities available the following Tuesday. MASA was asked to accept the report of the Education Alliance, which they did, but they are not supporting a change at this time. Mike Bugenski shared that MASSP is enlisting parents in support of this effort. The State Board and MDE are not supportive of change.
• Sharon Guyor has left the State Board to go work on the Council for Aging.

President-Elect’s Report
Ilene MacDonald reported that the Executive Board met on April 1 regarding retreat planning and the 2004-05 slate of officers.
Linda VanderJagt will run for President Elect.
Jan VanGasse will run for Secretary.
Carol Swingle will be appointed Region 1 Representative.
Dave Buell will run for Region 3 Representative.
Still looking for someone to run for Region 10.

Liaison Reports:
Middle Cities
Judy Schaftenaar said they are very interested in K-16 Coalition. They also have representation on the committee Ed Roeber has put together.

Michigan Association of State and Federal Program Specialists
Richard reported on an upcoming May 14 conference at the Kellogg Center on research-based best practices. He’ll send Olga the flyer, which she’ll send to us. They have been doing professional learning communities within their organization. MASFPS also does a workshop in the fall for new directors. They would gladly collaborate with MASCD on the new directors workshop, as in many cases the curriculum person is also the grants person.

Merit
Bill Bushaw commented that the K-16 Coalition bodes well; it’s not just K-12, so it draws the universities in. Merit is working on a collaborative called My Stream Net, which will stream over the Internet without special equipment. It will be a distributed system which would run over the REMC servers. It should be functional in the next six months with live and archived video streaming.

LCA
Mike Bugenski said the Midwest Assessment Conference had about 400 people in attendance and was very successful. The evaluations were superb. All of Marzano’s PowerPoint information is still on their website at www.nca.umich.edu.
As he looks at the 30 leadership qualities that influence student achievement – things which principals do which they think make a difference (e.g., visibility) don’t necessarily. NCA is planning for a conference the first week of March next year.

Ilene MacDonald reminded Board members that the dates for MASCD Board Retreat will be June 23 beginning at 2:00 p.m. and all day on the June 24. (James will do an e-mail ASAP to all Board members)

Our MASCD Board Retreat has taken on different looks different years. In 2001 under Cindy Ruble’s leadership, we focused on “Influence” and invited a wide variety of guests including legislators, executive directors of other organizations, state board members, legislators and asked them what role our organization could/should play.

Possibilities for this year include:
• Helping our Board members understand what role they should play as MASCD Board members.
• Plan a two-part retreat - include a mini-version of the Influence piece. Has the view of MASCD by other organizations changed? Also, focus on our role as ASCD affiliate.
• Can we revisit our mission, vision, values and goals? What are our goals and what should our action plans look like, especially around PD? We then could do some collaborative planning and get the work started. It would also be good to focus on the role of the Board, because it is evolving.
• We have begun to get more recognition, and we’ve established our presence; we need to reassess.
• ASCD has evolved over the past few years, too, and we’re on their leadership council. They plan to identify two issues a year to focus on legislatively and want us to follow up at the state level. They want much closer collaboration with the affiliates than we ever had before.
• New Board members need to understand their role and the goals of the Board. Notebooks are needed with updated information.
• We need to decide if we’re going to go after the ASCD Affiliate Award. If so, that should be part of our agenda, as it’s a tremendous amount of work.
• We really need time to concentrate on our professional development plan. Perhaps we should bring in members representing small districts - curriculum people with multiple hats and ask them what they need. What can MASCD do to better assist them?
• We have a diverse membership including curriculum directors, superintendents, principals, and teachers. Ilene asked that James prepare a report on the different titles of our members.
• Administrative teams in general are at the point of meltdown. Perhaps we can also try to build in some fun, if possible. How can we re-energize ourselves? Doing something crazy and off the wall could lead us to something meaningful – but in a fun way. Our jobs are often too hard, too sad, and too frustrating. We need to look at things differently. Laughing is healthy and energizing.
• We could focus on moving from compliance to commitment. MASCD provides a lot of information to members. What percentage of our membership belongs to other organizations? Are we duplicating time and effort with information people are getting from other organizations? What’s our niche?

The videos and experiences from last year were very motivational and useful as tools to take back to local districts to help kick off the year with administrative teams.

A tentative agenda could look like this:
June 23
2:00 until dinner Review Mission/Vision/Goals/Role
Dinner Socializing and renewal

June 24
Morning Focus on association work
Afternoon Speakers to provide feedback to help us re-evaluate our influence

Additional comments:
• We could use time for committee work.
• We need time as a Board to regroup and do some things to renew ourselves. We’re in emotional and mental marathons; and how do we prepare for that? What can we do to help each other? It’s easy to be tired and frustrated. We need to renew and rejuvenate.
• We’ve embedded in our Issues session at each meeting an opportunity to collaborate. We need to continue to ask our guest speakers how we can help and how they see MASCD.
• We might want to ask where we see this organization in ten years. We can model what it is we’d like schools to do – continuous improvement. We could use the MI Plan model to assess our readiness.
• What kind of requests are we getting as an association and from whom?
• It might be helpful to get feedback from the ASCD Influence survey that went out this week.
• We should consider bringing Nancy Stanley in for a legislative update. She is leaving MASA, and it would be great to give her a certificate of appreciation.
• Dan Degrow had also suggested we consider giving awards out to legislators who have helped education.
• Illene summarized that she was hearing a need to:
1. Clarify our mission, vision, goals and responsibilities.
2. Look at our membership data/needs.
3. Have some fun.
4. Look at our five-year vision.
5. Work on goals:
o We should also look at what we did this year, including our Issues sessions, our Influence work, and evaluate/reflect on those.
o We could develop an annual report, and see what we’ve accomplished versus what we said we would.
o Is there is a place for learning from each other and studying something related to curriculum, instruction or assessment? NSFPS is doing this. We could select something we can learn in order to grow professionally. If we do this right, we can get SB CEU’s for this meeting.
o Richard shared that he will be in Chicago in two weeks with a national initiative. He is using the Critical Friends Group protocol – which gives all an equal voice. As an administrative team, his staff read the book Good to Great. It’s a powerful piece and builds a collegial unit. Taking something and studying it together is an incredible experience. This entire training takes only one hour. Richard would be glad to facilitate this anytime.
o It would be great to develop a list of three books to read this summer and why. Orbiting the Giant Hairball – great title for what we’re doing and a great book.
o This is a really important year coming up for Instructional leaders. We need to be worried about bubble schools that are on the edge of not making it. Their continued success will depend on continued conversation/work in the building, and that isn’t happening in most cases. Our work needs to move in a powerful direction to help and support those schools.
o We’re the group that has to help those who help those staffs. So how do we renew, focus and collaborate to support those principals and curriculum people? How do we help improve their toolkits?
o Maybe some of our efforts should be on process, not just content.
o We need to get this down to the student level too. We need to focus on improving instruction.
Ilene summarized that we also need to do new notebooks for Board members. Olga needs to prepare to do a comprehensive list of all the committees we are on and the other organizations we’re collaborating with.

Olga reminded us that we need to decide if we’re going to go after the ASCD Affiliate Award next year.

President Sara Shubel thanked all the Board members for their input. The meeting adjourned at 1:15 p.m.