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Comprehensive Standards Document Advisory Group (CSDAG )

Selections

February 18, 1999

Members Present: Carolyn Babione, David Cooper, Gertrude Howard, Dave Kinman, Bet Kotowski, Marie Theobald, Mark Seele

Members absent: Lyn Klosowski, Judith Gibson, Carolyn Mock, Marlane Tisdale

Also Present: Anna Lynch (recorder)
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The Comprehensive Standards Document Advisory Group (CSDAG) was called to order by Dave Kinman at 9:04 a.m. on February 18, 1999, at the Administrative Service Center of Metropolitan School District of Washington Township located at 3801 East 79th Street, Indianapolis.

Business
All present re-introduced themselves for the benefit of Mark, who was not present at the first meeting. An update was given on phone numbers and e-mail addresses, and the agenda was re-ordered for efficiency.

Building Level Administration (BLA) Grid
The group reviewed the BLA Grid and Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) document (included for group members to review both as work that informed the Indiana Professional Standards Board document as well as a good model for BLA document) that were included in the February 18 packet. The following concerns were addressed:

• Is "all" a reasonable/feasible goal? Dave noted that "model" is the key word here. In other words, all that an administrator is expected to ensure is that these standards/expectations are "modeled," for all students. Administrators are not required to ensure that all students internalize or follow the model.
• According to the glossary, "Stakeholders" includes parents. Can this really happen? Dave reminded the group that it is not in our charge to change wording or concepts but we simply are to highlight where developmental levels are referred to in the Administrative Document.

The group went through standard 1, performance by performance, and agreed that all 13 performances referred to developmental levels (all four) either directly or indirectly. The remaining standards were left for a subcommittee to be headed by Mark.

A further recommendation was made by the group in regard to the charge of highlighting lingo or "educanese." It was agreed by the group that placing content standards before developmental standards (no change in wording is suggested) would provide a more concrete standard for people to review before going to the less concrete and more general developmental standards. In other words, it was suggested that what are currently the appendices should come at the beginning of the document.

Overview of Most Recent Licensure Committee Meeting with Implications for CSDAG
Dave presented an overview of where the licensure committee is as far as licenses and the break down of developmental levels.

DEV. LEVEL	~AGES	ECE MC EA AYA	~ GRADES
Pre-school	B-5		P-K
K- Primary	5-8		K-3
Intermediate	9-12		4-6
Middle	11-14		5-9
High	14-18		9-12

He mentioned that it is sometimes messy to present developmental levels by ages because the public often wants to know grade levels. However, in going by grade levels, certain ages tend to get lost in the shuffle. Therefore, the licensure committee is proposing the following break-down in hopes of alleviating these problems:

SCHOOL SETTING	DEV. LEVEL	CONTENT
Pre-School	EC: Pre-K	Generalist:Pre
Elementary	EC: Primary MC	Follow NCATE model? Generalist
Middle School/Jr. High (Whatever school claims as this level)	EA	Content
High School	AYA	Content

Other
Administrative
School Services

Dave led discussion of the following issues:

• What is the content then, for Early Childhood (EC) and Middle Childhood (MC)? Are they virtually the same?
• NCATE has developed a set of elementary standards (K-6) that clearly have developmental and content areas. It could be that IPSB would take these and use them to supplement/enhance the work that has already been done by the IPSB and the Advisory Groups. What is the group's reaction to this?
• Clarification was requested and Dave responded that standards could be separated so that someone could be just pre-K specialist or K-6 license. He reminded the group that this is not approved or adopted yet.
• A group member asked if there are any stakeholders who might oppose this proposal, and Dave responded that this plan (EC being divided into Pre-K and Primary, with Primary being considered part of elementary along with MC) will work only if we are able to show that EC and MC content are similar... otherwise probably Higher Ed will oppose.

CSDAG members voiced the following strengths of this proposal:

• National Standards assist in mobility of educators. (benefit of using NCATE as supplement).
• Middle level (which has traditionally been somewhat overlooked) will have a more clearly defined developmental and content background (the difference between teaching a subject and teaching kids!).
• Forces Higher Ed into accountability for middle developmental level.

All CSDAG members expressed very strong support for this proposal.

Defining Appropriate, Effective, Successful
Group brainstorming led to the following vocabulary:

• Appropriate: acceptable, functional, individual focus, goal-driven, matched, necessary, idiosyncratic, fit, contextual, correct, research-based.
• Effective/Successful: tested, tried and true, proven, supportable, research-based, duplicatable, works, meets goals, measurable.

Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC) Review/WEB Update (Marie Theobald)
Marie Theobald led an activity that she referred to as "De-jargonizing the INTASC Principles." Each person was assigned one INTASC Principle and followed these steps: Cross out what you consider to be "jargon," replace "jargon" with lay vocabulary, rewrite principle in 10 words or less. After the group shared their simplified versions, Marie gave an update on the WEB design that had been discussed at the previous meeting. She has found a student to do an early draft (funding is available for up to ten hours). She will then turn all
materials over to Bet for further funding.

Gifted & Talented (GT) Discussion
The group wanted to know how GT will appear within this format. Dave indicated that it may be included in a way similar to the BLA (separate document), not in the WEB document. Bet agreed that it does not belong in WEB document because it would cause confusion. Also- new teacher should be able to diagnose students and call in experts for any special needs. However, the group wondered whether interest groups would push/lobby for a special document for GT.

Dave and Bet reiterated that this is not CSDAG's charge, that the CSDAG doesn't have to worry about that piece. The CSDAG is responsible only for giving a description to the Board. The group can't "create" anything for GT, but must reply to Board showing it how GT is explicit or implicit in the Standards. The following related comment was offered:

• If "all" and "diversity" are to have very broad definitions, then the criteria for induction period needs to clearly specify this so that institutions will pick it up.

Early Childhood (EC) /Middle Childhood (MC) Developmental Generalist (Content) Reformat
Dave opened the following discussion: If performances are met, do teachers meet standards? Is P=K+D a closed circle? Shall we say in our report "This group has taken the position that the sum of K and D is equal to performances?" Performances are clearly designated to embed K- if you don't know it, you can't do it. If we assume that K+D=P and P+P+P+P...=Standard, then our work can take the form of presenting the standard with the body of performances that fulfill each standard. Is this how the CSDAG wants to approach this issue?

Anna presented the problems she encountered in trying to reformat the EC/MC Developmental Generalist Content Standards for consistency. Math Standards do not include performances, appear to be course- based. How do we format so that it fits into the P=K+D model? Is it even possible?

The group was referred to NCATE model of presentation (narrative of performances) and given a sample of IPSB content standard [English/Language Arts (ELA)] in bulleted form.

The group agreed that the bulleted form was easier to access than a numbered or narrative form. There was some discussion about whether, if NCATE standards were used as supplements to IPSB, it would be a problem that IPSB would not visually match NCATE. General consensus was that visual differences (provided that content is not changed) are not an issue in this case.

The group looked at EC/MC ELA Standards and it was determined that content is the same, only justification varies (left justified vs. center justified). All agreed. In regard to the EC/MC content document then, the charge is to pull from content standards what is appropriate for EC and for MC. It appears that only ART currently follows K+D=P throughout entire document. If parallelism is not there, we can't create it.

The following questions/concerns were discussed:

• How do we differentiate on the performances between developmental levels (Do all performances have to be demonstrated at all levels)? Dave responded that this is something that would be answered by individual institutions.
• Can we use NCATE Standards and supplement them with narrative descriptions of IPSB content standards? (Such as what can be found in the original intro/preamble documents included in February 18 packet). Bet responded that we need, at this time, to act independently of the NCATE Draft Elementary Standards with respect to including them as "IPSB" standards. This would change if the Board adopts them before the work of this group is to be completed.

The CSDAG then agreed that our job was to make the lead-ins as consistent as possible leaving everything else exactly the way it was presented.

Updates/Changes
Through discussion, the group determined that it might be useful to provide the IPSB with an informal update of our work so far. It was agreed that Dave and Bet would meet with Marilyn on March 9, before the next scheduled CSDAG meeting on March 11-12.

It was also agreed that the new meeting time would be 8:30 a.m. on both meeting days (as opposed to 9:00a.m. that was originally agreed upon for Day1).

Unique / Unifying Themes
The goal in this area is now for group members to check out the work that Dave has done.

• Is the document/grid clear and accurate?
• Look at document and reflect on what this means to a preservice institution?
  (e.g., p.5, What sort of content needs to fall within growth and development courses?)
• Any recommendations?
• What can be combined (unifying themes)?
• Can these themes apply across all developmental levels in a four year program?
• CSDAG needs to validate this document, show model of how you could develop in order to assist in clarifying this. This would be useful, but extra, outside of our charge and not part of the larger document, or it could just be a chapter in the larger document.

Carolyn Babione agreed to share work similar to what she has already done with these themes.

Building Level Administrator (BLA)
The group decided to go over the BLA analysis document together rather than in a small group, and the document was revised through discussion. All agreed (revised copy to be submitted to CSDAG by Anna at next meeting).

Concerns/Request
Dave asked group to consider the following:

• We want to avoid any feeling or image that our meetings are "secret." He proposed that we share our thinking/selections on a listserv for colleagues- in order to create a forum for discussion and problem-solving. (Agreed, but only after Board approval of selections. January 26-27 will be approved after March 18).
• We want to give Higher Ed what they are looking for. What would be useful to them is some way of presenting a package which gives a complete look at each area. For example, "if you are in science at X level(s), here is what you need to do... run with it..."

Assignments
The following assignments were agreed upon:

• Re: BLA

Revised Grid (Anna).
Conclusion Statement (Dave).

• Re: Break-down of ECE (Licensure Committee Proposal)

Think about this plan. Will this have any negative impact on our effort? Are there any holes in it? Will it change our work? Please reflect on this (Breaking EC into Pre/Pri) and If you have any comments, e-mail Dave/Anna (All CSDAG Members).

• Re: EC/MC Developmental Generalist (Content)

Pull from content standards what is appropriate for EC and
what is appropriate for MC (Pre-school, K-3) (Marlane).
Support (Gertrude, Bet).

• Re: Four Themes (Reading, Exceptional Needs, Technology, Diversity)

Sample Grid for Themes (Anna).
Reading (Dave/Anna).
Exceptional Needs (Judy Gibson).
Technology (Marie Theobald).
Diversity (Carolyn Babione).
Reflect on and respond to questions offered in discussion (all members).

• Re: Unique and Unifying Themes

  Goal in this area is now to check out the work that Dave has done (all members).

  See selections for discussion questions. Carolyn Babione agreed to share work similar to what she has already done with these themes.

• Re: Concerns/Requests:

Goal in this area is to reflect on and respond to the following (all members):

We want to give Higher Ed what they are looking for. What would be useful to them is some way of presenting a package which gives a complete look at each area. For example, "if you are in science at X level(s), here is what you need to do... run with it..."

Adjourned: 3:45 p.m.